About

An Australian book publishing company that works for the author

We do the work a publisher does — editing, illustration, design, production, distribution — with children’s books at the centre of it, and charge for it once. You keep the copyright, the accounts and the royalties.

Start your publishing journey See how it works

A writer working through a stack of reference books at a library table

Why we exist

Why this company exists

Because the gap between a traditional publisher and a vanity press is where most Australian authors actually need to be, and it is badly served.

Traditional publishing is excellent and almost entirely closed. Vanity presses are open to everyone, take the rights, keep a share of royalties and sell print runs that live in a garage. In between sits the author with a finished manuscript who wants the work done properly and wants to own the result.

So the model here is simple: we are paid for work, not for a percentage of your book forever. An editor reads before we quote. The ISBN is registered to you. The retailer accounts are in your name. If you want to leave after the edit and publish yourself, you take the files and go, and our self-publishing service page spells out exactly what that includes.

No royalty share and no rights assignment, ever
A manuscript read before any price is quoted
Every file handed over, including the source files
We will tell you when a service you want is the wrong one

What we can show you the basis for

Services under one roof: 16
Services under one roof
Every service listed on this site, each with its own page and price basis.
Genres with their own page: 10
Genres with their own page
Each explains the production problems that genre actually has.
Covers in the portfolio: 24
Covers in the portfolio
17 from author projects and 35 designed in-house, across every genre we publish.
Of rights and royalties: 100%
Of rights and royalties
Yours. We take no percentage of sales, now or later.

How we work

How we work with an author

The same shape every time, whether you take one service or all of them.

01
We read it
Before any price. An editor reads the manuscript or a substantial sample.
02
We tell you
What it needs, what it does not need, and what we think you should not buy yet.
03
We scope it
A written plan: stages, dates, deliverables, one price. Cut anything you want.
04
We do the work
Named editor, named designer, one point of contact, nothing in an anonymous queue.
05
You approve it
Every stage, and a printed proof copy before anything is published.
06
You own it
Files, accounts, ISBN and royalties. You can leave at any point and take them.

Where we draw the line

Three things we will not do

A publisher is defined as much by what it refuses as by what it sells.

A woman holding an open hardback, photographed in soft directional daylight

We will not take a share of your royalties

A percentage of sales for the life of copyright is how a one-off piece of work becomes a permanent tax on your book. We charge for the work, you keep the income, and the arrangement ends when the work does.

No royalty share and no rights licence
No exclusivity clause and no reprint lock-in
Retailer accounts in your name, paid directly to you

A reader with pink hair turning a page at a bright desk

We will not promise sales

Nobody can, and a guarantee is the clearest signal that someone is selling you something else. We will tell you what marketing can realistically do, show you the numbers monthly, and recommend stopping when the spend is not returning.

No bestseller claims and no sales projections
Advertising run in your own accounts, with the real figures
An honest view when the book itself is the limiting factor

A reader relaxing with a paperback surrounded by indoor plants

We will not take work we cannot do well

We decline manuscripts that need rewriting rather than editing, marketing for books that are not ready, and projects outside what our editors and designers actually know. Saying no costs us a sale and saves you more.

An assessment first when the manuscript is not ready
Specialists named and shown to you, or we pass
We say why we have declined, and what would help

My editor told me the first sixty pages were throat-clearing and the book really started at chapter four. I argued about it for a week and then cut them. She was right. Nobody had been that direct with me in four years of writing groups, and the book is shorter and better for it.

Clare Mahoney

Author of The Weight of Rain · Structural editing

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