Calling authors, societies, businesses and organisations. BHB can handle all your publishing needs

There can be all kinds of reasons why someone would want to go ahead and publish a book that is not considered an economic risk by any of the commercial publishing houses. It may be ‘too specialised’ for them, it might be ‘too highbrow’ for them, it may occupy the ‘tricky area’ of new fiction, or fall into any one of a hundred other such categories, but the author might have very good reasons for believing in its potential.

Commercial publishers are notoriously hesitant about projects that diverge from their proven genres and authors. They need to be. Even if he doesn’t pay advances or overprint copies, a publisher has to put his money where his mouth is for every commissioned title. He, his editorial staff, his sales personnel, and his shareholders, all need to be convinced that they will see a return for their investment, their time and their effort, in order to take on and really give their support to a new project.

Often they might be very keen on a project, but can’t see it as a good commercial bet.

Naturally, this leaves a lot of authors and societies out in the cold, with little alternative but to pay a company whose end product is making a profit out of the creator of the book, rather than the book itself – so-called ‘vanity publishing’.

The BHB difference? We’re not interested in profiting out of authors. We are commercial publishers with a catalogue of commissioned books – many by established and well-known authors – with full international distribution and professional editing, design and marketing.

All our books are produced in the same way, and to the same standards. We put our name to them, so we accept or reject on the same quality basis regardless of source. No amount of money will persuade us to publish a book that fails our ethical or quality standards.

That said, our urge is to help. We believe in more voices being heard, not fewer. But we are inevitably guided by our own experience and commercial constraints.

So here’s the deal. If you believe in your book, or you have good reason to know you can make it work – you put your money where your mouth is!

That doesn’t mean you pay us, and we fill your garden shed with hardbacks that look all wrong and start to unravel when opened.

It means, you take out the risk, and we (subject to the above) have no reason not to publish.

What you pay for is our experience, editing, design and marketing on the same level as our own-risk books. By underwriting our risk, you wind up with a book that stands alongside our other titles and benefits from the same level of distribution and marketing – a dedicated area on this website and space to add your own promotions, links and videos. We will even advise and help on any of these aspects.

What’s more, because it’s all about getting the books out there and returning everyone’s investments, we pay a 50% royalty on net receipts from all retail sales of such books – after all, we have no outlay to recoup.

And, because we use the latest technology, we don’t ever print books we don’t need – and don’t see why you should either. You can order as many, or as few, copies as you like, and we’ll take care of wholesale requirements.

Those vanity people will often demand you take an enormous number of copies immediately. It’s easily done – authors nearly always overestimate the number they will need. Some say you don’t have to buy the whole print run, then threaten to withdraw the title from sale if you don’t pick up the unsold copies later.

We don’t go in for discounting or remaindering. The book stays in print for a fixed period (usually 5 years) and can be kept longer, either by sales success or a token charge (less than twenty quid a year).

Societies and businesses

BHB has a successful history of co-operative and contract publishing – charities, golf clubs, the armed services, etc. – and can quote for everything from local and family history projects to full colour prospectuses and image-building publications. We recently established a partnership with the Library Service in the UK to produce the historically valuable Bank House Directories series.

There are no hidden charges with BHB. And that means you need only pay for the services you require. We can key manuscripts for publication from hard copy, we can supply top-quality editing, re-writing, ghost-writing, scanning, photo-restoration and enhancement, cover design, page layout, print and distribution. For video and music services, go to Bank House Media.

Contact us now for a no-obligation quote.