Our Goal

Our goal is to provide our authors with the friendly, hands-on experience of working with a small press. All the while making sure the author doesn't have to sacrifice quality editing, cover art, and marketing. Authors who sign with Fool Church Media can expect:

• Release in digital and print formats.
• A senior-level editor assigned to provide quality editing and to guide you every step of the way throughout the publication process.
• A marketing/publicity plan specific to your book, and inclusive of advertising.
• High-quality covers expertly designed specifically for your book.
• Royalties are generous, even more so after sales take off.
• All rights are retained by you.

What We Do Not Want

Currently, we do not accept proposals for works yet to be written. Please, only query us if your manuscript is complete and has undergone at least one professional copy edit.

As a broad minded press, we publish books with almost any theme or a message. But we do not accept manuscripts with the following:

• Books that promote hate, intolerance, or bigotry.
• Books that promote the harm of children.
• Books that denigrate or show harmful bias or intent based on gender, age, sexual orientation, or physical disabilities.

Otherwise, the gloves are off.

We do not accept collections of short stories except those submitted by an author for whom we have already published a novel.

What We Desire

You are more likely to land a book with us if you focus in one of the areas we prefer:

• Science Fiction: Most any sub-genre is acceptable.
• Fantasy: Magic based on future science is preferred.
• Horror: Classic and classy horror, not gore for gore's sake.
• Mystery Books: Who-done-its rather than police stories.
• Historical Fiction: Mostly the old west or the recent west coast.
• Biographies and Memoirs: Honesty and vulnerability.
• Literature: We search for the next Faulkner.
• Juvenile Fiction: Stories appropriate for teens.
• Technical Books: Topics restricted to Unix, Linux, computer languages, and email standards.
• Poetry Books: Illustrated or not.
• Picture Books: Photo essays, photo collections, art books.

In addition, we seek books from women, minorities, and other cultures.

Keep an eye on this list. It will expand slowly over time.

As a general (and non-binding) rule, authors can retain up to 90% of their net sales. The below table shows what we the publisher might typically retain from sales to defray costs (which include shipping, labeling, printing, promotion, and taxes, etc.) Partly why our costs are so low is because we are a print-on-demand house. The old days of supplying bookstores with printed copies are gone. But we still have to recoup our modest expenses before giving you the bulk of revenue.

Royalty reports are send via email monthly and include sales through the prior month. Monthly reports are not sent in January or December, instead a January report summarizes the prior year including December. Royalty reports are only surface mailed when a check is issued. If you opt for electronic payments, no Royalty Reports will ever be surface mailed. However, if surface mail is not used, a PDF attachment will be emailed instead.

Submit Your Manuscript

We are a low-overhead operation and prefer not spend time reading manuscripts that you yourself do not feel are astoundingly well written and that will require little or no effort on our part to ready for publication.

To submit, send a query letter to foolchurch+submit (at) gmail (dot) com

Art To Sell

We want to sell prints of art. We will never sell original art, only copies of original art. We know what we like and don't like, so let us know what you want to publish and we will make a subjective decision. Note that we can also produce art books.

To submit, send a query letter to foolchurch+art (at) gmail (dot) com.