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FAQs

QUESTIONS FROM CUSTOMERS

1. How quickly can I access my ebooks? 
Immediately. They will be added to your account area on the website. See the Customer Services tab for more detail.

 

2. I’ve bought a new ereader. Can I access the digital products that I have already bought and been reading on my old ereader?
Yes, we do not put any restrictions on copying your ebooks between your own devices, but please if you want to share them with other people, either buy them a copy (you can do that via our gift cards) or get them to buy their own.

 

3. How much is postage and packing?
If you are in the UK then it is usually free. If you are outside the UK, normal shipping charges are added to your order. You can calculate shipping within your shopping cart.

 

4. I have a book shop and would like to buy stock. Can I have a discount?
It will depend on how much stock you want to buy. Contact us by email with the details and we will be happy to discuss it.

 

5. Do you sell on any customer data to marketing firms?
No. We never sell (or give) customer data to any third parties. We use the data you give us to get our products delivered to you.

 

6. Can I have books shipped to another address?
Yes, that option is available in the shopping cart. But please note that we can only deliver to one address per order.

 

7. I want to buy several books and have them shipped to different addresses. Can I do that?
Not with a single order. You would need to create one order per different shipping address.

 

8. My question hasn’t been answered. Where do I go from here?
Have you looked on the Customer Services tab? If you can’t find an answer there, go to the Contact tab and send us a message. We are always happy to hear from our customers.

 

QUESTIONS FROM AUTHORS

1. Why are you sometimes closed for submissions? 
We close our unsolicited submissions process when our schedules and lists are full. We want to retain a reasonable turnaround time for all submissions so when we know we cannot honour that, we close the submissions process temporarily.

 

2. Your guidelines page is closed for submissions. I was especially wanting to access your reader report process which I have heard is very good. Can I do this outside the submissions process? 
Yes and no. Let me explain. Our reader report feature has proved to be very popular. We find it very useful too because it guides people to high quality resubmissions. When we ask someone to work on their manuscript and then resubmit it, it is very rare for us to turn it down - and that is because the reader report gives such good and detailed guidance. However, it is time-consuling and expensive to generate the reader reports. We subsidise it heavily. When our unsolicited submissions process is closed, we provide another route to editorial reports as a paid service. The rates are published on our Guidelines page when submissions are closed. In this case you pay for the editorial report at closer to commercial rates, although we do still subsidise the service. The difference is that we do not put these submissions into the process where they are considered for publication. However, if a particularly good submission arrived by this route, the editor involved would alert us, and we don't preclude asking someone for a full submission with a view to publication when they have arrived via the editorial reports route.

 

3. Why do I have to pay a reading fee? 
We are a small publisher, we receive a lot of submissions and we need to cover our administration costs. It’s as simple as that. And although we cannot provide detailed critiques on submissions that we don’t accept for publication, we will provide you with a copy of our reader’s report on your work. This will usually include comments on your submission, some guidance as to how it might be improved, and will occasionally advise on alternative places to try with your work if it is not suitable for us.

 

4. Do I have to pay to be published by Fantastic Books Publishing?
No. Our books are published on a traditional model where we pay the production costs upfront and the author earns royalties. First publication is usually under our ebook imprint. As a small publisher, we need to be very confident of a market for a work that goes directly to print publication. However, if an ebook sells well enough, we will usually publish a print version.

 

5. Do I keep my rights?
Yes, we believe the author should always retain their copyright. We take a license for the appropriate rights e.g. ebook, paperback, or hardback etc.

 

6. What royalties do you pay?
The specific royalties will be agreed in the contract, but we work to a model where we split the profit equally with the author.

 

6a. How does this compare to a traditional model where the author receives a percentage of the cover price of the books sold?
In fact, this equal split IS the traditional model. It is how publishers and authors originally worked together. For a book whose sales are low to average, the return to the author will be roughly the same using our model. However, if a book sells well the amount returned to the author will grow because the author will always be getting half the operating profit rather than being restricted to a percentage of cover price. Particularly with ebooks, our model provides better returns in the medium to long term.

 

7. Do you actively market my books or do I have to do that myself?
We will certainly market your books but we hope you’ll do your bit too. We provide marketing advice when we publish a book. It is in our interests to make sure that your books sell. Here are some examples of the publicity events we have organised for our authors; the online launch of the Writers’ Toolkit remains an invaluable online resource; The inaugural FantastiCon event in 2014 launched our authorised Elite science-fiction books and the first of a fantasy trilogy. Additionally, in line with our philosophy of paying forward and helping others, this event also launched an author Jex Collyer publishing her debut novel with our friends over at Dagda Publishing. FantastiCon 2015 launched several books including John Scotcher's epic tale, The Boy in Winter's Grasp, Drew Wagar's Shadeward series, Stuart Aken's Seared Sky trilogy and Sue Knight's debut fantasy novel.

 

8. Could I pay to have my book published as a print version – paperback or hardback?
We are sometimes asked about joint-venture agreements where the author pays or shares the production costs of taking a book straight to a print version. In our experience this is usually more suited to very specialist texts with tightly defined markets. However, we will consider any such proposal. In the case of such a deal, the production costs incurred would be returned to the author when the books sell. Such books still have to meet our editorial and quality standards.

 

9. Is there any way you can help me to be published if you’ve rejected my work?
See the answer to question 10

 

10. Can you publish my book under my own imprint? And if so, will I get royalties?
We can discuss standard self-publishing deals but it is not our core business. The way this would work is that you would pay us to produce the book under your own imprint. The question of royalties would not arise because our involvement would cease once the books were created and shipped to you.

 

11. What about publicity and marketing if my book is published under my own imprint?
We provide fee-based publicity and marketing packages and already act as publicists for a number of authors not published under our imprints.

 

12. Why is the sample chapter optional for local or corporate history submissions?

Experience has taught us that we will recognise from the outline proposal whether or not this type of work is for us. If it is not, we will try to provide advice on where you might send it as an alternative. If it is for us, we will work with you to refine the proposal and we will want to see a sample chapter before committing to the work.

 

13 . Do you provide feedback on unsuccessful submissions?
Yes, we provide a copy of our reader’s report. We cannot guarantee detailed feedback but the reader’s report will give an indication of why we have rejected a work and will often try to provide guidance on improving the work or on more suitable places to submit.

 

Click to read about our customer service or press onwards to check out our resources