There are traditional publishing houses - both large (think Simon & Schuster) and small (ShelteringTree.Earth) and every size in between. We share the same heart: the book. We make money from your book. You make money in the form of royalties AFTER the book sells. 

So we choose books which we believe will sell well and bring in more readers. 

We make our money on the book, not the author. 

Traditional publishers do not charge you, the author, for editing, copying, cover design, or postage. Their emphasis is on developing your book into a world-class item (the sales of which are intended to cover the costs of producing the book.)

Now, traditional publishers may charge you for buying copies of your own book (hopefully at discounted prices) so that you will have a stash for your book signing events and/or to give to friends and relatives. They also may expect you to pay your own expenses to those events. But the cost for producing a book falls on the publisher, not the author.

A podcast is like a log, it just has a different modality. Think - a Log is a book in which someone writes all the details of the day. A Blog is a typed article posted on a website. Then came the Vlog - a video log. There are also audio logs. In February of 2004, Ben Hammersley coined the term podcast by combining iPod (developed by Apple) and broadcast (the common term for news distribution systems). 

A podcast can be singular - one episode.

A podcast SERIES is plural and sequential - a series of episodes grouped under specific seasons. 

They can be hosted anywhere one can link to an MP3 (video podcast) or MP4A (audio podcast). However, if a podcast plays in a forest where no one listens to it, is it actually relevant? 

Sheltering Tree Media develops your audio or video logs, creates energetic and appealing openings and closings, monetizes them if you wish, and posts them on one of the largest podcast sites with over 5 million listeners. And then we curate your series - we maintain the series, schedules, and interpodial communications, and provide you with analytics and comments from your fans.

We contract your video or audio podcast series one season at a time.

I consider this media company as a ministry. I began it with books that were inspiring and helped the readers through any obstacle in their physical or spiritual path. Then we expanded into videos - book trailers and interviews, and then audios - The Ambitious Authors' Guide. From there, ministers began asking us to develop podcast series from their sermons, and authors who were not self-published asked us to interview them, and we are in the process of expanding into the gaming world of board and video games. 

ShelteringTree.Earth Publishing became Sheltering Tree Media. And the word media covers any technological advancement to come, too!

I am in this to help others - as authors, readers, speakers, listeners, rabbis, ministers, teachers, creators - as we all walk together through this life. 

Like smelters who refine gold and silver, a publisher needs to make sure that the end result will be able to withstand the refining process. 

We start with a 3-week query review - did you follow the directions on the website?

Then we review your manuscript for 6-weeks by reading randomly chosen chapters out of your entire book - to see if you know how to professionally set up a manuscript document (nuts and bolts of today's technology) and if you can develop a storyline with characters or concepts which come alive (are you a writer or an AUTHOR). Part of this process also lets us determine how much editing we might have to do for simple spelling, grammar, and mechanics which you as the writer should have taken care of before submitting it to us. 

Then we offer a contract.

The publishing process after the contract is signed can be shown here. 

Yes, you can write 40,000 pages of words and self-publish it in less than a month (refer to the Infinite Monkey Theorem about monkeys and Shakespeare, or the rants and rages against AI books). If that's what your goal is - go for it - without us.

If you want to become a professionally published and successful author producing books which will change the world (think: required reading for high schoolers in the year 2397), it takes time. 

There are ways you as the author can speed up the process:

1. Follow Directions

2. Have a manuscript in Word, 1" margins all around, one of the True Fonts, size 12, double spaced, nothing embedded (see August's article on triangles), hard tabs - not spaced tabs (look it up).

3. Ensure there are no blue or red squiggly lines (correct all spelling, grammar, mechanics errors).

4.  Allow the refinement process.