Your book. Your rights. Your royalties. Our whole workshop.
Self-publishing at Lighthouse is not a vending machine. It's the same editors, presses and shelves as our trade list — with you as the publisher of record and up to 100% of net royalties, forever.
Everything a publisher does — with you holding the pen
You own everything
ISBN in your name, rights never assigned, files delivered to you. Leave any time and take your book with you — though almost nobody does.
Trade-list craft
The same editors who work on our JCB-winning fiction, the same cover studio, the same presses. There is no “self-publishing floor” in this building.
Glass-box royalties
A dashboard that shows every copy sold, by store and country, updated weekly — and pays quarterly without being asked.
Real distribution
Not just links — shelves. 120+ Indian bookshops on Beacon, 38 countries on First Light Pro, plus Amazon, Flipkart, Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo everywhere.
A date, in writing
Your contract includes a launch window. Miss it by our fault and the marketing sprint is free. We have paid out twice in nine years.
One named editor
A single project editor answers your mail, chases your proofs and knows your book's middle name. No ticket numbers.
Three packages, priced to the rupee
Clean professional launch for ready manuscripts.
- Copyedit · library cover · ISBN
- Paperback + ebook, online stores
- 60–75 days
The full trade treatment, shops included.
- Structural edit · original cover · hardcover
- 120+ bookshops + launch sprint
- 90–120 days
For books that need to travel far.
- Audiobook · 38 countries · festivals
- Rights desk at Frankfurt & London
- 120–150 days
The calculators
The same arithmetic our quotations use — nothing rounds in our favour. Estimates update as you type.
Indicative, before TDS. Your dashboard computes actuals per channel; statements match it to the paisa.
What 90–120 days actually looks like
Weeks 1–2
Manuscript assessment, package confirmation, contract and kickoff call with your project editor.
Weeks 3–7
Structural edit, your revision window, then copyedit. The argument phase — the good kind.
Weeks 8–10
Cover directions land; interior typeset in parallel. You choose, we refine until it's yours.
Weeks 11–12
Proofreads, your final sign-off, ISBN and copyright registration.
Weeks 13–15
Printing and press check; listings go live for pre-order; launch plan confirmed in writing.
Week 16
Launch. Bookshops stocked, publicist mailing out, royalty dashboard ticking. Champagne optional, recommended.
Success stories
A Field Guide to Forgetting sold out its first run in eleven weeks. Third printing now. My royalty statement is one page and I understand every line of it.
Herbarium started as a newsletter. Lighthouse turned it into an object people gift each other. The bookshop distribution was the difference — 61% of my sales are physical.
Zero Balance hit #1 in Crime on Kindle India in launch week. The metadata work they did was surgical — I watched it climb category by category.