A small press with a print shop's habits
Booklyn Publishing was built by people who kept watching good manuscripts die in production — rejected cover files, ebooks that failed validation, interiors typeset by a word processor. We fixed the production side first and built the list on top of it.
What we publish
Four subject areas, seven imprints: biblical study and devotional writing, American biography, civics and history, and practical field guides for the trades. What they have in common is a reader who wants the actual thing — the verse, the date, the measurement — not a paraphrase of it.
We are an American press. Our authors are ministers, tradesmen, musicians, historians and first-time memoirists, and the books are made to be handed to somebody.
How we work with authors
Two arrangements, no hybrid confusion between them. Under a publishing agreement we carry the cost and pay royalties on net receipts. Under a production agreement you pay a fixed fee, own every file, and keep all royalties. We will tell you which one your book is better suited to before you pay anything.
You approve the edit, the cover and the final proof. Nothing is uploaded to a retailer without your written sign-off.
Production standard
The specification every Booklyn title is built to, whichever agreement it is published under.
- 6 × 9 interior PDF, embedded fonts, correct trim and gutter
- Two-pass table of contents with true page numbers
- Running heads keyed to chapter, not to a global variable
- Full-wrap cover PDF: back, spine and front in one file, 0.125in bleed on all sides
- Spine width from page count and paper factor, plus cover-stock allowance
- Clear barcode zone in the lower right of the back cover
- EPUB3 validated with epubcheck, cover reachable from the spine
- Audiobook master at retail loudness with room tone and chapter marks
- Metadata, categories and keywords written before launch, not after
What we will turn down
Saying this in public saves everyone a submission cycle.
Unfinished drafts
Send a complete manuscript. We are glad to look at a partial for a book already under contract, but a first submission needs an ending.
Unsourced claims
Biography and history need citations. If a story cannot be traced to a source, it comes out of the book.
Borrowed material
Quoted lyrics, uncleared photographs and AI-generated text passed off as reporting. All three end a submission.
Talk to a person first
Not sure which arrangement fits your book? Describe it in three sentences and we will tell you straight.