Packt Publishing seeks authors for Open Source titles.

Packt Publishing today announced the subjects on which it will be releasing some books in 2009. Packt is seeking authors interested in writing these books.

As a part of its ongoing commitment to Open Source, Packt is planning to release books on some of the hot topics next year like eZ Publish Templates, Customizing Zope Sites, Apache Jackrabbit, Apache CXF, Openbravo, OpenEMM, Django e-commerce, Bazaar VCS, Groovy dsl.

“Packt is a author friendly company. We have set up our editorial processes to help authors write their books in an effective way rather than being the rigid processes which expect authors to adjust toâ€Â, said Kshipra Singh, Author Relationship Manager at Packt. “We understand that most of our authors are working professionals who have a main job to do during the day on weekdays. Our flexible approach helps the authors to deliver quality content as fast as possible while taking into account that different authors have different circumstances, work differently and are comfortable with different timelinesâ€Â, she further added.

Packt believes in offering the best financial rewards to its authors in terms of royalties. The 15% royalty paid to authors at Packt is the highest in the industry. A 15% royalty from Packt works out to 11.25% of the cover price while the 9% royalty paid by other publishers translates to 4.5%. The low cost, Print-On-demand, direct marketing business model at Packt helps the company publish even those titles which other publishers won’t find very appealing.

The experienced marketing team at Packt ensures that the book is promoted well.

As a part of its commitment to Open Source Packt has a policy of donating a percentage of sales revenue coming from the book to the Open Source project on which the book is based. To keep up our commitment we have donated more 100 000 dollars to various Open Source projects put together since inception in 2004.

Those interested in authoring any of the books mentioned above can write to Packt at author@packtpub.com, including the subject they would like to write about and some brief information about their skills. All you need to be a good author is knowledge of your subject, a passion to share it with people, commitment to the project and good communication skills.

If you have any other topic ideas you would like to turn into a book, you can write to Packt at author@packtpub.com including a little information about it.