Strict Publishing International is interested in editing and publishing all types of literature – at no charge to the author.

Frequently Asked Questions – please read this section carefully BEFORE submitting any writing to us. Authors please note that the paragraphs below form part of a contract between us if you submit your writing to us for publication.

Will you take my writing?
Send it to editor@strictpublishing.com and we will take a look. MS-Word format as an attachment to the e-mail is the best, but we are happy to take plain text. We can only consider writing in English (UK English, US English, Australian English etc etc.) but please specify if you are not writing in UK English and our editors will adjust language settings accordingly. We realise how irritating it can be for American authors to have their spelling "corrected" to a UK version!  Please make the subject line of your e-mail "New Submission" – we receive a large number of spam e-mails and it would be a pity if your work were mistaken for spam and deleted! Allow three weeks for a reply, although we try to read everything within a day or two of receiving it.

We are now happy to take works in French or Russian for translation into English.  Please note that we expect to take 65% of the royalties for books we have translated as well as edited.

Suppose you reject my writing?
If we reject it, it will be because the amount of work to make it saleable is not justified by the number of copies we think it will sell over a period of time. It does not mean you are not a good writer; it just means that this particular submission is not right for us. If you receive a rejection, then write something else and try again.

How do I know if anyone will like my writing?
You don’t.  We can make a fair guess from experience of what has sold in the past, and obviously we are not going to spend hours or days editing a book that we don’t think will sell.

What is it going to cost me?
Nothing. We do not make any charge for our services. We simply take a commission of the sales, so it is in our interests to maximize the numbers sold of anything we handle. We normally expect to take between 25% and 50% of the royalties after the retailer has taken their percentage.  In exceptional cases we may consider taking a lower percentage.  Note that different retailers take different percentages (the larger retailers, like Amazon, generally take a much higher amount).

Will I make a lot of money from my writing?
Probably not!  E-books generally do not sell in vast numbers. A novel or a collection of short stories from a new author may sell only three or four copies in the first month or two. Once an author becomes known, then sales tend to increase, but are unlikely to be into the thousands.  However, e-books are steadily becoming more popular and in many cases are now selling better than printed books.  There is always the possibility of having a real best-seller, IF your writing is good enough and happens to catch the public imagination at the right time.  We do have the facility to produce printed books, but realistically it is only economic to do this in very exceptional circumstances.

When and how do I get paid?
We send out cheques (that’s "checks" for the USA!) around the end of each month for all payments we have received during the period up to and including the last day of the previous month. Some retailers pay us monthly for the sales, and some pay us quarterly.  If the amount due to you is less than $50 then it will roll forward until it reaches at least $50. We can make payment in £ Sterling or US Dollars, whichever you prefer. Please note that although the e-books are generally sold in US $ we are paid in £ Sterling. There will be currency conversion rates to consider when calculating payment.  Please also note that cheques (checks) are written on a UK bank.  Some banks in the USA and elsewhere make fairly high charges for processing these, and some don't.  You can wait until a larger amount due to you has accrued, if you prefer.

Do you edit my work?
Yes!  We will correct grammar and spelling, and re-phrase any part of the writing that we think can be expressed more clearly. We take the editing very seriously, and we consider it part of our job to produce what we think will be most attractive to the reader without losing the general style and ideas of the author. In some cases we may remove whole sections or chapters, and in others we may add new ones.
We also write the "blurb" – the summary usually found on the back cover of a printed version of a book – which is the most important part of selling your book.
We will design cover art for your book which will help to attract interest from potential readers.  Feel free to send any picture or artwork you think would be suitable.  We can accept and edit most graphics. 
We always re-submit the book back to you for your final approval before publication.

Why can’t I send my writing straight to the retailer?
You can send to a few online retailers, but many of them will only take books from publishers.  However, retailers do not edit, amend or correct your text, and promotion of your book will be very limited, which is what we do very well and is why we take some of the royalties - usually 50% but we will agree a percentage with you depending on how much editing and/or rewriting we think we will need to do.

How do you promote my book?
We generally post extracts on websites that are happy for us to do this. You should also try to promote your writing yourself, and we will provide you with a link to the web page on which your book is being sold. Obviously it is unwise to plaster every possible Internet forum with advertisements for your work, but many will be happy if you mention it along with other relevant discussion or extracts from the book. Common sense is required, but quite simply the more people know about it the more sales you will get.

Who owns copyright?
You do. You own the copyright to everything you write, and our contract with you is non-exclusive – i.e. you can publish elsewhere either in e-book or print format. However, where we have edited and/or re-written sections of your work, you agree that you will not allow your work to be sold or published with these amendments included for a period of 12 months following publication by Strict Publishing International.

Is there any writing you don’t take?
We will consider any good story or collection of short stories if it is well written with reasonable attention to structure and grammar.  Good writing is just as important as good stories.  It is generally not worth publishing anything that is less than 30,000 words in total, but we may consider shorter novellas over 20,000 words.  The ideal length for an e-book is between 45,000 and 65,000 words.  We are happy to consider erotica, but please see the exclusions below and understand that there is a difference between pornography (which we DON'T take) and erotica (which we are happy to consider).  We will consider collections of poetry, but poetry does not sell very well and it would have to be really exceptional to make it worth publishing.

We will NOT consider any of the following:

* anything involving sexual acts with anyone under eighteen years old
* anything involving sexual acts with or injury to animals
* anything involving death or mutilation in a sexual context, except possibly in a science fiction setting or similar, and in that case any such content must be an integral part of the story
* anything involving real, named individuals that describes their sexual activities except possibly where the character is, for example, a historical figure and the story is unlikely to cause widespread offence
* anything that promotes or glorifies illegal actions - for purposes of deciding what is illegal, the laws of the UK AND the USA apply.  If it is illegal in either of those locations then don't encourage it in your writing.  This does not, of course, exclude writing about illegal activities; just don't promote it or glorify it 

Similarly, we will not take any writing that is designed to offend a large number of readers. The best fiction, erotic or otherwise, addresses either a broad range of interests OR a niche readership WITHOUT offending the mainstream reader.  If it’s going to make readers write us long letters of complaint (or worse), then it’s not for us!

What are you waiting for?  Get writing!