Purchase a publishing directory. These directories may be print books or online listings, and they contain current databases of book publishers. The databases list publishing company names and contact information and are categorized by the type of work they accept --- children's books, technical books, fiction and more. They also provide publishers' website addresses and the types of work they are seeking, and often show the percentages of royalties that they pay. If royalties are not advertised in the directories, they can often be found on the publishers' websites in the "Submission Guidelines" section.
With the advent of the Internet, publishers and printers are able to offer "self-publishing" options to writers. Some sites require the writer to pay for each step of the process, such as editing, layout and cover design, and once the book is published, the writer sells it from her own website and takes all the profit. Other websites offer totally free publishing services if the writer does all the artwork and layout, and the publisher sells the book and pays royalties to the writer. Once such site is Amazon's CreateSpace, where a writer can use the royalty calculator to find out the exact amount she will receive from royalties. In these cases, the writer retains all rights to her work.
Traditional publishers accept literary work on a merit basis. Writers have to submit a "query" letter outlining the details of their proposed book. Writing is a very competitive occupation. Publishers receive thousands of queries every month and choose only those works that they believe will earn a profit. The expenses of formatting, cover creation, editing, marketing and distribution have to be taken into account before the publisher can arrive at a recommended retail price, after which the actual dollar amount of the royalties can be calculated.
A vanity press is a publisher who accepts anyone's work as long as it is legal and makes reasonable sense, and the writer is willing to pay a large sum up front. Vanity presses rely on the desires of the writer to see her book in print --- hence, the term "vanity." These presses then take their portion of each sale and pay a royalty amount to the author. Other vanity presses disguise themselves as regular publishers and accept any reasonable manuscript. They do not charge anything up front and pay royalties, but they make the retail price very high.
The Internet has spawned a new type of book, the e-book. This is published in electronic format for download to the buyer's computer, smart phone or electronic reading device, such as Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook. Many traditional publishers issue books in e-format. There are also a growing number of online publishers who publish e-books, with print versions available after a certain number of e-book copies have been sold. Most of these publishers list their royalty information on their websites, usually in the "Submission Guidelines" section. Even though they are not printed on paper, e-books have covers and have to be specially formatted to work with various e-reading devices. Vanity presses also publish e-books.