Turn Your Manuscript
Into a Published Book

Many authors who come to us are publishing for the first time. If that is you, you are not expected to know the difference between an ISBN block and an imprint, or which channels suit your genre. Our job is to explain the process in plain terms and make the decisions with you rather than for you. One first-time author described publishing as daunting before she started, and credited her consultant's patience and prompt replies with making it manageable.

British Publishers also work with authors who have published before, including some who tried self-publishing alone and found the cost and workload beyond what they had planned for. Either way, you will receive a clear, itemised quote for your project before any work begins, rather than a generic package price. A 15,000-word poetry collection and a 90,000-word novel are not the same job and should not carry the same price. If you want publishers who accept new authors and treat a first book with the same care as a tenth, send us your manuscript details.

We work with authors across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, from London, Manchester and Birmingham to Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast. Because our work happens by phone, email and video call, you do not need a publisher physically near you. If you have been searching for book publishers near me, the more useful question is who has the right experience for your genre and budget, not who is closest on a map.

Geography matters in one respect many authors miss. The UK and Ireland share a single legal deposit system, with the six deposit libraries spread across all four nations. Wherever you are based, the same obligations apply.

This is our most common question, and there is no single honest answer. A clean manuscript needing only formatting and a cover costs far less than one requiring structural editing, a ghostwriter or a large print run.

Some costs are fixed regardless of who you work with. In the UK, ISBNs are not free, unlike in countries such as Canada. They are bought from the Nielsen UK ISBN Store, the official agency for the UK and Ireland. A single ISBN costs roughly £90, while a block of ten costs a little over £170, far less per number. Every format and every substantially revised edition needs its own ISBN: a novel in paperback, hardback, ebook and audiobook needs four. A block of ten also keeps your titles under one publisher prefix, which identifies you as a publisher in trade databases.

Editing, cover design, formatting, printing and marketing are the variable costs, depending on your book's length, condition and genre. Rather than publish a generic price list that would not reflect your project, British Publishers provides a free, no-obligation quote once we understand your manuscript. Authors tell us the price they paid was fair for what they received, which matters more to us than competing on price alone.

Here is something many self-publishing companies never mention. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, anyone publishing a book in the UK must send one free copy to the British Library within one month of publication. This applies to self-published authors exactly as it applies to major trade publishers, however small your print run.

Five further deposit libraries may each request a copy within a year: the Bodleian at Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, and Trinity College Dublin. They claim collectively through the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries in Edinburgh, and most publishers simply send all six copies at once.

Print-on-demand services do not do this for you. If you publish through one and assume the deposit is handled, it is not. Compliance costs six copies plus postage, and your book then enters the national archive and appears in library catalogues and the British National Bibliography. We handle it as part of our service.