Questions

Questions authors ask.

Answers to the questions authors ask most often. If yours is not here, write to info@belcemo.com.

What we are

What kind of publisher are you?: A small independent press in the United States, publishing fiction and nonfiction in print and as ebooks. We keep production costs low so that we can take on books a bigger publisher could not afford to. Editing is done by a person; the mechanical work between a finished manuscript and a print-ready file is automated.
Are you a vanity press?: We do charge authors for production work, so it is a fair question to ask. A vanity press profits from the author, sells packages to anyone who will buy one, and does not much care whether the book sells afterwards. We take on books we want to publish, and if a book is not for us we say so.

Money and rights

What does it cost?: Nothing to submit, and nothing to be read. If we take your book on, most books cost between $400 and $2,500. That covers everything from the manuscript you send us to the finished book on sale through the usual retailers: design, print-ready files, the ebook, identifiers, and the setup for print and ebook editions. Where a book falls in that range depends on the state of the manuscript it arrives in and how much design work it needs. The figure for your book is agreed in writing before anything starts. Translations, indexing and research are quoted separately, because each is a job in itself.
Do you supply author copies?: Yes, at printing cost plus shipping, with nothing added. They are not part of the figure above — you order what you want, when you want it, and you can keep ordering after publication. For a 200-page book that currently works out at a few dollars a copy in paperback and around ten in hardcover, before shipping.
Who owns the rights to my book?: You do, and you keep it. Publishing a book needs a license to print and sell it, and which rights you license — and for how long — is agreed per book and written into the agreement. That license is not the copyright: the copyright stays with you throughout. Sending us a manuscript grants us nothing at all.
How is money from sales handled?: Sales income from Amazon, IngramSpark, Lulu and direct sales is paid on to you, less a small share for the administration of collecting it and any tax we have to account for. The exact arrangement is set out in the written agreement for your book.
Will my book make money?: Rarely a significant amount. Print-on-demand economics are unforgiving: unless a book is subsidized, wins a prize, or is already well known, it seldom earns its author a meaningful income. We publish on that understanding.

The process

How long until I hear back?: We are a small press and we read everything ourselves, so it is not quick. If you have not heard from us and would like to check, write to us quoting the reference from your receipt.
What is the receipt?: On submitting you receive a reference, a timestamp, and a SHA-256 checksum of every file you sent. A checksum is a short code calculated from a file's contents: change one character and the code changes completely. You, or anyone with your copy of the file, can calculate the same code and confirm it matches what we received. Keep the receipt.
Where will the book be sold?: Amazon for retail, IngramSpark for bookstores and libraries, Lulu, and direct sales — in print and as an ebook, wherever those channels reach. Foreign-language editions get their own covers, ISBNs and listings.
Will you market my book?: Not in the way a marketing agency would. What is included is the groundwork that lets a book be found: review copies, a website for the book, and listings and metadata that read correctly everywhere it appears. A press kit, or a mailing to reviewers and the press, are things we can do rather than things we do as standard. Ask, and we will tell you what is involved.
Can I withdraw a submission?: Yes, at any point before an agreement is signed. Ask us and we delete what you sent. See the privacy notice for how submissions are stored in the meantime.