Häufig gestellte Fragen

A new book format that knows no boundaries, that combines online and offline. We are the somewhat different publishing house that brings back the fun of reading.

Open an account and publish your texts on story.one (max. 2500 characters, excluding spaces, per story). Let your creativity run free. If you want to make a book out of it later, pay attention to the number of characters (at least 1600 characters, more on this in "How do I design my book?"). You can create your book from 12-17 texts - with or without an ISBN.

discovers and promotes a new generation of young and exciting authors.

The competition will be held for the second time in 2022 and aims to discover and promote young writing and storytelling talent throughout the German-speaking world. Anyone aged 35 and under at the start (15.03.2022) can take part.

Open a story.one account (if you don't have one yet), publish your stories and create a book (with ISBN) from your stories directly on the platform. The format is the same for everyone: a story.one book of 12-17 stories of max. 2,500 characters each (without spaces). The rights to the stories remain with you (we only have the distribution rights). As soon as you have created your book, be sure to enter the voucher code YSA22 when uploading it to buy your ticket for the competition. Participation is completely free, and you will even receive a free author's copy. Before uploading, write a book description for the online book trade. You will receive a 10-25% commission for copies sold in stores (-> "How can I earn money with my book?"). Please do not forget your bio (no pseudonym).

No. You are completely free, starting this year all genres are allowed - real life, fiction or non-fiction ... multi-part stories (one plot in 12-17 stories/chapters), scenes or single stories, prose or poetry. Please note only that your texts must fit into the book at the end (always 3 pages/story) and have 1,600-2,500 characters. Many paragraphs can reduce your maximum number of characters. The best thing to do is to check the length of your text while you are writing it. There is a tool for this in the text editor.

You can choose from +1,000 free covers or upload your own - the normal fee of 35€ is waived when you enter the voucher YSA22 and we check the image quality and set-up for free. And you can choose to image every 2nd story. Although the text is the most important part, the jury will judge the whole book idea - so plan enough time here.

"Writing well is a prerequisite, but not enough to win the Young Storyteller Award 2022, it's about the whole book idea." Every single submission is first carefully read by a large jury of experts, who create a longlist of 20 books at the end. Then the final jury around Frahling Marcel Hartges will start work and nominate the 10 finalists on 5.10., who will read for the big final on 14.10. in Vienna. One request: State your age in the bio if you are under 20. PS: The expert jury starts its work on 15 August and has already begun reading all the books submitted by then.

Yes, we are a publishing house for everyone, anyone can publish a story.one book with us. We don't want to cancel exciting manuscripts every day and are "unlimited" when it comes to topics and authors.

No, the use of the online platform is free - no matter how many stories you write. We will only send you an invoice when you order your own book with or without ISBN, minimum order quantity 1 copy € 16,50.

We have only one format that we love - all story.one books have hard covers and a format of 12x19 cm. They contain 12 to 17 texts, up to 8 colour pictures and the author's biography. We print our books in Germany with paper from sustainably managed forests.

The design of your story.one book begins with the cover. In our database you will find +1000 free motifs selected by designers, which are matched to the format. For a small extra charge, you can also use your own cover image, which we will then check and fit for you. Choose 12-17 stories/texts, 3 pages of text are reserved for each in the book. And please make sure you check in the text editor (book symbol) whether your text fits nicely on 3 book pages. A lot of paragraphs reduce the maximum number of characters per story. Then you can illustrate every second story. Once your book is perfect for you, you can publish it and order author copies for yourself. Add an informative book description for online trade shortly before ordering. 3 days later, your book will be entered in all online book databases and can be ordered everywhere after approx. 10 days.

You or the book trade sell it as often as possible. You can buy your own books from us at a discount and for all books sold in trade we pay an author's fee - this starts at 10% (for sold copies 11-2.999), from 3.000 copies the commission increases to 12%, from 10.000 copies to 16%. (-> How are the author's commissions calculated?). Our bestseller so far has already sold +20,000 copies. But set yourself realistic goals: Did you know that 90% of all books sell less than 100 copies? With a well-chosen book topic or an active community, anyone can do it.

You can buy books for yourself, for your friends or for sale directly from us at a reduced price. Depending on the number of copies, the price drops from € 16.50 to € 9.50 per book (you can find the discount scale under "The story.one book" in the main menu).

Yes, in times of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, the greatest book successes come from your own community. If a book catches our eye because it sells very well (+1,000 copies), we will support you with additional promotion.

In addition to your own cover image (€ 35), you can write a text for the spine (U4), which will be fitted to the back of your cover by a graphic designer (€ 35). You can also work with one of our graphic designers on your own cover within the framework of our corporate design (from € 300). In the inner part, adjustments to the text layout (e.g. line breaks in the title, in the dedication, text passages in italics), additional short quotations on blank pages etc. are possible (€ 55 per hour). Write us an email at [email protected], we are looking forward to realising your individual design wishes.

As long as it meets our publishing line, every book is published. Since quality is important to us, we read every book before it is printed. We stand for an open worldview, human rights, freedom, and democracy. We are strictly against political and religious extremism, any form of racism and sexual discrimination (see also -> Community Standards). We also reserve the right to refuse the publication of books with too many spelling mistakes (-> How can I have my book corrected before publication?). We support the "Vienna Manifesto for Digital Humanism" (Vienna, June 2019).

You can reorder your book at any time by sending an email to [email protected] Corrections of an already published book are also possible. If you order +10 copies, we will cover the costs of uploading them to the databases. If you do not reorder, we will charge € 35.

First change the language setting from DE to EN (in the header). Then open a new story draft and publish your English story (max. 2500 characters without spaces). The story will then appear on www.story.one/EN. We have just started the English story.one site and are in the beta phase. If you want to market your English book internationally, get in touch. We are also working on making a book with stories in several languages soon. Until then, send us an email at [email protected]

If you already know who exactly you want to do your book with, go ahead and publish your stories. If you have a specific topic in mind for a book, you can search for suitable stories online and invite the authors to your book project. Or start a fire (group) on your book topic, other authors can then submit their stories to you. There is also room for 12 to 17 stories/texts and a maximum of 8 pictures in books with several authors. At the moment we can only have anthologies produced "by hand" by our graphic artists (minimum order 50 copies or €55/graphic artist hour). But we are already working on it, so that you will soon be able to design your joint book directly on the platform. Until then, send us an email at [email protected]

Hannes Steiner, multiple "Publisher of the Year" with number 1 bestsellers in several countries. Despite having published over 100 bestsellers, he always felt the book market was unfair because only a select few get to make a book. His dream has always been a publishing house that is fun for everyone, combines online and offline and is limitless in every way - story.one.

The author's commission is paid once a year in February of the following year. You receive 10% commission from the 11th copy sold in the trade. For copies 3.000-9.999 the commission increases to 12%, from 10.000 to 16% The basis for the commission calculation is the retail price of € 16.50 minus VAT (A), distributions are made from an amount of € 10, amounts below this are carried forward into the following year. We will contact you automatically when you receive a commission.

Send us an email at [email protected] and a professional proofreader will check the spelling of your texts (€ 100 per book). There is also a correction programme in the text editor that you can activate.

The exploitation rights to your texts remain with you; you can use them for other story.one books or other projects at any time. We have unlimited distribution rights to books with ISBN.

The +1000 free covers from our database are all of optimal quality. If you have your own cover image, please make sure that it is in landscape format and has 300 dpi. Ideal are 3450x2700 pixels. Our graphic designers will then check and optimise your image. The pictures for the inner part are in portrait format (min. 600x900 pixels). Please understand that we will reject photos if they do not meet our quality criteria from a technical point of view.

Be careful not to violate the personal rights of others. If in doubt, ask the person for permission to publish the story. Or modify the text so that the person is not identifiable. As the editor of a book with texts by different authors, you need their permission to print and are responsible for the book and its content. For the title of the book, we recommend checking whether it already exists. If in doubt, choose a different one. And please state in the book who holds the rights to the pictures.

Send an email to [email protected] or write to us in the chat. Prohibited content includes racist, violent, homophobic or inflammatory content (see Community Standards for more information). If users think they have violated community standards, we will warn, block or irrevocably delete the account - depending on the severity of the violation.

If you'd like to make a book together with friends, then designate one person to be the editor. This person obtains permission to reprint from the authors and the stories can be published with the author's consent. Since this process has not yet been automated, we can only produce anthologies for quantities of 50 or more books.

Most people start writing quickly because they feel that something is "happening". But first think calmly about who you want to write the book for: just for you, Family & Friends or are you writing for the many people "out there" who might be interested in your book topic? And then ask yourself the question: What could the title of the book be?

If you have big goals and also want to sell your books, then there are 2 factors for this: 1.) The number of your personal "fans", often connected with your popularity. 2.) The relevance of your content and the question of how many books there already are on this topic. Often it is the small topics that make it big. Write a book about your town, your street, your district, that will interest local booksellers. Or make a book on a very special topic, about your unusual hobby, etc.. There are endless exciting book topics.

Some say the cover is half the battle. A really good cover arouses curiosity, it tells almost everything the book is about, but not everything. It is a combination of image and text and should create a harmonious overall picture. Very good covers create a question in the reader's mind that they can only answer when they read the book.

There are really only 2 possibilities: You choose a maximum of 8 pictures to match the individual stories, or you illustrate the book independently of the individual stories. Many readers like it when all the pictures have one style, e.g. only close-up, only people, only landscapes, only black and white. If it's a bit of everything, a book quickly looks restless. In the end, however, it has to feel harmonious and coherent to you.

During the production of the book cover, the edges of the image are glued inwards, so the edges are "cut off" in the printed cover. Therefore, do not place important image information or text directly on the edge of the image. In our cover database you will find +1000 suggestions selected by experts, which are perfectly matched to the story.one layout.

Many online users decide whether to read your story based on the title, the cover image and the first 1-2 sentences. You have a maximum of 2500 characters per story (without spaces), so limit yourself to the core of your story. Create images in your readers' minds and avoid long sentences. Hardly anyone takes the trouble to read a complex sentence twice. When you start the story, think about how you will get out at the end. Then the way there is a simple finger exercise ...

Send us an email at [email protected] We are always looking for talented writers for different book projects.