Contact Us
About Burning Bulb Publishing
Burning Bulb Publishing is an Internet-based publishing house. Established in 2009 in West Virginia, our focus is to bring really interesting books to the marketplace. Our books inspire new ideas and creative thought.
Our fiction line focuses on horror, bizarro, science fiction, fantasy, erotica, and transgressive literature.
Our non-fiction lines focus on business and educational products.
Mailing address:
Burning Bulb Publishing
P.O. Box 4721
Bridgeport, WV 26330-4721
USA
Have something on your mind? Drop us an email…
Before writing, if your question is regarding submissions, please read the notice below.
Submissions
Burning Bulb Publishing is currently not accepting short story or novella submissions through our standard submission process. A novella is considered to be a story consisting of less than 50,000 words. If you have a short story or novella that you would like to publish and require expert services for design, typesetting, etc., you may wish to employ our Specialty Services department for this task.
**PLEASE READ THIS LETTER PRIOR TO BEGINNING THE SUBMISSION PROCESS**
Before we begin, let me tell you a little bit about Burning Bulb Publishing and what we can offer (and what we cannot), so you can get a feel for what we can accomplish together should we go down this path…
First, our roots: Burning Bulb Publishing was founded in 2009 in West Virginia, USA as a co-op to help other authors find a channel to publish through. Similar to a farmers’ co-op, the philosophy of a Burning Bulb author is that we promote each others works, review each others books on amazon.com, goodreads.com and the like, and volunteer our time to creating great products. Although we have authors from many different genres published with us, we are known for our edgy horror and bizarro novels that push the envelope further than a traditional publisher might go in terms of controversial writing. This can be appealing to some authors who want to express themselves more explicitly in print.
Burning Bulb Publishing is a small press, meaning that we have select channels in how we manufacture and distribute our books. Primarily, we use the Internet and sell the books on websites such as amazon.com, Barnes and Noble (bn.com), and others. The books are printed as paperbacks in short runs as to not have major expenses in producing books and storing inventory. If we do trade shows, our books are with us and you will be welcome to attend at our booths for book signings, etc. if you are one of our authors. We use Amazon as our distributor, but we handle our design work (cover, print-layout, etc.) in house and they print and distribute on-demand for us.
Because of the small press status, marketing on our side is limited to having the book listed on our website(s) (www.BurningBulbPublishing.com, http://www.BurningBulbHorror.com, or http://www.BurningBulbPress.com depending on genre), some social media sites, such as Facebook (www.fb.com/BurningBulbPublishing) and the title represented on the aforementioned online bookstores. We may invest in a video book trailer for the title to place on YouTube and our website’s homepage, but this is at our option.
That being said, if we select the book, we do all of the above at our expense (cover design, typesetting, light proofing, etc.); and at no cost to you. In that way, we are like a large publisher. However, you will need to do your own marketing and publicity to get the word out, arrange your own book signings, etc. The more places you show up, the more money you make, etc.
We cannot emphasize this point enough. Simply having your book online is not enough to generate substantial sales. An author must promote it through his or her network of influence and be visible at book signings and conventions to promote the work. In addition to the conventions that we do as a publisher, the author should also seek out his or her own venues, conventions, etc. to cover as much ground as possible.
Now, how you get paid:
Paperbacks:
The distributor will send us reports of online sales through their various channels. We forward these reports to you for inspection in semi-annual intervals. We split this royalty on your title 50/50. Payment is made via PayPal to you (or your agent, if applicable) immediately following the semi-annual reporting. This model is pretty clean and offers full transparency. No one has to purchase large inventory or deal with the headaches of returns, etc.
Let me provide a rough example of how the royalties are managed: Let’s say a book retails for $12.99 on amazon. The net royalty from the distributor is roughly $4.00 and we would split this $2.00 each. In other words, $5 to print, than amazon gets a commission, and we get the other. We can charge any price and this, of course, affects net commission.
If we work together, you will need to complete an IRS Form W-9 and provide it to us for income tax purposes (US citizens only). No taxes will be withheld from the royalty payments, but income will be reported as required by law if annual royalties exceed $500.00. If payments are handled through a literary agent, then the agent’s information would need to be provided.
Also, you will be able to buy the books at wholesale price for your own purposes (i.e., your own book signings etc., and can mark up the price to retail and keep the full spread.)
In the interest of full disclosure, you are welcome to self-publish your title yourself through CreateSpace and get the full royalty without us. However, the unique benefit of involving us is that:
a) we are not a vanity press (i.e., a publisher who prints anything as long as you are willing to pay all of the costs),
b) we will not charge you for design work (i.e., creating your custom book cover, typesetting, etc.),
c) we can feature ads for your book in the back of other books we publish,
d) we can feature you at our booth at the various cons we attend,
e) we have a network of other authors looking at your book and cross promoting for your success, and (perhaps most important)
f) your book won’t have the stigma that self-publishing has since we would be the intermediary.
Ebooks:
Ebooks are first sent through amazon.com’s Kindle program for a few months to test the water, then on to other channels, such as Smashwords, etc., unless a Kindle exclusive agreement is in place. Like the paperbacks, we split the net royalty that the distributor gives us.
For example: If amazon.com is given an exclusive on an ebook that is $2.99 or higher, they will pay us 70% which means we split this 35% each. Optionally, if you want it on several stores (or the ebook is below the $2.99 price point), they lower this to 35%, meaning we split 17.5% each. You get the picture. They dictate the commission and we split it.
So, there you have it. If the above sounds good to you, please proceed to Step 1:
Step 1 – the solicitation (use the contact form above for this step)
- Please tell us about yourself: who you are, what you have published, and why you think we would be a good fit.
- Please provide an ‘elevator speech’ about your book. Think of the elevator speech as the sales pitch on the back of the book. When a customer picks up the book and turns it over to read the back, what will it tell them to compel them to want to read/buy the book?
Step 2 – the sample
If we think we would be a good fit and like the pitch, we will ask for sample. This is typically the first 5,000 words or so of the book. If we like it, we will ask for the manuscript.
Step 3 – the manuscript
The manuscript should be set to Times New Roman 12-point font, double spaced. The page should be standard letter size (8.5″ x 11″). The manuscript should be EDITED for grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes PRIOR to sending. If you require editorial services, we have freelance editors available to proof your work at $4.00 per page. This service is independent of Burning Bulb Publishing and if requested, we can put you in touch with him or her. Whether we publish your book or not, we cannot stress enough the importance of a well edited manuscript. Don’t depend on any publisher to catch all of the mistakes or clean up sloppiness. Make a good impression from the get-go and you will be ahead of the game.
Burning Bulb Publishing Specialty Services
Every job that Burning Bulb does is evaluated on its merit to financially recoup its core production costs. For a novel, a new release usually costs us as a publisher between $1,000 – $2,500 to set it up and get it to market. Because of this, we have limited our acceptance ratio of new work to only three to five novels per year. Considering that we get 3-5 submissions PER WEEK, it is an unfortunate reality that we must reject quite a few projects. It is also because of this that we must reject novella submissions due to the fact that they historically sell far less units and as a consequence, it is much harder for us from a business perspective to justify ‘bumping’ a novel proposal in favor of a novella just for the sheer cost and time commitment involved.
Fully recognizing the need for many authors to get their work noticed and into market, Burning Bulb Publishing now offers Specialty Services. For a reasonable fee, you can hire us to create your cover, typeset your book, create an ebook/Kindle format and/or simply get it into market.
Understand that we are not a vanity press and we still may reject a proposal for a specialty services project if we feel that the project lacks commercial appeal or is not a good fit for our lineup. That being said, if you need something published and want our high quality ‘touch’ for your unique project, we will consider your project on a work for hire basis and let you know.
Please use the following fee schedule when considering Burning Bulb Specialty Services for your next project. You will find our rates to be quite reasonable when considering a custom cover alone on CreateSpace begins around $599.
A la carte pricing (prices in US dollars):
– Front cover only (ebooks and paperbacks): $299
– Complete cover (front, back and spine): $399
– Typesetting (manuscript will be formatted and delivered as a Microsoft Word .docx document that will be compatible for both Kindle and Print editions of your book): $75 per 10,000 words.
– Editing: Sorry, but we do not offer editing services at the time. You can hire an editor on sites such as Fiverr.com and Skills.com.
Complete package pricing:
A complete package includes all of the above services bundled together for one low price. Each packing will include the a distribution contract similar to our standard releases, complete with a unique ISBN barcode assigned from the Burning Bulb imprint, the title being published in both print and Kindle formats and twenty complimentary paperback 6×9 copies of the book (color exterior and black and white interior). Author can also purchase additional books in units of 10 for $5.00 each ($50 total) for novellas and $7.50 ($75.00 total) each for novels.
– Novellas (stories that are less than 50,000 words): $499
– Novels (stories from 50,000 words through 99,999 words): $599
– Novels (stories from 100,000 words through 150,000 words): $699
Note: if your project exceeds 150,000 words, you must split the manuscript into two books, as production costs and shipping charges become non-feasible when producing them on a print on demand (POD) platform.
Are you ready to get started? Just use the contact form above and let us know that you are interested in purchasing a Specialty Service, the tier that you require and outline your proposal just as you would a standard submission. We will get back to you after we have considered the proposal, typically within 1-3 business days.
Burning Bulb Horror (a division of Burning Bulb Publishing) 