The Puppet Press is a private publisher. We are not a vanity press. This is not a self-publishing site. We publish, and plan to keep publishing, only what interests us. Since we have a broad range of interests, one could categorize what we publish under "miscellaneous everything."

We do not pay advances. We are digital publishers - not print or audio publishers.

We welcome new writers, experimental styles, short story collections, techie books, how-to manuals and guides, romance novels, science fiction, cookbooks, kids' books, etc. and so on. If a book doesn't interest us, we won't read it. And if we don't read it, we won't publish it. These are some of the topics that DO NOT interest us: overt propaganda of any sort, pornography, and writing of any kind that promotes hatred, abuse, or violence against any person or any group of people.

We are woefully lacking in foreign language skills. Therefore, we can only read stuff written in English.

We don't charge you a fee to consider your work for publishing on Puppet Press. We therefore don't promise we'll get to your submission within what you might consider a reasonable amount of time, that we'll read the entire submission (or any of it), or that we'll publish it. We will make every effort to let you know what our decision is as soon as we can. Do NOT call us.

This is the way it works: if we decide we like your manuscript (short story, novel, novella, non-fiction book, non-fiction article ... you get the idea) well enough to put the time an effort into formatting it for publication and building web pages to promote it, and we can come to an agreement with you, we'll publish your book and split the net revenue 50-50. Net revenue works out to be the price of your work minus the cost of the transaction (usually about 30 cents plus 2% of the price - which goes to the payment processor - not to us).

You grant us exclusive rights to publish your submission digitally - as an electronic work only - for whatever time period we agree upon (generally at least a year). You retain the copyright and rights to your work, and you retain the right to publish your work in print, audio, or any other format EXCEPT as a digital work (internet publication, web book, electronic book, eBook, e-zine article, etc.) If we accept your work for publishing, you are responsible for providing the complete work in the digital format we agree upon, for getting it edited professionally if necessary, and for proofreading the final copy before we launch it. We will work with you on selecting an appropriate excerpt to make available, on the "cover" art, and on reaching an acceptable selling price.

Submission Guidelines:

You must have completed the work you’re sending us. No proposals or works-in-progress. You must hold the rights to your work.

We prefer communicating via email. You must have a working email address and check it once in a while.

We prefer submissions via email (submissions@puppetpress.com). You can compress the file (zip it) if you like, but use a standard zipping tool such as WinZip. If it is too large to email, you can mail it on diskette, either a standard floppy or on a zip disk - but formatted for PCs ONLY. Disks will not be returned.

Send your submission only in MS Word (97 or below), rtf, or html if unable to provide MS Word. Use a standard font such as Times New Roman. Don’t send it in text or PDF and don’t use fancy formats. Submit the manuscript as one document. Give your document the same title (abbreviated in a way that makes sense if necessary) as the book; don’t call it "Novel.doc" or "Book.doc."

You can send us your manuscript in printed format if for some reason you must, but it will not be returned. If you don't include submission information as outlined below  and a way for us to contact you via email, we'll just hand the document to Ginger, our file clerk in charge of dealing with stuff we don't want to deal with.

Do not send us material that’s simultaneously submitted to a zillion other publishers. We'll try to respond within three months, but that becomes impossible if we waste our time reading material that later gets pulled because another publisher accepted it.

Make sure your manuscript is edited and polished. A manuscript full of errors might be rejected simply because it means we have to do too much extra work to get it ready for publication. Use your computer’s spelling and grammar checker, buy a dictionary, consult reference books like Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style available online or in any bookstore or library.

Non-fiction works must show notes and references within brackets beginning immediately after the reference: blah blah blah [1. Footnote reference etc.] more words.

Send the submission as an attachment to an email. Every submission must include your full name, pseudonym if used, address and a brief synopsis outlining the manuscript’s style, subject, content, or genre and intended audience (make us WANT to read your submission). The email address for submissions is submissions@puppetpress.com.