Bar Five Rafter Publishing Co.

LaGuardo, Tennessee

(615) 398‑1776

Answered evenings, six to nine, weeknights and Sundays.

The front cover of Ethan’s Promise Land: a painting of a man in a yellow slicker kneeling in a barn doorway holding a newborn calf, with two horses standing out in the rain behind him.
Cover painting, Rode Hard and Put Up Wet, by Joseph R. Vick.

Put your story in print.

Set in type, printed, bound, and put on sale under your own name. You keep the rights and the money. Telephone and ask.

(615) 398‑1776

The first book to carry this imprint

Ethan’s Promise Land: Horses, Soldiers, and Spotted Cattle

A novel about an old rancher who is put in a nursing home after a horse falls on him, walks out one rainy night, and goes home to fight for his farm.

Written on a farm in Middle Tennessee. Bringing it into print was done in several passes, and what was learned in each is what this house now offers.

Buy the paperback on Amazon.

Buy the Kindle edition on Amazon.

Look inside it

The real pages, from the file the printer works from. Turn them.

  1. The printed title page: the title, the author’s name, and the imprint.
    Page 1 The title page
  2. The printed copyright page, carrying the copyright line, the paperback ISBN 979-8-234-18809-0, and the imprint address in LaGuardo, Tennessee.
    Page 2 The copyright page
  3. The printed contents page, listing the chapters with their page numbers.
    Page 3 The contents
  4. The printed epigraph page: a short quotation set alone on the page.
    Page 5 The epigraph
  5. The printed dedication page.
    Page 7 The dedication
  6. The first printed page of the prologue.
    Page 13 The prologue opens
  7. A printed page of the story, set in the book’s reading type.
    Page 14 A page of the story
  8. The first printed page of chapter one, opening with a large drop capital.
    Page 23 Chapter one opens
  9. A printed page of the story.
    Page 24 A page of the story

What happens to your book

Seven steps, in order. Touch one.

  1. You telephone, or send the cover sheet. Typed, printed, or in your own hand; sent from here or posted with the pages.
  2. One person reads the whole book. Every word, before anything is agreed. No charge.
  3. An agreement comes by post. The price is on it. Signed with a pen, sent back with the first payment.
  4. The pages are set in type. Mistakes found in the reading come back to you as a numbered list.
  5. You say yes to the pages. Two rounds of changes included. Nothing is rewritten.
  6. A printed copy is checked by hand, then posted to you to hold before anyone can buy it.
  7. The book goes on sale under your name. Every file comes to you to keep. The shops pay you directly.

About eight weeks from the signed agreement when the queue is clear.

Three options

Every book gets the same reading, the same setting, and the same hand on the proof. What differs is the length. Anything unusual — photographs, verse, footnotes, recipes, large print — is quoted on its own, because no two of those are the same job.

  1. Option 1

    A short book

    $700

    To 20,000 words. A family history, a season’s memoir, a book of poems.

    • Paperback and Kindle, on Amazon
    • One ISBN
    • A printed proof, checked by hand — the printing, not the spelling
    • Two rounds of changes
  2. Option 2

    A book

    $1,400

    To 90,000 words. A novel, a memoir, a history. The book above is this kind.

    • Paperback, hardcover, and Kindle
    • Orderable by any shop or library
    • An ISBN for each binding
    • A printed proof, checked by hand — the printing, not the spelling
    • Two rounds of changes
  3. Option 3

    A long book

    $2,100

    To 140,000 words. A family saga, a full memoir, a county history.

    • Everything in Option 2
    • Up to 140,000 words
    • Two rounds of changes

Add-ons, at a rate

Handwritten pages, typed up
$8.00 a page
Typed or printed pages, entered
$3.00 a page
Words beyond the option, per thousand
$25.00
A third round of changes
$450.00
Photographs, footnotes, verse, recipes or large print
quoted
A binding beyond the option
quoted
Reading the whole book a second time
quoted first

The ISBN is registered to Bar Five Rafter, which is the publisher of record. Your name is on the book as the author. The rights and the earnings are yours, and the shops pay you.

Terms: forty per cent on signing, thirty when the proof is ordered, thirty before the book goes on sale. By check. The same figure to whoever telephones. A round of changes is one list, sent once, within twenty-one days; a second pass over the same page is a new round.

Not done here

No cover artwork.

You bring the picture; the press makes certain it prints. If you have not got one, telephone: the office will say what works on a cover, and what having one made is likely to cost.

No rewriting.

No line edit, no copyedit, no advice on the story. The book stays in your words.

We don’t take any of your earnings.

The shops pay you directly. The press sends one bill for its work.

No promises about readers.

Nobody can make one honestly.

No monthly charges.

One bill for the work, paid in the three parts set out above, and nothing after it. The accounts stay yours.

Your book, as it would be

Put in the name of the book and how long it is. Add the cover picture if you have one. The picture stays on this device.

Write to the office

Word when a book comes out, and nothing else.

What you send goes into one list that only this office reads. It is not sold, not shared, and not sent anywhere else. There is no tracking on this site and no advertising in it. Ask and it is deleted.

How to begin

Telephone

(615) 398‑1776

Outside the hours above it is an answering machine, and the call comes back on the next evening the telephone is answered.

Or send the pages

Telephone first. The address is given on the call, so that nothing arrives the office is not expecting.

Typed, printed, or written out by hand. The office telephones when the pages arrive. Originals are returned insured.

The cover sheet can be filled in here and sent, or printed and posted on top of the pages.

About the company

Bar Five Rafter Publishing Co. is a book publisher in Wilson County, Tennessee. The company takes a few titles at a time and gives each the same hand: one person reads the manuscript, sets the type, and checks the printed proof.

Service is Tennessee-based and direct. The telephone is answered by the person doing the work; manuscripts are accepted by post; the agreement is on paper; and every file belongs to the author, from the first day to the last.

The name is a cattle brand before it is a colophon. A rafter over a five over a bar, registered in this county and burned on the right hip.

The brand registration diagram: two outlines of an animal, marked left and right, with the brand placed on the right hip.
From the registration sheet.

The cover painting is sold as a print by the painter.

Telephone the office(615) 398‑1776