Everything authors ask before they publish with us

ShelfPublisher is the author platform of Orbita Media GmbH, an international publishing house with more than 1,000 published titles (Amtsgericht Hamburg, HRB 161613). You publish your paperback under the publisher's imprint, with an ISBN from the publisher's own block, and the book is listed in the wholesale catalogs that more than 50,000 bookstores order from, Amazon included.

You upload the finished book, we check it, register it and set it up with the distribution channels. You keep your rights and earn a share of the net revenue of every copy sold.

The publisher is Orbita Media GmbH, Ericusspitze 4, 20457 Hamburg, Germany. That is the name that appears as publisher in the book's bibliographic record and in the catalogs booksellers search, and the ISBN comes from Orbita's publisher prefixes (978-3-69104 and 978-3-69296).

You remain the author, and the copyright stays with you. More about the company on the page About the publisher.

On KDP or a comparable self-publishing platform you are the publisher of record and you run the account, the metadata and the distribution settings yourself. With ShelfPublisher a real publishing house is the publisher of record: we issue the ISBN, file the metadata and set the title up with the wholesale channels, and your book is not tied to a retail account of yours.

The trade-offs are real. KDP, like several other self-publishing services, offers e-books, hardcovers and color printing, and you can publish within days and keep full control of every setting. We publish paperbacks only, in black and white, after a review by a person. The article KDP account terminated: what happens to your book compares both sides in detail.

Every title appears under our name as publisher, so we choose who we work with. You request access with a short form; a person on our team reads every request and answers by email. If your book fits, you receive a personal invitation link to set up your account.

A request costs nothing and does not commit you to anything.

It is for authors whose book is written and who want it listed where bookstores order, without building a publishing business of their own: self-publishers who want a second channel next to Amazon, coaches, consultants, founders and freelancers who want a book under a real imprint, and authors who publish several titles.

It is not the right place if you need editing, a cover designer or a marketing campaign: those services are not part of a slot.

You pay one publishing slot per book: €35 for a single book, and down to €20 per book in the largest package (100 books for €20). Prices include German VAT for consumers; business customers with a valid VAT number and customers outside the EU see the adjusted total at checkout.

You pay one price per book: no printing costs, no stock, no ISBN to buy. The current packages are on the pricing page.

A slot covers the publication of one title:

• an automated pre-check and a review of your interior and cover by a person,
• an ISBN from the publisher's block,
• registration of the title in the bibliographic directories of the chosen market,
• publication under Orbita Media as publisher and setup with the distribution channels,
• print on demand production, ordered and monitored by us,
• collection of the revenue, quarterly statements and payouts,
• access to the portal with status, sales figures and support.

A slot is valid for 36 months.

Editorial services are not part of a slot: no proofreading, copy-editing, cover design, translation or marketing. You upload a finished interior PDF and a finished cover.

We also do not promise a number of copies, a ranking or a place on the shelf of a particular bookstore. What we do promise is in clause 4 of our terms.

You receive 30% of the net revenue of every copy sold, shown per title in quarterly sales reports. Net revenue is the amount we actually receive from the trade for that copy, after the retailer's discount or commission, the printing cost of the copy and returns, and without VAT.

Illustrative example, a paperback sold in Germany, with the print price list of the portal:

• List price €14.99 including 7% VAT, so €14.01 without VAT.
• Bookstore and wholesaler keep their discount; in this example 50%, so the channel pays €7.00. Discounts differ by channel and country.
• Printing the copy (A5, 200 pages, white paper) costs €3.40.
• Net revenue €3.60, your 30%: €1.08 per copy.

For comparison on the same copy: the joint remuneration rules for fiction agreed by German authors and publishers set 5% of the net retail price for a paperback up to 20,000 copies and 7% from 40,000 copies, here €0.70 to €0.98 (Gemeinsame Vergütungsregeln für Autoren belletristischer Werke, § 4, 2005). A publishing contract usually also includes an advance, editing, a cover and marketing; a slot does not.

There is nothing else to pay after the slot, so the royalty is not reduced by fees for the account, the ISBN or the distribution.

Sales are reported per quarter. The statement for a quarter appears in your account about six weeks after the quarter ends; the credit follows once the money from the trade has reached us, usually around 45 days after the quarter ends. Individual international sales can take longer.

You can request a payout from a balance of €200. We pay to the bank account in your profile within 10 working days after the request has been checked.

Returns and cancellations reduce the net revenue, because bookstores in the trade can return copies they ordered. If the trade corrects an earlier report, the correction is set off against your future credits.

Yes, the prices shown include German VAT for consumers. Businesses in another EU country with a valid VAT number pay without VAT under the reverse charge procedure, and customers outside the EU see the adjusted total at checkout.

Yes. The copyright stays with you. You grant Orbita Media a non-exclusive licence to print, distribute and list the book for as long as the contract runs, and all rights revert to you automatically when it ends.

Because the licence is not exclusive, you remain free to exploit the work in other ways, for example as an audiobook or a translation elsewhere. One limit: while the contract runs, you do not publish an identical edition with the ISBN we issued through another publisher or platform.

The ISBN comes from the block registered to Orbita Media as publisher, and it stays with Orbita Media. Under the ISBN standard an ISBN identifies the publisher of an edition, so it cannot move with the book.

It costs you nothing. If you publish the book elsewhere after the contract ends, the new edition needs a new ISBN. The article ISBN for self-published books explains why.

Tell us in your access request where the book is published already. We check every case individually: our terms name a title that is identical to one already published elsewhere as a possible reason for rejection, so we do not promise anything before we have seen your book and its current editions.

Yes. You can end the publication of a single title with 3 months' notice, and the platform contract with 30 days' notice. After the end, the title is removed from the electronic channels within 30 days, copies already printed may be sold for 3 more months, and print on demand stops at once. All rights revert to you, and royalties already earned are paid out.

Your edition is not tied to a retail account of yours: it is published by Orbita Media and listed through the wholesale catalogs, so there is no personal seller account whose closure would take the book offline.

Retailers and distribution channels still have their own content and metadata rules, and they decide what they list. A channel can refuse or remove a title that breaks its rules, which is why our review checks those rules before publication.

Yes, but only for the reasons listed in clause 12.3 of our terms: a breach of rights or law, files that still do not meet the technical specifications after we asked for a correction, a quality below what the book trade expects, text or images predominantly generated by AI without substantial human work, duplicates and template-based mass titles, content that would seriously damage the publisher's reputation, or the rules of a distribution channel.

Before we reject anything we tell you the reason and give you the chance to respond or correct it. If a book is rejected without a breach on your side, the slot goes back to your account.

Yes, as a tool. Using AI while writing or designing is not a reason for rejection. A book is rejected only if its text or images were predominantly generated automatically and the author has not reviewed, selected, arranged or revised them to a substantial degree.

The book is listed in the wholesale catalogs that more than 50,000 bookstores order from: about 27,000 in the United States, 9,500 in the United Kingdom, 6,800 in Germany, 4,200 in France, 3,100 in Spain and 1,400 in Canada, plus 12 more countries through print on demand. In Italy, bookstores such as laFeltrinelli and IBS.it can order it through our global wholesale distribution. Online stores that order from the same catalogs list it too, Amazon included.

The book is printed on demand, so it is orderable wherever those catalogs are used. Whether a store also puts a copy on its own shelf is that store's decision.

Yes. Amazon is one of the retailers that order from the wholesale catalogs, so your book can be bought there as well. You do not need a KDP account for that edition.

We cannot promise that, and nobody honest can. What we do is list the book in the catalogs booksellers order from, with a proper ISBN, a real publisher and complete metadata, so any bookstore can order it for a customer or for its shelf. Your own contact with local bookstores, events and readers is what makes a store stock a title. Our article How to get your book into bookstores covers what booksellers look for.

Paperback with a glued binding, black and white interior, matte or gloss cover. For the international market the trim sizes are A5, 5 x 8, 5.25 x 8, 6 x 9, 6.14 x 9.21, 8.5 x 8.5, A4 and 8.5 x 11 inches, on white or cream 50 lb paper. For Germany, France and Spain there are nine metric sizes from A6 to A4 on white or cream 90 g paper.

The portal publishes for four markets: International (in English, with distribution in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and further countries), Germany, France and Spain. You choose the market when you submit the book.

Italy has no print route of its own in the portal, but Italian bookstores such as laFeltrinelli and IBS.it can order the book through our global wholesale distribution. A dedicated Italian book trade channel is in preparation.

No. We take care of the trade side: ISBN, metadata, catalogs, printing, statements. Marketing, reviews and readers remain your part. The difference to selling on one platform is that bookstores and libraries can order your book without you running ads to make it visible there.

1. Request access. Once invited, you set up your account.
2. Buy a slot. One slot publishes one book.
3. Upload your files. Interior PDF and cover, with the trim size and paper you choose. An automated pre-check runs at once, then a person reviews the book.
4. We publish it. You get an ISBN, we file the metadata and the title enters the wholesale catalogs.
5. You get paid. Statements every quarter, 30% of the net revenue, payout from €200.

The page How it works shows each step in detail.

A print-ready interior PDF and a cover file in the trim size and paper you chose. The portal checks both automatically on upload, for example the page size and page count, embedded fonts, the bleed and spine width of the cover and the ISBN in the barcode, and tells you what to fix before a person reviews the book.

Inside the portal through support tickets, and by email at [email protected]. Before you have an account, the access request is the way to ask us anything.

Our servers are in Germany (Hetzner, Nuremberg). Payments are processed by Stripe; we never see your full card details. Which providers we use and why is listed in our privacy policy.

Yes, if a bookstore can order it. Stores order from wholesalers and distributors, so your book needs an ISBN, complete metadata and a listing with a wholesaler they buy from. Whether a store then keeps copies on the shelf is the bookseller's decision: it depends on the discount, on whether copies can be returned and on whether the store expects to sell the book.

Local independent stores sometimes take self-published books on consignment and pay only for the copies sold. Our guide How to get your book into bookstores goes through both routes.

It makes a KDP paperback orderable: KDP offers it to distributors in the US and the UK, from which bookstores and libraries can order, at a royalty of 40% of the list price minus printing. KDP itself states that enrolling does not guarantee that a distributor accepts the book or that a particular bookseller or library orders it. The book is listed with KDP's imprint or your own, as published through KDP.

With ShelfPublisher the paperback is published by Orbita Media, a publishing house, and listed in the wholesale catalogs bookstores order from. Neither route guarantees shelf space.

No. The publisher decides to publish the book, gives it its ISBN and imprint, pays for production and carries the risk. A distributor or wholesaler makes the finished book available to retailers and libraries and ships it when they order. At ShelfPublisher, Orbita Media is the publisher; the distribution runs through the wholesale channels. More in Amazon KDP vs a traditional publisher.

Check four things: who pays, who selects, who distributes and what the contract says. A traditional publisher never charges you to be published. A service you pay must state its prices and terms openly, before you sign. Ask which wholesalers list its books and check whether its titles can actually be ordered. Read the rights clause: how long, which formats, and how rights come back to you.

ShelfPublisher publishes its prices on the pricing page, its terms at /legal/terms, and the publisher behind it is Orbita Media GmbH (Amtsgericht Hamburg, HRB 161613). Our article on hybrid publishing vs self-publishing lists the warning signs.

No. If you use a free platform ISBN, the platform's imprint appears as publisher, for example "Independently published" at KDP. If you buy your own ISBNs, you register yourself or your own imprint name as publisher. With ShelfPublisher the imprint is Orbita Media's. The article What is a publishing imprint? explains the difference.

No. An ISBN identifies one edition of a book and its publisher, for ordering and cataloging. Copyright is a separate matter: in the US and in the EU, protection exists from the moment the work is created. In the US you can additionally register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, which is optional. With ShelfPublisher your copyright stays with you; you grant Orbita a non-exclusive right of use for the duration of the contract.

Yes. Italian bookstores, for example laFeltrinelli and IBS.it, can order it through global wholesale distribution; Italy runs through the international print route. A dedicated channel for Italian bookstores is in preparation. As everywhere, orderable does not mean on the shelf. Our guide How to sell your book in Italy explains how the Italian trade orders books.