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Welcome to Lighthouse Publishing

Where every book finds its readers

Lighthouse is a publishing ecosystem. We take a book from manuscript to readers and beyond — five imprints, marketing, literary representation and verified reviews. Debut or bestseller, we connect you to your audience.

“They rejected my first submission with a two-page letter explaining exactly why. I rewrote it for eight months and they took it.”

Ananya Rao · Beacon Literary

1,200+Authors published
38Countries
94Bestsellers
Start your journey
✦ The Lighthouse Prize 2026 ✦A ₹5,00,000 advance for a debut — no entry fee. Closes 31 August. Tap to read the terms.

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International rights

Frankfurt Book Fair

Lighthouse global showcase

We take a stand at Frankfurt to sell translation and audio rights for our list, and to meet the editors who buy them. Authors on our list are represented whether or not they can travel — and every meeting about your book is reported back to you in writing.

When
07 – 11 October 2026
Where
Frankfurt Messe, Germany
Global rights enquiry
Cinematic showcase

Featured book trailers

High-production visual trailers, made in-house for our authors and their launches.

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The Library Door· Lighthouse Amplify

A reader crosses a threshold she has read about all her life.

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How it works

Our process

Every stage is visible from your dashboard the day the book enters the house — including the ones where we are the ones holding it up.

01

Discovery

You send the book and tell us what you want from it. We read all of it — the whole manuscript, not the first three chapters.

02

The honest answer

Yes, no, or not yet — with reasons. A no here is worth more than a maybe that costs you a year.

03

Terms

Advance and royalty for a trade contract, or a fixed itemised quotation if you are publishing it yourself. No line called “miscellaneous”.

Our network

Our partnerships

  • Ingram
    Global print and distribution
  • Audible
    Audiobook production and reach
  • Amazon & Flipkart
    Retail and Kindle
  • Apple Books & Kobo
    Digital editions
  • Crossref
    DOI registration
  • Nielsen BookScan
    Sales reporting

Client success

Author testimonials

They rejected my first submission with a two-page letter explaining exactly why. I rewrote it for eight months and they took it. No one else even replied.
Ananya Rao The Salt Line, Beacon Literary
Forty-three cover drafts. I counted. The one we printed was nothing like the first and I still can't imagine the book with any other jacket.
Vikram Sethi The Long Monsoon, Harbor Press
The royalty dashboard updates weekly and shows sales by country. My previous publisher sent a PDF twice a year that I could not reconcile with anything.
Meera Krishnan Small Hours, Tidewater
I had a publicist with a name and a phone number. She answered on a Sunday during launch week. That is the whole review.
Joseph Mathew What the River Took, Harbor Press

Common inquiries

Frequently asked questions

Do you charge authors to publish?

Not for a trade contract — that is the one where we pay you, with an advance on signature. The Partnership and Independent tracks are paid for, and both are quoted as a fixed itemised figure before anything begins. There is never a fee to read or consider a manuscript.

How long until I hear back?

Fourteen days for a first response, and everybody gets one. If a manuscript is going to take longer — usually because two editors want to read it — you will hear that before the fourteen days are up rather than after.

Do I keep my rights?

On the Partnership and Independent tracks, entirely: the rights, the files and the print files stay yours, and you can walk away with them. A trade contract licenses specific rights for a term and a territory, all of it written in sentences you can read, with reversion spelled out.

Should I send the whole manuscript?

Not at first. Send the enquiry form with a description of the book and who it is for. If an editor wants it, they will ask for the full text in the format we need — which saves you formatting it for a house that turns out not to be right for it.

What if my book is already published?

Then publishing is not what you need, and the marketing, reviews and author-growth divisions all work on books published elsewhere. A surprising share of what those divisions run is for authors whose own publisher stopped after launch week.

Send us the book

The whole manuscript, a synopsis, and a line about who it is for. A commissioning editor reads all of it, and everyone gets a reply — three percent get an offer.