Authors Library Press is a self-publishing imprint
Even for professional writers, publishing your work yourself is a serious alternative as never before.
As publishers are no longer to be relied upon to publish even their existing authors' work, the best and most serious work is sometimes unable to find its way through the commercial demands of agents and publishers.
What is self-publishing?
It is when authors simply have their books printed themselves, either using services such as ours, The Authors Library Press, or trying to typeset and organise covers and printers and ISBN numbers entirely themselves.
Please remember that if you self-publish not under our imprint then you do have the organise the ISBN number yourself, and register the book with Neilsen (the ISBN number people) so that it can be located if someone asks for it in a bookshop.
If you self-publish under our own imprint, Authors Library Press, we will organise the ISBN number and register the book with Neilsen. Another advantage is that you would nominally be part of a group of writers, as with a traditional publisher. Our logo would be on your cover. This is a self-publishing imprint, you would be with other writers who had self-published with us.
A note on distribution for self-publishing authors -and for everyone else too.
Most distribution claims by publishers, great and small, amount to nothing more than giving your book an ISBN number so it can be ordered. Thats it.
Please note, even the largest publishers are unable to get your books into the bookshop chains, unless you are a best seller, or TV tie-in etc. Any publisher who claims that they will automatically, or likely, get your books into Waterstones etc. has to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Try to see behind the technical talk about the system, to what they are promising to actually achieve. Distribution is an unsolved problem, for most authors and all publishers, from Penguin downwards.
Traditional publishers, and subsidy publishers alike, manage to get your book listed on various online listings, such as W.H.Smith, Waterstones, Blackwells. Please note that these are online listings only- it may look like your book is available in bookshops- it isnt. Even if you are published by Penguin, the likelihood of your book appearing on a book shelf in a bookshop, is very small.
Authors published by the big publishing houses, and self-published authors alike, are in the same boat- they are expected to generate their own sales, which basically means friends and family, social media followers and friends, and then interest you can generate through library and bookshop readings and so forth.
It's a long climb, but don't let anypublisher who tells that your book is available fool you into think that means sales- it doesn't. Making your book available IF someone wants to buy it is a very simple matter, you simply list it on Amazon or similar, and if it has an ISBN number you can go into ANY bookshop (doesnt have to be a "leading" book shop or a "good" bookshop), and they can order it- again thats if you are published by Penguin or by yourself.