Publishing for Free with StoryForge
It can cost around $2,000 to self-publish a book.* Your other option is a notorious long-shot: finding a publisher all by yourself. We think there’s a better way. A free, straightforward path to publishing.
No hidden fees, no AI shortcuts, and no bullshit red tape. StoryForge is a queer- and woman-owned publisher founded by writers for writers. We’ll help you write, share, and publish your book for free.
*Source: All the self-published authors on our team!
The Cost of Publishing
Publishing has never been easier, yet it remains inaccessible to many. Finding an agent or publisher can take years, and self-publishing
Traditional Publishing
May take years to publish.
Chases current trends.
Low advances & royalties.
Self Publishing
Difficult to find beta readers.
Expensive to edit & produce.
Rife with scams.
At StoryForge, we’re tackling the problem in our own way, by giving authors a space to grow while they’re writing their manuscript in the StoryForge platform, and supporting them once they’re ready to publish.
Start Your Publishing Journey
Writing a book is hard enough, so you don’t need all these other barriers to actually getting your book published. That said, we’re approaching publishing a bit differently…
We don’t want a finished product. We want to help you develop new stories and works-in-progress. Our free writing platform lets you track your progress, build community, and get the feedback you need to turn an idea into a cult classic.
With StoryForge, there are three tracks you’ll use along the Legendary Path to Publishing:
While writing and editing your work, your Content track will level up.
When readers read and comment on your story, your Audience track will level up.
By engaging with the StoryForge community, the Involvement track will level up.
When you get all three tracks to Level 15, you complete the Legendary Path and unlock the option to be published for free. No hidden fees, no AI shortcuts, and no bullshit red tape.
Submission Requirements
StoryForge only accepts work that has completed the Legendary Path to Publishing. Everything you need to get published with us is available for free on StoryForge.
After you submit your story, our team will decide if it’s a good fit to publish with us. Whatever our decision, you’ll know within a month. If your story is approved, we’ll work closely with you to edit, format, and prepare your story for digital or print publication.
Frequently Asked Questions
You may have additional questions about The Legendary Path To Publishing. Seeing the words“Free publishing” is great, but you’re right to ask questions. If you don’t get an answer from these FAQs, please reach out to publishing@storyforge.com
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It’s how you get your work published by StoryForge! As you work on your story, it levels up. Getting to Level 15 in all three tracks means that you have completed the Legendary Path, and you have a polished product that is eligible to be physically and/or digitally published by StoryForge’s imprint!
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Novels, novellas, novelettes, short story collections, and poetry collections may be published as standalone works.
If you’re writing a single short story or a single poem, those will be kept on hold until we have enough content to publish an entire anthology/collection.
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No, this isn’t self-publishing. Authors who self-publish have to do all of the research, organizing, and marketing by themselves—and it isn’t cheap!
The path to publishing is designed to work alongside you while you’re writing and revising your story, so you always know where you need to work and grow. Along the way, you’ll earn rewards in StoryForge. Once you complete the path to publishing, you may submit the story to StoryForge’s imprint! -
The Legendary Path is free, because we believe in making publishing accessible to everybody. If you believe in our mission, picking up a subscription is a great way to support us. Subscriptions remove ads from the platform, and you can buy a lifetime subscription for $20.00 USD!
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There are three different tracks that you need to complete to become Legendary and get published. Some of them you can do by yourself, and for others you’ll need some help from the rest of the StoryForge community.
All of them are achievable, but it’s not going to be easy to do. When you come out of the Legendary Path, you’ll have a polished project, complete with lots of reader feedback and insights, with the ability to build a fan base.
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Content: driven by your writing and editing.
Involvement: powered by engaging with feedback left on your project and by providing other authors with feedback.
Audience: how the community interacts with your story.
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If you ever get stuck and need help progressing on any of the Legendary tracks, you can always reach out to the community! Find or create a Circle to help motivate you to write, to find new readers, or to discover other stories on StoryForge.
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Once you get your work to Level 15 in all three tracks (Audience, Involvement, and Content), you’ll see the option to Submit in the Legendary tab. When you feel like you’re ready, hit that button, and the StoryForge team will start the process of reviewing your story.
Only submit your manuscript once it is completed. StoryForge won’t publish any works that are not finished. -
You don’t. Opting-in to the Legendary Path doesn’t lock you into being published through StoryForge.
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Fan Fiction can’t be published at this time, due to the complications with intellectual property that type of story inherently creates. For example, although you can write and share a story set in the Star Wars universe, you cannot sell it without permission from Disney.
Anything that violates StoryForge’s terms of service, community standards, or company values.
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Your Fan Fiction is welcome on the site! We just can’t publish it. There are a lot of copyright laws that prevent this. Now, if you were to take your fan fiction and transform it into a new intellectual property (examples would be Fifty Shades of Grey, After, or The Love Hypothesis), then that is no longer considered fan fiction and would be eligible for publishing.
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If you’re creating a new story or bringing one over from somewhere else, make sure to activate the Legendary Path toggle in the story creation process. If you selected that this is a work in progress, you’ll be prompted to answer a few questions so we can better understand what you’re bringing in. You may even find that you’ve leveled up.
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If you have an existing work already on StoryForge, good news! You’ve already been leveling up behind-the-scenes. You can activate the Legendary Path in the Story Manager to see your progress.
You can opt into Legendary at any time! You’ve been leveling up behind the scenes if you’ve already been writing for a bit.
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It does! The story type (eg: short story, novel, etc.) tells us the expected length and format of your work. If it becomes longer than the current selection, we’ll automatically change the type. This doesn’t happen backwards, so if your story gets much shorter you’ll have to change it manually.
If you’re looking to write your own poetry or short story collection, make sure you select that as your type and then add each new story/poem as a new chapter. We’re not able to gather up a bunch of completely separate poems and stories in your account. -
Once you’ve submitted a completed manuscript, and our team has approved it, we’ll email you with more information and an offer to publish the work. If you accept the contract, we’ll work with you to form a plan for editing, formatting, and preparing the work for publication.
StoryForge distributes eBooks and physical copies through a number of storefronts including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Walmart, Gardners, and many others—including on StoryForge’s website
If you would like to see some examples of other work we’ve published already, check out Voices Like These, an anthology written by people from the StoryForge community! This is just one example, and we’re eager to work with more authors on new stories. -
Authors keep 60% of the book’s net profit. There is no fee to publish with StoryForge. Sales reports are provided to the author quarterly.