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Traditional Publishing Route If you feel your work represents a very high level of quality, then if you are interested (and we are in agreement), the London Press is able to publish it in a traditional fashion, using standard mainstream, book trade channels. Please enquire for details. You have probably heard stories about authors sending off their manuscripts to hundreds of publishers in the hope of being signed up. And being signed up can bring substantial benefits - for example, a large publisher is likely to take responsibility for:
Each of these areas is a significant undertaking and for an author, efforts in any one of them can mean the difference between success... and not being noticed. They are also expensive undertakings, especially the repping, marketing and publicity - the two most important areas in terms of your book appearing on bookshop shelves. It is important to bear in mind that all the above expenditures represent a significant risk for a publisher because there is virtually no guarantee of success for any particular book - unless of course it is by J.K.Rawlings or R.Atkins. This is the reason publishers are so wary of taking on new authors, and it is also the reason why contracts are exclusive and royalty percentages set so low for new authors. However, if your book sells millions, even if royalty percentages are low, you still stand the chance of earning a significant amount. In terms of low royalty payments, we should note that for many writers, earnings aren't the issue - rather the most important factor is that their work is read by a large number of people - we might say that being able to 'have a dialogue with society' is more important than earnings. There is also a risk for authors in being signed up by a publisher. The downside is that the publisher may like the work, and sign you up, but in the end may not actually invest the amounts needed for successful marketing and publicity. To minimise this risk, it is important that as much detail is written down in any contract signed. Some commentators feel that a book made available through standard channels (i.e. as opposed to POD) fairs far more favourable with reviewers. That is, some reviewers and journalists are thought to be biased against POD produced books because of the fact that there are many small companies who will publish virtually anything. (In this regard it is important to note that The London Press only prints books of high quality - in terms of content and language.) Also, you should bear in mind that not all reviewers and journalists hold the same view - and in fact there are many POD books which have been successful. The way POD books are identifiable (their tracks so to speak) is mainly from their method of distribution. For instance, on Amazon, it will be stated if a book is POD. Therefore, many larger publishers also use POD system - but they use a different method of distribution to that offered by the standard POD channel. In this way, they hide the books print on demand 'tracks'. For this reason - The London Press is now able to offer publishing via a traditional route for books of outstanding promise. If you feel your work is worthy of this, then please do enquire about traditional route publishing. (Please do not send any unsolicited manuscripts as we have already made a decision about which books to pursue in this regard). We can also print books via traditional litho print presses - which has the advantage of decreasing cost per book as well as a slightly higher print quality (especially in the case of the reproduction of photographs in the book - both black and white & colour).
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