Thank you for finding your way to Scotforth Books, part of Carnegie Publishing Ltd which has been established for 22 years. Scotforth Books specialises in advising and helping authors to get their books into print in a professional manner. The self-publishing route is not right for everyone, but it can be a suitable and sometimes very successful way of proceeding. With Scotforth Books you retain full control of every aspect of your book and its publication, as well as retaining all copyright and rights to publish.
The world of commercial publishing is extremely competitive. Increasingly publishers will only accept a manuscript which satisfies rigorous criteria, for example
Strictly speaking, publishing is merely the act of passing original printed material to another person. In fact, of course, it usually means the printing and binding of that material in the form of a book which is then sold or distributed to others. Commercial publishers either ask an author to write a book or accept a manuscript from an author on the basis that they think they will be able to sell enough copies to make a profit. Carnegie Publishing Ltd is such a commercial publisher, specialising in non-fiction, mainly history publishing – see Carnegie’s website).
As commercial publishers Carnegie is developing an extensive list of books which are sold on-line, direct to customers and also through the book trade including high-street bookshops across the country.
In many cases there is a limited market for an author’s book. This might be because of the specialised nature of the subject; it might also be because the market is very localised, or limited to a small group of people. The history of a church or school is a good example of the many manuscripts which are of value in themselves and potentially of great interest, yet of such limited appeal that commercial publishers would not accept the book for publication. Put simply, such a publisher would never be able to sell enough copies to make a profit.
BEWARE OF vanity publishing. Quite rightly, this has received a very bad press over the years, with many people falling foul of the sharp practices associated with companies operating in this way. Basically, a company calling itself a ‘publisher’ flatters the author by exaggerating the quality and likely sales of his or her book in order to persuade him or her to pay (usually an inflated amount) for the production of the book (which is often a poor quality product); the vanity publisher usually undertakes to try to sell the books and remit either all or most of the revenue back to the author. In practice the vanity publisher has no incentive to market and sell the books and in most instances we have heard of the author ends up receiving nothing. Just as bad, because the vanity publisher fails to market the book properly it is often difficult for genuine purchasers to get hold of the book. So the author pays a lot of money for very little indeed. Beware of companies who sound too good to be true, they almost certainly are!
Self-publishing – which we at Scotforth Books can help you with – is a much more satisfactory way to get your book published. The crucial advantages of this over vanity publishing are:
The first step is to contact Anna Goddard for initial advice and evaluation (completely free of charge, of course) given in an open and straightforward manner. Should you decide to go ahead with Scotforth Books we will guide you through all the aspects of producing your book and you can also take advantage of our experience in terms of sales and marketing where appropriate.