Frequently Asked Questions

An ebook is an electronic version of a book. You can download ebooks to your personal computer, smartphone, or handheld reading device.

Ebooks are typically a little less expensive, because even though the bulk of production expenses remain (editing, layout, cover art, royalties, etc.), there are no printing, shipping, or storage costs.

Also, ebooks last forever—no need to worry about breaking the spine or wearing out your favorite read.

They also offer instant gratification. Read an interesting blurb? Buy it now and you can be reading it in 60 seconds!

Lastly, ebooks are hugely convenient. You can purchase them from almost any computer or reading device and carry hundreds of books with you anywhere you go on a device the size of a paperback.

All of our titles are available in PDF, mobi, epub, and html, and when you make a purchase, you gain access to all four file formats. So if you switch devices in futire, simply come back to our site and re-download your titles in the approriate format. Not sure which format you need? Read all about them here.

One of the benefits of buying directly through the Riptide site is access to multiple file formats: all of our ebooks are available in mobi, epub, PDF, and html, and when you purchase a title, you can download your preferred format at any time. So, which format for which device? Here are some common ones:

For iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad users: ePub (Open e-book) is the format of choice. You can download Stanza, which will allow you to read e-books on your desktop (Mac or PC), iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad here (it’s free!).

For Nook, Sony Reader, and Android/Aldiko users: ePub is the format of choice.

For Kindle, Palm OS, Pocket PC, Handheld PC, Windows CE, or EPOC users: The file of choice is mobi or prc. You can also read PDFs on your Kindle, but we don’t recommend it.

For Windows PC, Windows Tablet, or Mac users: We recommend PDF. To read PDF files, you can download Adobe Reader here (it’s free!).

For Sony Reader: We recommend PDF. To read PDF files, you can download Adobe Reader here (it’s free!).

Word counts are more or less exact counts (rounded to the nearest hundred words) of the story text itself, excluding any front or back matter such as the copyright page or the author's biography. Page counts are the exact number of pages in the title's PDF file (or printed book if it's in print), including front and back matter. When you see the ≈ symbol before word or page numbers, that means the counts are approximate because we've not yet completed the editing and/or layout process on that title.

No. All of our books are protected by copyright and should not be copied without permission. Remember, you are purchasing one copy for your own personal use, so if you’d like to share an ebook with others, please purchase an additional copy or copies. Re-use or re-distribution of ebooks in part or whole is not only against the law, but it also takes money out of our authors' pockets and makes it harder, if not impossible, for them to keep dedicating the hundreds of hours per book it takes to write new stories for you to enjoy.

For each book you pre-order (the book can't have been released yet) directly through our site, you'll receive one entry into a drawing to win free books for a year! Every six months, we'll pool all the entries and do a drawing. There are second and third prizes, too:

• First Prize is one free copy of every single ebook Riptide releases for 12 months!
• Second Prize is one free copy of every single ebook Riptide releases for 6 months!
• Third Prize is one free copy of every single ebook Riptide releases for 3 months!

That's a lot of free books! We'll draw winners at random every year in early January and early July. And even if you don't win, you still get a nifty bonus: pre-ordered books are available for download two full days before their official sale date!

Ready to earn some entries? Check out our titles coming soon!

Every new book we release will be available for pre-order for at least two weeks, and some for up to a few months. There are some excellent reasons to pre-order.

1. You can purchase and forget about it. Your book will be waiting for you on release day in every available format; no need to remember when that is. You'll also receive an email on release day letting you know your files are available for download.
    
2. Each pre-order purchase earns you an entry into an awesome contest where you can win free Riptide books for a year!
    
3. Your pre-ordered books can be downloaded two days before the "official" street date, so you get to read the story two days before everyone else.
    
4. When you buy direct through the website, you'll receive Bonus Bucks on every purchase you make.
    
5. The author will receive a much higher royalty for the sale than he or she will if you purchase the book through a third-party vendor like Amazon or Barnes and Noble. One of the best ways to support your favorite authors is to buy direct from the publisher site.

There are many benefits to shopping directly through the Riptide web store. 

1. We make all file formats available to you at all times, so if you switch devices or accidentally delete your book, you can re-download the appropriate format with zero hassle.
2. You earn Bonus Bucks for each purchase you make, and can use those Bonus Bucks to purchase free books or gift certificates from our store.
3. Books on pre-sale may be offered at a discount through our site only.
4. Themed collections (groupings of short stories or novellas) will be bundled and offered at significant discount through our site only.
5. Print books sold through our site can often be autographed at no extra charge. You'll also receive some fun, free swag with every print order from us.
6. Both our authors and ourselves get to keep a much larger share of the purchase price when you buy directly from us (or any other publisher site), which makes it easier for your favorite authors to spend more time writing new books. Third-party vendors such as Amazon or Fictionwise may keep as much as sixty-five percent of your sale price, leaving as little as thirty-five cents on the dollar for the publisher and author to share. 

Soon, we'll be making it possible to search for books in many ways: by author, title, series, genre, sub-genre, type and/or frequency of erotic content, all sorts of keywords, etc. In the meanwhile, start with our "Titles" link in the navigation bar or our search box on the top right corner of the page. When you find a book you wish to purchase, add it to your shopping cart.

You can also use the search bar in the upper right corner of our website (across from our logo). Just type in a full or partial author name or book title and click on the little magnifying glass.

Checking out is easy, safe, and secure. During checkout, you'll be prompted to log in, or to create an account if you're new to Riptide. We use PayPal to process our credit card payments, but you don’t need a PayPal account to shop with us. PayPal allows you to pay for your purchase with any major credit card (click here for more info from the PayPal site), your Paypal balance, or a linked checking account.

As soon as your payment is confirmed, your books will appear in your bookshelf for download.*

*If you've purchased pre-sale titles, they'll appear in your bookshelf two days before their official release date. 

We use two separate ratings in concert: Heat Waves (how explicit) and Frequency (how often). Both are on a scale of 1 to 5. We also use a number of tags to specify the type of content (for example, “bondage,” “flogging,” “rimming,” “threesome,” etc.) and help you find exactly the kind of story you’re in the mood to read.

Heat Wave Scale

• 1 wave: Non-romances. No erotic content. If there is romantic content, it’s not the focus of the story.
• 2 waves: Stories with sweet romantic content such as a kiss or a touch over clothing. No explicit language. Appropriate for most YA audiences.
• 3 waves: Primarily sweet/sensual stories. Love scenes may happen, but will be “off screen” or entirely non-explicit. No graphic language. May be appropriate for YA audiences.
• 4 waves: Stories with sensual love scenes. They will occur “on screen” but will be primarily non-explicit. May include some explicit language.
• 5 waves: Stories with explicit love scenes and graphic language.

Frequency Scale

1. Non-romances. No erotic or romantic encounters.
2. Erotic content is secondary to the focus of the book and occurs in a very small percentage of scenes.
3. Erotic content is relevant to focus of the book occurs in a fairly small percentage of scenes.
4. Erotic content is integral to the focus of the book and occurs in a fairly large percentage of scenes.
5. Erotic content is the central focus of the book and occurs in a large percentage of scenes.

Click on the "Register" button all the way in the upper right corner and follow the on-screen instructions. You can also create an account during the checkout process.

Never. Registration is absolutely free. You won't even be added to our mailing list unless you choose to be.

Absolutely. Since we use PayPal—one of the safest payment processing options in the world—you will never have to reveal your personal details to any site, including ours. We do not even see your credit card information, let alone collect it.

Pricing is based on book length. Rather than featuring only three or four price tiers, we have ten different tiers at Riptide. This ensures that the customer never overpays for a book at the short end of a wide price tier (for instance, some houses sell all books up to 15K words for $2.99, but who wants to pay $2.99 for a 5,000 word short?), and that the author is paid fairly for books at the long end of a wide price tier (for instance, some houses sell all books over 40K words for $5.99, even though it may take the author three or four times as long to write a 100K book as a 40K book).

When deciding how to price our tiers, we took into account the time and expense that goes into producing each book at Riptide. Unlike many other e-publishers in the M/M space, we provide Manhattan-quality developmental editing, line editing, copyediting, and proofreading for each book we produce. We also provide professional layout, hand-coded file conversions to eliminate irritating artifacts and layout errors in your e-book, and gorgeous cover art. All of these things mean that Riptide’s production process is much as fifteen times more expensive than at other e-houses, and consequently, our cover prices are a little bit higher (but not fifteen times more!). However, we’ve learned through experience that quality sells, and readers appreciate the respect we show them by not producing a sub-par product.

Our pricing tiers are as follows:

Short stories

• Under 5,000 words: $.99
• 5,000 to 9,999 words: $1.99

Novelettes

• 10,000 to 14,999 words: $2.99

Novellas

• 15,000 to 24,999 words: $3.99
• 25,000 to 34,999 words: $4.99
• 35,000 to 44,999 words: $5.99

Novels

• 45,000 to 59,999 words: $6.99
• 60,000 to 74,999 words: $7.99
• 75,000 to 89,999 words: $8.99
• 90,000+ words: $9.99

Your library is available at any time from any web-capable device. If you're logged in, just click on "My Account" in the upper right-hand corner of the page, then click on "Files" to see all the files you've ever purchased. They'll be available for download in every format we support.

Yes. If you have Windows 7, save your purchase to a folder on your computer, plug your Kindle or Nook to your computer, and drop and drag the book to the documents section of your device.

For Kindle, you may also send our books as an attachment to your Kindle device email.

Bonus Bucks are our way of saying “Thank you!” to customers who shop repeatedly at our site. (Why does that matter to us? Because third-party sites like Amazon and ARe take between 30% and 65% of the cover price of each book, leaving much less money for us to share with our authors.)

Every time you purchase with us, you receive one Bonus Buck for each dollar you spend on books. When you’ve collected 50 Bonus Bucks, our website will automatically turn them into a $5 account credit.

Please note: Our webmistress is putting the final touches on the Bonus Bucks feature as we speak, and though your Bonus Bucks won't show up in your account yet, you are earning them now and they'll be available to you soon.

They don't yet, but keep an eye out; gift certificates will be available soon.

Gift certificates can be spent just like cash. When you buy a gift certificate, you’ll be prompted to enter the email address of the recipient. The recipient will receive an email notifying them of their gift, along with instructions on how to use it. You may send a message with your gift if you’d like. You can even gift anonymously!

Sort of, but not directly. We accept Paypal, and you can use your checking account via PayPal to pay for your purchase. (You may also use your Visa, Mastercard, or Riptide gift certificate to pay for your purchase.)

Unfortunately, no. Please place all orders via our website. If you encounter any difficulties with or have any questions about the ordering process that were not addressed in our FAQ, please email us at .

No. Like almost all ebook retailers large and small, our books are non-returnable. We will, however, happily replace any damaged files.

No. DRM (Digital Rights Management software) doesn’t actually discourage pirates. All it does is inconvenience honest readers who wish to transfer files between personal devices. If you see our books being sold with DRM on a third-party site, the DRM has been added without our permission.

Since we're a boutique publisher, our focus is on quality over quantity. The average novel spends about six months in active production at Riptide, and our staff is small. This means we won't be releasing several new books a week. Rather, we'll release a new title every one to two weeks. Look for our new releases on Mondays—a perfect pick-me-up to get you through the long week ahead!

The Riptide Publishing newsletter, Making Waves, is one of the best ways to keep abreast of all our new releases, specials, and news. We'll also give away free stuff in every newsletter: excerpts, prizes, maybe even an exclusive short story from one of your favorite Riptide authors!

Of course, we'll never give your email to anyone else or use it for anything but our newsletter, which we send out once every one to two weeks or so.

If you don't want to miss any of the fun, be sure to sign up for Making Waves now in the box on the right side of our webpage.

Yes and thank you! Small presses live and die on the recommendations of happy readers.

On every book page, you'll find social media sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, and more. Coming soon, we'll also have a "Recommend" button, and when you click that, we'll email your friend a link to the recommended title. We do not store this information, so you don't have to worry about your friend's email being added to our mailing list. That will never happen.

There is no limit to the number of times you download a purchased book, as long as you’re downloading it for your own personal use. (Downloading an extra copy to share with a friend or family member is stealing, alas.) If you purchase through Riptide, you will have access to the file in every major format available now and in the future, so if you have a Kindle today but buy a Nook next year, that’s no problem—just redownload the appropriate format.

Click on the Contact Us tab, select the appropriate subject from the dropdown box, add your question or comment, and submit the form.

If you have an inquiry for a specific staff member or department, please visit the Our Staff page to find the appropriate email address.

You can edit your account information at any time by logging in via the link in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then clicking "My Account," also in the upper right.

Simply put, we have some of the most rigorous quality standards and friendliest contract terms in the business. We’re authors too, so we know what it’s like to sign a year’s work away, only to find yourself trapped in a relationship with poor royalties or bad editing, late payments or terrible covers or nonexistant communication. We are not an author mill. We have no set production quotas, and we view authors as partners, not as inconveniences.

We’re not seeking to make money on volume by turning over as many manuscripts as we can as quickly as we can, quality be damned. Instead, we carefully select a small handful of manuscripts and shower them—and their writer!—with all the love and attention they deserve. That means excellent cover art, excellent layout, Manhattan-quality editing, a dedicated marketing staff, and author-friendly contracts. We’re proud to put our name on every book we publish, and our authors are too!

Our press may be new, but our staff is most certainly not. We know traditional publishing, e-publishing, the LGBTQ market, and sales and management intimately because we’ve been a part of it as authors, editors, marketers, and business owners. To learn more about us, please browse the rest of our FAQ and check out our staff bios.

We know a primary concern with any new publishing venture is the possibility it will go bankrupt. Rest assured that cannot happen at Riptide because we’ve taken on zero debt—and we never will. Our business model is structured such that we grow no faster than the press's own profits can support, and we’re so confident of Riptide Publishing’s success that we’ve seeded the venture with our personal royalties and savings. That said, we understand you want more than assurances, so we have a comprehensive bankruptcy clause in our contract, based on the industry-standard EPIC model.

We've also demonstrated a marked ability to package, edit, and market books that garner strong sales and critical acclaim in our opening six months—including achievements such as multiple Dear Author Recommended Reads and Top 10 bestsellers in a variety of Amazon and ARe categories.

We publish all genres of LGBTQ romantic, erotic, and literary fiction, with a particular focus on:

• Speculative fiction, such as fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, urban fantasy, etc.
• Military: any era, any nation, any planet
• BDSM: well researched and 100% consensual, please
• Power exchange: real slavery, capture, kidnapping, etc. (noncon is welcome here)
• Meticulously-researched historicals from any era
• Literary fiction with little or no erotic or romantic content

We are also actively seeking:

• Contemporary
• Mysteries
• Thrillers
• Horror
• Menage (M/M/F with strong M/M elements is welcome)
• Transsexual fiction
• Stories without HEAs or HFNs
• . . . You name it, if it’s a great story, we want it!

We publish all heat levels, from sweet romance to hardcore erotica. We do not require romance in our erotica (although that’s lovely, too), nor do we require HEAs or HFNs. We love happy endings just as much as the next reader, but we believe there’s a place for dark romance and dark erotica with dark endings.

Our list is shorter than most.

• No pedophilia or necrophilia, please.
• No scat.
• No bestiality, though shifter sex in animal form is welcome.
• No rape as titillation, though dubcon and forced seduction as titillation are welcome, as is rape in non-titillating circumstances.
• No materials that encourage or shine a positive light on hate of any kind. Please note that doesn’t mean your character can’t be a bigot; it just means you-the-author should not be agreeing with him or her.

Nope.

We purchase worldwide English language rights for all print and digital forms, translation rights, and audio rights. You retain film rights, and any other rights not explicitly stated in the contract. Standard contract terms for new books are four years. Reprints are negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Most rights are negotiable.

No, no, and no again. There’s nothing in the world more frustrating or muse-killing than finding yourself contractually obligated to submit a sequel to a publisher who’s treated you poorly. Not that we’ll ever treat you poorly, mind you, but we want our authors to return to us again and again because they love it here, not because they’ve signed their creative life away.

Absolutely not. Expert editing, layout, cover design, and all other parts of the production process are 100% free.

Because we are an invitation-only publisher who invested significant resources into crafting the perfect (we hope!) author-friendly contract, we don't post our contract publicly. However, most of our terms (contract length, royalty rates, bankruptcy clause, stance on right of first refusal, etc.) are spelled out clearly in our FAQ, and much of our contract is modeled after the industry-standard EPIC contract. Of course, all invited authors are more than welcome to review our contract at any time.

Ebook royalties start at 50% of net, regardless of the length of your project. Once you cross a certain sales threshold, royalties increase to 60% of net, and once you cross the final sales threshold, royalties increase to 70% net.

For print on demand, we offer 15% of list price (which, depending on a number of factors discussed below, equates to roughly 30% to 60% of net), and once sales cross a certain threshold, we offer 20% of list price. We chose list over net for print in the interests of honesty and transparency; authors rarely know what they’ll receive on a net royaty system because print costs, shipping costs, stocking costs, distributor costs, and third-party discounts all come off the top, and houses rarely disclose those numbers. (With ebooks, on the other hand, the only cost incurred is a third-party discount, which makes calculating ebook nets simple.) We decided to eliminate all that confusion by paying on list, even though it makes our print royalties appear to be less competitive than they actually are.

“List” means the price on the cover of the book. So if your print book lists for $15, you’ll earn $2.25 for each sale, regardless of what price the retailer sells the book for. “Net” means the sale price of the book minus third-party vendor fees. Nothing else is taken into consideration for the “net” calculation. So if your ebook sells for $5, you’ll earn $2.50 for each copy sold directly through our website, and $1.75 for each copy sold through Amazon, since Amazon keeps 30% of every sale.

Royalties are paid monthly, either via check or Paypal. (Authors outside the USA are paid via Paypal only.) Sales made at our website are paid the next month, but third-party royalties are passed on to you only once we receive them, which means you may not see royalties from your January Amazon sales until April or so. Some vendors pay quarterly. Others pay only twice a year. Some pay monthly on a net 45 or net 90 delay. If we've offered you a contract, we're happy to answer any questions you might have about specific vendors' schedules and policies.

Like most of our fellow publishers in the erom space, we do not. In exchange, however, we offer one of the most competitive royalty rates in the business. Even so, if our authors feel strongly about this, there may come a time when we work advances into our business model.

Short answer? Anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000+ words.

Longer answer? We sell stories as short as a thousand words: Riptide Wet Dreams for erotic shorts, and Riptide Ripples for non-erotic shorts. Even our $.99 shorts receive unique cover art and full distribution to all major sites.

We accept longer stories too, of course, but it’s highly unlikely we’ll publish a work much longer than 125,000 words, excepting epic sci-fi or fantasy.

For a complete breakdown of our short, novelette, novella, and novel lengths and sale prices, please see our pricing FAQ.

Maybe. If you have a long and proven track record, or you’re an existing Riptide author, we may consider a reprint. Otherwise, no. Please note that contract terms on reprints will vary from our boilerplate depending on how much (or how little) editorial, cover art, layout, conversion, and marketing work needs to be done.

No. We’ll get back to you in six weeks or less, so please be patient and do not submit your manuscript to anyone else while you have it out with us. Please do not submit more than one manuscript to us at a time, either, though if we’re already working with you, you may feel free to send other projects directly to your editor, even if you currently have one or more manuscripts in the production pipeline.

Yes we do, but we’re also happy to work with your agent if you have one. Please note, however, that with the exception of open calls and well-established authors with proven track records, Riptide Publishing is by invitation or existing author referral only.

If you've been invited or referred, and your work is rejected, we do indeed send a personalized letter. After all, we're authors too, and we all know the frustration of receiving a one-line “thanks but no thanks” rejection. Our rejection letters may still be fairly short, but they will explain the primary reasons why we felt we couldn’t accept your piece.

We may also on occasion send what we call an R&R, or a “revise and resubmit” letter. Celebrate—these are good news! An R&R means the acquisition editor saw great potential in your story, but felt something (or several somethings) weren’t quite strong enough to justify a contract. The editor will send you back a list of those things that need fixing and invite you to resubmit once you tackle the revisions. By no means are you obligated to do so, and it’s important to note that even after you make the revisions, your manuscript may still be rejected. But many R&Rs result in contracts in the end.

If you're submitting under an open call and we reject your story, we'll do our best to send a personalized letter, but it's unlikely if the submission volume is high.

If you have made such significant changes that the manuscript no longer even resembles the version we rejected—in other words, if it’s essentially a new book—then yes. Otherwise, no.

No. If the anthology or collection editor thinks your piece won’t work for his or her purposes but would work as a standalone, he or she will forward the submission to another editor for evaluation.

Remember, we are an invitation-only publisher. Please do not send submissions unless you're responding to one of our open calls, you've been referred, or you have a long and proven track record in the M/M genre.

If you fall into one of the above categories, please send the following to submissions@riptidepublishing.com:

• A 1-page query letter in the body of the email.
• A 3 to 5 page synopsis as an attachment to the email.
• The first 20 pages of your manuscript as an attachment to the email. If your manuscript is shorter than 20 pages, include the whole manuscript.

All attachments should be .doc or .rtf files. Please format your manuscript as follows:

• 1” margins all around
• 1.5 line spacing
• NO TABS OR SPACES for paragraph indents! Use the paragraph formatting feature to indent your first lines 0.5”
• 12-point Times New Roman or Book Antiqua font
   

Save your files as “Book-title_Author-lastname_SYNOPSIS” and “Book-title_Author-name_MS” respectively. For instance, Pride and Prejudice would be Pride-and-Prejudice_Austen_MS.rtf and Pride-and-Prejudice_Austen_SYNOPSIS.rtf.

Be sure to include a header on each page with your book title on the left and your name on the right. On the synopsis, please include a title page with your full name, address, phone number, and email.

Depending upon the length of the book and the house’s current production schedule, your book could be published anywhere from six weeks to nine months after acceptance. (Some long-lead acquisitions or books bought on proposal may be published a year or more after acceptance, but never without explicit author permission.)

Most novellas require roughly three months to produce and most novels require roughly six months to produce. In almost all cases, we will have your cover art and advance reader copies (ARCs) ready at least a month in advance of your release date so you and we can solicit early reviews and promote with ease.

A manuscript goes through many stages to become a published book. First, your manuscript is assigned to the appropriate developmental editor (DE). The DE may make suggestions for some pretty significant changes—or, if the book is very clean, the changes may be minor. Expect this process to take one to three months, depending on the length of the book, the number and significance of edits required, the speed at which the author is able to return those edits to the editor, and the editor's schedule.

Once the book is done with developmental edits, it goes on to the line editor, then back to the author, possibly more than once. This process can take two to four weeks, sometimes more with an exceptionally long or error-prone manuscript. After that, it goes to the copyeditor, and again back to the author, which can take an additional two to four weeks. Then it goes to the proofreader. When the proofreader’s done with it, it goes to the typesetter, who lays out the manuscript and produces what’s called a galley. The galley goes back to the author, who gets one last chance to review the manuscript for errors. That concludes the editing process. We know that's a lot more editing than you'll find at many other epubs, and it may seem a bit intimidating, but it's how Riptide produces Manhattan-quality books, and we guarantee you'll be delighted with the end result!

Once the editing's done, we send the book to our converter, who uses software to convert your Word doc into a variety of ebook formats and then checks and codes each format by hand to ensure a beautiful and error-free layout.

Meanwhile, your chosen cover artist is hard at work giving your book the best possible face for the world. When you’re done with the galley and the cover artist is done with the cover, we put it all together into an ARC, which we then start sending out to reviewers in advance of publication. We like to have at least four weeks for this to generate the most exposure and excitement for your release we can.

We are one of the only epubs in the M/M space to offer true developmental edits, comprehensive line edits and copyedits, hand-coding for our ebook files, or long-lead pre-publication ARCs. This is why our production time is longer than most, but we firmly believe it's worth the wait.

If your story is over 60,000 words, it will be included in our print program automatically. Currently, print books release three to six months after ebooks, but we hope to feature simultaneous release by the end of 2012.

If your story is between 25,000 and 60,000 words, print publication hinges on the success of your ebook sales.

Shorter stories may be bundled into thematically similar single-author or multi-author print collections. We will occasionally make open submission calls for such collections. Shorter books may also be placed into print as standalone limited-edition chapbooks, primarily for promotional purposes.

Interior illustrations are tricky in ebooks and make the book expensive to produce. If your book requires, say, a map at the opening, that’s fine, but anything more than that may be rejected.

As for cover art, we have an excellent stable of artists to provide cover art for our titles and create a consistent look across our brand, but we are open to considering outside art if the rights are free and clear. Please note that if we do consent to use your cover art, all rights for the art must be turned over to us.

We distribute our ebooks to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks, 1 Place for Romance, 1 Erotica Ebooks (erotica titles only), Goodreads, Rainbow Ebooks, and TLA.com. We also distribute to dozens of large and small etailers through Ingram, one of the largest book distributors in the world. Of course we also sell our books on our own site, and we're constantly working to expand our distribution to vendors who will not devalue your work by heavily discounting it.

Our print books are also distributed through Ingram. This means your print book will be sold on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, Books-a-Million, and hundreds of other online stores throughout the world. They'll also be available for order through any brick-and-mortar bookstore, though given the subject matter, it’s unlikely your neighborhood Borders will stock them routinely.

Chris Hawkins, one of Riptide Publishing’s co-owners, is a professional publicist. Since she owns a stake in the business, which only makes money when you make money, you can bet she’ll be working hard for you!

Chris helps every Riptide author develop a marketing plan for each individual book they publish and for their careers as a whole. We also offer ongoing marketing training to our authors to help them grow and develop at their own pace. We'll help you schedule blog tours, provide prize support for your marketing efforts, create banners and bookmark designs for your books, and even ship you swag. 

In addition, every book you publish with us will be submitted to a large number of reviewers, and we advertise the press as a whole on several genre-appropriate sites. We’ll also be making appearances at conventions and book fairs each year, hosting blog tours and virtual parties filled with giveaways, and promoting your work on sites like Goodreads and the Riptide Reader Loop.

We’d make them all walk the plank if we could. Since that’s not legal anymore (much like ebook piracy, yarr!), we monitor the popular pirate sites and issue DMCA takedown notices to all offenders. If you spot your book being pirated somewhere, just shoot us an email and we’ll handle it. And if it’s something we can’t handle with a notice, we have an IP lawyer on retainer to deal with the sticky situations. Your book is yours, and we will defend your copyright to the full extent of the law.