Railway book publishers

[RichieB]

I’ve nearly finished my railway book, and I’m now thinking about publishing. I could go the self publishing route or choose one of the 20 or so transport publishers operating in the UK. Has anyone had any experience of publishing their own book, which route did you take, and any interesting experiences with any particular publishers.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Have a look at what each publisher is currently producing. Some are more interested in steam, others diesel/electrics,  others railway autobiographies, others photo-style albums, others more general history stuff.
Approach a few and see what they offer...

[pharrc20]

I have some experience of having a book published for me and doing my own publishing.

 

First up was my I.C.I. Hopper book with the now defunct Cheona Publications, I was very much part of the publishing helping the late Peter Midwinter with typesetting the text, captions and scanning in original photos and slides and tweaking them in Photoshop. The only bit I didn't do was the compiling of the Quark Express output files as Peter did that and took the completed CD disc down to the local printers we were using in North Wales. A few alterations from the first proof including changing some photos from colour to mono helped to bring the price down and had no choice in a way to do it. For this I did receive some free copies but most others I brought at discount if I needed more.

 

Second publication I did was a self produced one to commemorate two railway anniversaries at Hazel Grove near Stockport where I am from. For this one I did all of the typesetting and produced the output disc, and at the time I was able to utilise the local authority print shop who kindly did the final prep and proof copy to make it print ready. They obtained some quotes for printing costs for 300 copies and I went with the one they recommended, that wasn't the cheapest or most expensive but I was very pleased indeed with the final booklet they printed and bound. Being my own booklet there was little in way of royalties and still have a few copies of the booklet left all these years later. Ian Allan brought and sold a good 100 or so copies via the now closed Manchester store.

 

Third, fourth and soon fifth books, I approached Amberley Publishing having had a conversation with John Dedman, who had back in 2018 had his book on BR wagons published with them. This time it was a case of preparing a suitable 180 images, captions for them and an introduction text maximum number of words 10,000 though some leeway with that. So I prepared all my own images to their specs, though they can do scanning etc. for the author if required. Once submitted they typeset it for you and you get an emailed copy of the proofs to check and return usually within 5-7 days then a short while later they will email you a copy of the proposed front and back cover, and if agreed it then gets finalised along with any proof amendments and goes to press. As an author you get a quantity of free copies about a month before the publication date and you can buy further copies in yourself at a discounted rate. You can resell these onto friends, family or supply them as royalty copies as needed but you can't supply to trade or shops yourself. Generally the print runs are about 500 copies initially but no restriction on them reprinting the book at a later date say.

 

My first book in 2019 with Amberley was Freight in the Peak District, my second was delayed last year due to pandemic but came out in July and is The Hoppers: Limestone traffic. I had quite a few royalty copies to distribute for that one as used a lot of archive photos from steam and BR diesel eras. My next one will be released next year I guess and will be Wagons of the Peak District and is in effect a follow up to my first Amberley book.

 

So far I have been very pleased with the reproduction of the images and the book quality, I have seen and read other comments elsewhere about quality but you would have to make your mind up on that one.

 

Hope this helps

Cheers Paul

[corneliuslundie]

I produce the books for the HMRS and WRRC. It is very much an interactive thing with the authors.

I also helped a friend to self publish his autobiography. He had a run printed by a local printer. The quality was good but the cost was a bit much for him. He then published it through Amazon. To be frank the quality is disappointing, and he had to change to photos from colour to mono to get the prince manageable.

When you choose a publisher make sure that you have some control and there is some checking at the publisher as well. I shan't name the publisher but there is one which often has errors including in one case at least half a paragraph missing. Mind you plenty of books have errors in captions - often the place the photo was taken - and you can't blame that on the publisher.

You haven't said what the book is about. That might help us to suggest suitable publishers.

And make sure that you know the copyright situation of any images - and if you are self publishing you need to know about Copyright Libraries etc.

BTW both the HMRS and the WRRC pay royalties to authors, after the book has broken even, in addition to normally supplying a number of free copies. But the HMRS at least expects authors to deal with copyright.

Jonathan

[slilley]

Richie

 

If you DM me we can have a chat. Been through the publishing cycle 4 times now and working on two books at present. Always happy to have a chat with what is involved.

 

Best wishes

 

Simon

[Rivercider]

I have had railway three books published by Amberley, with the fourth (Freight Trains of the WR in the 1980s), just released now. 

My dealings with Amberley were pretty much as explained above by Paul (pharrc20). In my case though Amberley approached me first to offer me the chance to write the first book, after they had seen some of my photos posted on Flickr. I have found Amberley easy to deal with, the print quality of the third book was perhaps not as sharp as numbers one and two, the fourth one is better. I realise none of my books are heavyweight reference works, but I am happy with the results,

 

cheers

Edited May 17, 2021 by Rivercider
clarification

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Whatever way you do it, it won't make you rich. Just looked on Amazon and paperback editions of my tome are going for around 51p. The hardback is £9.94 though...

[Mike Bellamy]

12 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Whatever way you do it, it won't make you rich. Just looked on Amazon and paperback editions of my tome are going for around 51p. The hardback is £9.94 though...

 

Sorry Peter, I had to smile at that - and I must admit that my copy went onto the Club second-hand stall years ago . . . . . . . . 

.

[corneliuslundie]

Now it it had been e-Bay you could probably have pushed the price up above that when new.

Yes, I agree about writing books not being the way to make a fortune. Back in the days of print runs of tens of thousands, or if you happen to be an ex Prime Minister perhaps. But print runs these days are often 500 or even less. So even if you get royalties after break even and the book sells out that is only a few hundred pounds and out of that you have probably paid for photos and copyright permissions to say nothing of ink and paper for your printer. Even with societies where there are no staff costs, books will not make anyone a fortune, and commercial publishers have all sorts of other overheads.

So it is amazing that there are so many new books coming off the press.

Jonathan

[RichieB]

Many thanks to everyone who replied to my post. It is much appreciated. Sorry its taken a month to get back, but I've been crazy busy.

 

As was referred,  I did not explain the nature of the book which would have helped! Actually its called 'Railway Club Directory' (a facebook page has just been opened under that title). It is literally a directory of all the railway clubs in the UK (excluding modelling and heritage support groups which have their own places) with summaries of what each club is about and photos of part of their journals. Book is pretty much complete, with entries now going to each club for comment. I've been corresponding with all 106 of them as this is a collaborative project, not a list and publish thing. So much work has been involved but every Chairman I've spoken to so far has been very positive. 

 

Corneliuslundie, it is interesting that you mention HMRS and WRRC as both feature.

 

Simon, would be good to chat, and I will DM you.

 

Thanks again everyone.