About Raven Publishing
Celebrating Twenty Years

For more than twenty years, the mission of Raven Publishing has been to entertain,
excite, and inspire readers through the publication of thoughtful, compelling books.

The Evolution of Raven Publishing

Our History and Policies

Self-publishing Set up and registered with the State of Montana as a company in the fall of 2021, we (Author Hill and a staff of three) published two middle-grade novels in 2002. Raven Publishing went on to publish four more novels by the end of 2004, completing the first six books of the Miranda and Starlight series by Raven’s founder, Janet Muirhead Hill.

Traditional publishing Already a legitimate independent publishing company, (one that owns its ISBNs) we added staff and became a traditional publisher in 2005 by accepting and publishing books by other authors. (A traditional press is one in which the publisher is responsible for all the work and expenses and pays the author a royalty on books sold in exchange for rights to publish and sell their work). Raven continued to publish award-winning novels by various authors at the rate of two or three per year through 2008.

With the crash of the economy and a drastic drop in book sales, Raven took a moratorium in 2009 and 2010 to restructure with a reduced staff and ride out the difficult financial times. We used this time to publish all of our print titles as e-books on Amazon’s Kindle and Smashwords.com and to prepare more books for publication. In 2011, we released more titles in both print and ebook formats.

Hybrid publishing Over the next ten years we became a hybrid publisher, which means in addition to publishing some books under a traditional contract, we co-published other. In cooperative or co-publishing as we define it, the author helps with expenses by agreeing to purchase a certain quantity of the finished book in advance. In both cases, as we always have, we consult the author in decisions for layout, cover-design, and close editing. Our aim is to produce, not only a book that appeals to the reading audience, but one of which the author is satisfied and can be proud.

Co-publishing In 2022, we did not publish a single book while Raven’s CEO and sole employee, Janet Muirhead Hill, re-evaluated the business model, looking for ways to make it financially viable to continue. With a better handle on our P & L, Raven will begin publishing again, using only the cooperative-publishing model. That means the author will purchase copies of their book in a quantity that works for them, but will never be asked to spend more than the retail value of the quantity they choose to buy. It also means, that after the initial launch and introduction to the industry, due to limited staff, the bulk of the marketing and distributing will be up to the author.

Price schedule for author’s initial purchase

# of copies           the % of retail price you pay in advance

1 - 50                 100%

50 - 99                90%

100 – 99            80%

200 – 299            75%

300 – 499            65%

500 – 999             55%

1000 – 1999           47%

2000 and up         45%

After the initial purchase, an author will be able to buy additional copies for 50% of retail as long as the book remains in print. Authors will receive a 10% royalty on the net sales of their book, the same as with traditional publishing.

Our published works includes juvenile and young adult fiction, and adult titles including documented history, historical novels, literary novels, memoirs, mysteries, and books of short stories and essays. To view our complete list, see our online catalog.

See our submissions guidelines.