A subsidy publisher charges an author a fee to mechanically edit, typeset, proofread, and manufacture a specific number of books from a manuscript. Also provided for this fee is a limited and specified promotional program with a defined budget, warehousing, and other administrative services. A subsidy publisher can act as an intermediary between the typewritten manuscript and the typeset book, the author and the printer, the illustrator and the illustrations, the printer and the bindery, the bindery and the warehouse.

As an author, you are probably aware of (and perhaps have experienced) some of the problems of trying to get your work published by a commercial publisher. Just having your manuscript read by most commercial publishers is difficult and usually involves long delays. Even if you consult with a literary agent or send your manuscript to many commercial publishers, your efforts may go unnoticed.

The primary reason for this situation is business economics. With mounting costs of production and merchandising, the commercial book publishing industry is taking fewer risks, becoming more oriented toward the best seller aimed at the mass market and shying away from new or unknown authors and books. The commercial publisher is more inclined to publish books by established authors or well-known personalities even if not written as well as other manuscripts it rejects. Excellent poetry or works on specialized subjects may be turned down simply because the market may be limited or regional. For every manuscript published, many which deserve to be in print are not.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was rejected by five publishers. James Joyce's first book of short stories was rejected by twenty-two publishers. Ernest Hemingway's work was rejected. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was initially rejected, as was The Godfather, Love Story, and the recent best seller The Celestine Prophecy.

In contrast to a commercial publisher, a subsidy publisher does not invest its own moneys in the publication of authors' works and accepts most manuscripts for publication. A subsidy publisher does not judge a manuscript, but instead, relies on an author's belief in his or her own work and willingness to pay for publication, even when wide distribution is unlikely.

Subsidizing a book you have written can result in enduring value on a personal level. Publishing your own book can be an effective means for creative self-expression or sharing an experience with others. It may also bring recognition and accelerate your career. If only books considered to be potential best sellers were published, some of our most important writers may not have reached their audiences: George Bernard Shaw, Stephen Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Henry David Thoreau, and Rudyard Kipling all paid for the publication of their first works.

Every year thousands of worthwhile books are financially backed by universities, religious and business organizations, philanthropists, and government agencies as well as by individual authors or their sponsors.

Subsidy publishers offer authors, who otherwise may find no hope of publication, a means by which they can have the satisfaction of seeing their work in print.