StoryLight Press
Clean stories that bring light to the world
StoryLight is a Christian press dedicated to helping all authors bring Light to the world. Unlike traditional publishers that take your manuscript to do what they want with it, we’re here to hold your hand and guide you through the publishing process, offering services like editing, formatting, illustrating, cover design, web design, and marketing, all while letting you keep 100% of your profits. Your book was meant to change the world, not gather dust on your hard drive.
StoryLight was created as a way to push back on the corruption of indie publishers that care more about money than the valuable stories they could bring to the world.
About us
At our core, we’re just authors and book lovers who want to see more good books in this world. We want to help you, because we get you.
We’re a Christian self-publishing company that has a passion for helping authors, such as yourself, bring their books into the world by giving them the help, guidance, and tools they need. We don’t want to see your books fall into the void of self-published Amazon books that never get read. A book isn’t just a story. It’s a sales pitch, a trailer, and a work of art, all rolled up into one package. You wrote your masterpiece. We give you everything you need to make it a book, all while letting you keep 100% of the royalties, creative liberties, and rights, because we strongly believe your book is yours to do what you want.
Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. This is how publishing was always meant to be.
We Work with You
We aren’t just a self-publisher; we’re a team. Our goal is to work with you to make your book come alive. We want to work alongside you through the ups and downs to make your masterpiece into something you can hold and say “I did that.” There is no better feeling.
It’s time to shine your light. Reach out to us by clicking the button below or emailing us at info@storylightpress.org.
What Makes Us Different
Most self-publishers want something in return—money, rights to your book, information. We want something too—more books that spread light. You could say that we’re more of a ministry than a business. We’re not looking for your money, rights, or information. We’re looking for stories that would otherwise stay hidden, and we want to share them with the world. Because of this, we only charge for the services you need, and we offer you full rights and profits for your book. Plus, we charge a fraction of the price.
| Services | Our Press | Other self-publishers |
|---|---|---|
| Cover Design | $100-$400 | $1,000-2,000 |
| Editing | $200-$500 | $500-$1000 |
| Printing | FREE to get started, then $5.71 per copy for this book* | $20-$1,000 to get started, then $7-$10 per copy for this book* |
| Illustrating | $100 for full page illustration that is never AI generated | $400-$1,000 for full page illustration that could be AI generated |
| Formatting | $100 to $200 for custom interior | $900 for custom interior |
| Website Design | $200-$400 | $2,000-4,000 |
| Extra hidden fees | None | $1,000-$2,000 |
| Services you pay for | Only what you need | Entire package/hidden fees |
*This book is a 5.5 by 8.5 black and white paperback with 300 pages, no duplex
How do we go so low?
- Integrity-Driven Pricing: We only charge for the specific services you need.
- Zero Royalty Splits: You keep every cent your book earns.
- Empowering New Talent: To keep our costs low, we collaborate with talented, rising artists and designers who share our values. This allows us to provide professional-grade quality at a fraction of the standard industry cost.
Why Not Just Publish Myself?
Our team is made up of professional publishers, cover designers, editors, and illustrators all dedicated to ensuring your book gets out there. That said, publishing yourself is a valid option, and we’d still love to help you even if you don’t go with our services. We offer one free consultation to help you on your journey. However, if you self publish, this is what you can expect:
| StoryLight | Publish yourself through Amazon | Publish yourself through Ingramspark |
|---|---|---|
| Free StoryLight ISBN and imprint that libraries and bookstores respect | Amazon-branded ISBNs that most physical bookstores and libraries will not stock. | $125 for 1 ISBN through bowker |
| Access to over 45,000 bookstores, online stores, libraries, and universitiesIncluding Amazon, Hoopla, Google Books, and Barnes and Noble | Access to Amazon, with no option to ever get your book into libraries or bookstores, and a chance that Amazon will permanently take your rights to sell elsewhere | Broad reach, but requires a massive technical learning curve to set up. |
| No need to worry about formatting nightmares that will delay your book launch by months | Very little formatting issues, but your book may look terrible. | Extremely sharp learning curve that will postpone your book launch and possibly never be resolved. |
| Every book is handcrafted for highest content and print quality. | Unreliable print quality; books can look “mass-produced” or inconsistent. | Professional quality, but only if you have mastered the technical specs. |
| You write, we handle the technical “nightmares” so your book launches smoothly. | Months spent troubleshooting formatting instead of writing. | A steep learning curve that often delays launches indefinitely. |
| Lowest cost for Print on Demand | Industry standard cost for POD | Lowest cost for Print on Demand |
| 100% royalties. You keep every cent your book earns. | You keep only 60-70%, and Amazon often dictates sales terms. | 100% royalties, but offset by high setup fees and complex navigation. |
Have Questions?
We value transparency. Please reach out to us at info@storylightpress.org with any questions, and we’ll be happy to answer within 3-5 business days. Or continue to our Frequently Asked Questions.
Ready to publish?
FAQs
About StoryLight Press
While we encourage you to first finish your book and then apply, we can start the process with a consultation beforehand to save time.
StoryLight Press is a hybrid indie-publisher. This means that unlike pure indie-publishers, we do most of the work for you, and unlike traditional publishers, we let you keep all your rights and royalties. Basically, StoryLight Press combines the best of both worlds, giving you complete control while offering a concierge experience, meaning we do the heavy lifting.
Of course! StoryLight is a family run not for profit business. We are an officially registered LLC under the name StoryLight Press LLC. We have published multiple books, which can be found in our catalogue. While we are just starting out, we follow all legal and technical requirements for operating.
No. StoryLight Press was created as a way to push back on scams and offer real and transparent publishing options that actually have a reach. We offer the lowest costs on the market, due to utilizing up and coming artists and editors who share our vision, supporting them in their journey while letting them be a part of something huge.
While we strive to publish all stories that spread light in a dark world, we focus the most on young authors, age 13 to 24. We also cater more toward first time published authors, teaching you the ropes so that hopefully you can take over the process and become self-sufficient. That said, we publish all authors, from all faiths, backgrounds, ages, race, and walks of life. We acknowledge that all authors have a valuable story that needs to be shared.
Print-on-demand (POD) services only print and distribute your books, hence the name. This includes services like Amazon, IngramSpark, BookBaby, and BookVault. These services will not give you a cover, formatting, or editing services. StoryLight is not a POD service, we’re a hybrid indie-publisher. While we do partner with POD services to print and distribute your books, we are also here every step of the way to provide you with editing, cover design, formatting, illustrating, and one-on-one coaching. We offer POD services, but we’re so much more than that. We’re basically your one stop shop for publishing from beginning to end.
While the amount you take home will vary depending on your specific book and vision, we do have a few standards that never change. First, you take home 100% of the profits. We don’t get anything from your book. All the money for running our business comes primarily from donations and our services. We make about $100 per book. That said, retailers, like Amazon and other bookstores, will often take 40% to 55% of your profits. While that does suck, you can go around this by selling locally at fairs and conventions, and by selling on an author website. The truth is that between printing costs and distribution costs, you will make about $1 to $5 per book. Other publishers will try to tell you that you can cut those fees out, but realistically there is no way to. Printing and distributing will always cost money.
StoryLight is proud to offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We will never publish your book until you are 100% satisfied with the cover, print, and layout of the book. If you don’t love it, we’ll try again until we have a book you’re proud to show to the world. That said, the guarantee does not extend past the drafting stage. Once you have submitted the book for publishing, the book is set in stone. The guarantee does not extend to marketing, sales, or commercial success.
As more and more publishers are popping up, authors are now using the term “vanity press” to describe presses that mark up their prices for a concierge experience and often leave you high and dry when they’re done. StoryLight Press is not a vanity press. We change the lowest rates in the industry and offer guidance and marketing even after your book is published. There are many similarities, however. Like vanity presses, we charge upfront. This is because we want you to keep 100% royalties. Because we don’t make anything off your books, we have to charge for services. That said, we only charge what the service charges so that we break even. We do not inflate prices. Most importantly, vanity presses are built around taking advantage of self-publishers. StoryLight does the exact opposite. We are here solely to help you on the journey, and to avoid pitfalls like vanity publishers.
The Publishing Process
As authors ourselves, we understand that you want to get your book out there as fast as possible. However, publishing takes time. Depending on your exact vision for your book, it could take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year. The longer you wait, the better your reach and quality will be. For instance, if you come to us with a fully edited and formatted manuscript with a cover that fits our quality standards, you could publish in as little as 6 weeks, but if you bring us a document and need all services plus reviews, promotion, and guaranteed immediate release into libraries, it could take anywhere from 3 months to a year. Think about how long it took for your favorite movie to come out from when they stopped filming to when it hit theaters. Good productions take time.
For a more detailed time-frame, please fill out a form, and we can give you a free estimate.
We publish books from every genre, from non-fiction, to poetry, to sci-fi and fantasy, and everything in between. The main thing we look for is if it’s clean and leaves the reader with more hope and joy than when they started. While there is a place for books that make the reader question things like race, politics, and social norms and leave the reader without a conclusion, StoryLight is not that place.
Things that we don’t allow in our books include:
- Slander of any kind, including religion, race, or politics
- Racist content in a positive light
- Blasphemy
- Extensive swearing
- Violence for the sake of violence
- Descriptive nudity or sex / pornography
- Suicide unless actively apposing it
- Glorified or un-redeemed depictions of vice
- Hopeless conclusions
- Overly preachy or clichéd “propaganda” writing
StoryLight offers e-book, paperback, and hardcover distribution. We also offer audiobook services through a third party, with distribution to all major audiobook distributors and libraries.
No. StoryLight Press was created as a way to push back on scams and offer real and transparent publishing options that actually have a reach. We offer the lowest costs on the market, due to utilizing up and coming artists and editors who share our vision, supporting them in their journey while letting them be a part of something huge.
We get this question a lot. Yes, we distribute all our books through Amazon. That does not mean we publish we them. It is often a misconception that self-published books have to be published through Amazon to be on their store. This is not true. If you publish through us, both your print and e-books will appear on Amazon. That said, Amazon reserves the right to take your book off. They are just a bookstore after all. Amazon should not be your only source of distribution.
Yes. While most publishers cannot guarantee this because they charge over $2,000 to publish, we only charge $100 to $500. That means you only have to sell about 100 books to break even. You can do that just with pre-orders. That said, money should not be your goal. If you want to make money, writing is not the way to go. You wrote your book to share your words, and getting paid for it is just the icing on the cake. Of course, it is possible to make six figures, but that’s not really the point of publishing.
We are a publisher, not a writing school. While we are authors and we’d love to help you on your journey, that is not why we’re here. Any publisher that says they’ll help you write your book is just feeding chickens they intend to slaughter. They will help you because it ensures you’ll pay them to publish. Beware of publishers that help with writing.
To understand indie publishing, you have to understand what traditional publishing is. In traditional publishing, you sell the rights to your book to a publisher under the agreement that you will get a small percentage (often about 15%) in exchange for high quality services, a large distribution and an established connection of libraries and bookstores. Because they own the book, they will market for you and ensure a large audience reads it.
In indie publishing on the the other hand, you are the publisher. You own 100% or your rights. This means that you have to take care of everything yourself, distribution, technical details like copyright, ISBN, formatting, editing, cover design, marketing, and much more. This gives you a lot more freedom. You can literally make your book look like whatever you want without a publisher dictate what you can and can’t do, while getting a much larger monetary return.
An indie-publishing press basically bridges the gap between traditional publishing and indie publishing, offering a traditional-like experience without taking your rights. They oftentimes have connections as well, and can put your book in front of your readers, though usually a lot less effectively. They usually provide services in exchange for money instead of right and royalties. A big red flag is if an indie-publisher asks for any rights to your book other than for distribution.