Advice and support

At Scotforth we have over 25 years’ experience of every aspect of book publishing, including writing, picture research, scanning, page layout, cover/jacket design, printing, sales and marketing and distribution, so we can advise on all of these and more, free of charge when you publish with us.

Typesetting and design

Initially our support will centre around the production of your book and we will help you to decide on its physical size, the binding, cover/jacket design, pictures etc. Our aim is to make things as straightforward as possible and to give you all the information you need to make your own decisions.

Printing and print runs

Very early on in our discussions we will talk about the printing and binding of your book. If you have not already decided we can help you to choose whether you want hard or paperback books, what kind of cover and lamination you want, and how many copies you will need. You may wish to explore the possibility of selling copies of your book, whether to a group of people you have access to, or even to a wider audience via the book trade. These discussions will help you to decide on the print run and where applicable prompt you to start thinking about marketing, sales and distribution.

Sales, marketing and distribution

Many authors ask us to produce just enough books to allow them to give copies to friends and relatives, in which case they need nothing further from us upon publication. Some books, however, will be of interest to a slightly wider (often local) market and it may be worth investing in the promotion and sales of such titles. We do give verbal advice free of charge to all those who publish via us, but there may be additional sales and marketing services that we can help you with. Again, we will advise you on the best way to proceed in your particular case, and where there there are to be any costs associated with such services (eg. press releases, posters, leaflets etc) we will make sure that you are fully aware of them. Also available is some free written information to help you to market and sell your book, which we can send to you once work on your book is underway.
In terms of the distribution of books which have a wider market, we can offer advice in finding the best and most cost effective way of getting your books to shops etc and individuals – including storage, packaging and despatch. You may decide to use the distribution company that handles all the books we publish commercially to store and mail out your books, or you are free to make your own arrangements.

Legal deposit copies

We can advise you about whether or not these will be required, and who will be responsible for supplying them to the British Library.

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