Today I have a publishing website, ISBNs, distribution, a professionally designed cover and a novel ready for publication. Getting involved in publishing wasn’t something I’d planned, though. It happened more by accident.

It began with a chance meeting and an idea. Several years ago I met Richard Overton while teaching at a summer school and we bonded over a shared love of literature. Richard had just written a novel titled Jacob and the Time Machine, about a man restoring the abandoned television studio where his favourite childhood programme had once been filmed.

Like many writers, Richard struggled to find representation and felt that, as a forty-something male, he was unlikely to attract much attention from agents or publishers. Over a few pints one afternoon, we suggested starting our own publishing press. Like many ideas conceived in the pub, it didn’t go further than talk.

A few years later, after we had lost touch, I received a solicitor’s letter informing me that Richard had died. He’d left me a USB stick containing his novel and a handwritten note asking me to publish it. I had absolutely no idea how I would do this, but felt a duty to honour his wishes.

The first thing I discovered was how little straightforward guidance there was on setting up a publishing company, so I had to piece together information from books, websites, blogs and videos.

It became clear I would need a website for the press. I assumed this would require specialist knowledge and considerable expense. However, website-building platforms made it surprisingly easy and cost-effective. I chose Wix because it provided everything I needed.
When it came to designing the site, my main lesson was to keep things simple. Readers need to know who you are, what you publish and where they can find it.

Naming the press was easy. I remembered Richard raising his glass and saying, ‘Here’s to the dead white males everywhere.’ The name is a tribute and a nod towards our conversation about whether older writers can be overlooked by mainstream publishing.

I also discovered that running even a tiny press involves less glamorous jobs: ISBNs, business registration, tax, record keeping and plenty of paperwork.

With a website set up and business considerations taken care of, I turned my attention back to the novel. It had already been edited, but I felt that it could use further professional input before publication. I commissioned a manuscript assessment and received a detailed report with feedback and suggestions. The editor recommended a few structural changes and caught the odd continuity error, but generally praised the novel. This came as a relief; making major changes did not feel right, as it was Richard’s book, not mine.

When it came to the cover, I thought this might be something I could manage myself, but decided that a professional cover would be worth the investment and found a designer online.

How to actually publish the book was the next challenge. Initially I had assumed that I would have to pay a printer to produce copies to sell through my website. However, I discovered that platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark offered print-on-demand publishing, meaning I didn’t need to take a major financial gamble on printing hundreds of copies.

The biggest surprise has been that publishing the book is not the hardest part. Getting people to notice an unknown book by an unknown author published by an unknown press is the real challenge.

Having a limited budget, I relied on social media, with Instagram particularly well suited to independent publishing. Getting reviews is tough but there are blogs, websites and small literary magazines that might look at independently published books. Responses can take weeks, and many people simply don’t reply but persistence pays off. Eventually someone does say yes.

Looking back, I am struck by how accessible publishing has become. Readers still need convincing and books still need to be good, but the barriers to entry are lower than they were years ago. The biggest lesson I have learned from the experience is that you do not need years in the publishing industry to start a micropress. I started with a book I believed should be published and learned the rest as I went.

Find out more about DWMP here.

Looking for the latest self-publishing updates and advice? This is the place to find them!

This relationship is the focus of this issue.

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In this episode of The Write Club Podcast, we had the pleasure of chatting with writer and anthology contributor Damien McKeating to talk about his debut novel, Tallulah Belle, set in the whimsical world of a fantasy burlesque theatre.

Damien breaks down how entering short story competitions helped him sharpen his craft, handle feedback, and build confidence as a writer. He also opens up about his decision to self-publish Tallulah Belle, sharing a refreshing perspective on setting personal criteria for success rather than relying on commercial standards.

👉 Grab your copy of Tallulah Belle today and discover more from Damien McKeating!

One uses abstract sounds, the other immediate, tangible words. One is pure emotion and rhythm, the other is quite literally a blueprint to project actions and imagery into your mind’s eye. And just as I type this I can’t help seeing how much these two art forms have in common.
As an author and former violin player (I rarely have time to pick up my poor old fiddle these days) the connection came to me almost subconsciously.

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The most immediate similarity is how both words and sounds can so effectively – sometimes painfully – make you feel a certain way. The tranquil, mellow notes of an oboe are a universe away from the screeching of a violin on its highest notes (think Psycho!). The slow notes of a piano are to our ears as melancholic and soothing like a trickle of water, and so is language.

How many of you will shudder a little bit now that you’re about to read the word moist. And I don’t blame you. It’s an odd sounding word, slightly offensive to the ear, even for someone whose first language is not English. Words are, after all, little musical pieces in themselves. Words like bloated, parasite, excretion (no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump) repel us instantly (well, maybe I am…), and that transcends language. Like when my Japanese friend told me that chin-chin is their equivalent for lil’ wiener.

Something else that sound adds to storytelling is musicality. My favourite example is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (also one of my favourite poems of all time). How can anyone not react to the bouncing rhythms of Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore…, culminating with those dark, haunting lines: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore!

And this doesn’t just apply to poetry. I always remember Scarlet O’Hara, in full mourning but desperate to dance, singing in her head “One-two-three, one-two-three, dip-sway—three, turn—two-three…” From the first time I read it I could hear the waltz in my head, and almost feel my body wanting to sway. Words evoking sound and movement as effectively as sound evokes emotions and makes us want to tap the floor or stand up and dance.

And very much like rests and silences in a musical theme, punctuation and pauses in a sentence help break down ideas and make the content flow more clearly.

Something not quite so obvious, and which I learned more from intuition than actual study, was how music can give you a feeling for structure. The best musical pieces have counterpoints; a secondary melody that plays underneath the main theme. It may seem less important or be easily overlooked, but without it the main melody feels incomplete.

This also applies to plotting stories. Concertos and sonatas with their three movements – a lively start, then a calm, reflective middle, leading to a flashy, climactic end. These are like emotional blueprints, perfectly mirrored in the classic three act structure in narrative. We recognize them instinctively and come to expect them.

One of the best examples is Vivaldi’s Summer. The original score was annotated with evocative verses, perhaps a sonnet written by Vivaldi himself, that complement the music and work in synergy to paint the full picture.

In the first movement Vivaldi introduces us to a lazy summer afternoon and asks us to picture birds singing, blazing sun and a gentle breeze, but he also introduces the first thunderous themes that will thwart our peaceful meadow. In the second movement, much darker, the sounds and words talk about flies and wasps buzzing into our ears, a shepherd increasingly uneased, and the discomfort of the coming storm grows and grows.

All this culminates in his thunderous third movement; the storm hits us in full force and the violins hammer us relentlessly like the drumming of devastating rain. We’ve heard the themes before, we’ve heard the warnings, and all of them lead us to a surprising and yet inevitable conclusion.

Just like the best stories, in my opinion, ought to be.

The End of the Vodka by Oscar de Muriel is published by Extraordinary Books (£16.99)

Want to explore the relationship between music and your own writing? Try these ideas to see how music can inspire your words!

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In this episode of The Write Club Podcast, we spend 50 minutes with writer, veteran teacher, and retreat leader Marilyn McEntyre to talk about her latest book, Start with a Word.

Drawing on decades of teaching literature, medical humanities, and creative writing, Marilyn shares why returning to learning can be a consoling act in hard times, how slow and spoken-word reading enriches our craft, and how to get to know your narrator on a deeper level. Plus, she reveals her go-to writing exercise for pulling yourself out of a slump and discusses the profound connection between writing, spirituality, and healing.

👉 Find out more about Marilyn McEntyre's work and grab your copy of Start with a Word!

About seven years ago an event happened that changed my life. A major reorganisation by my employer of more than 20 years resulted in myself and many others being made redundant.
At the time it came as a real shock. When you’re tied to deadlines, early retirement sounds idyllic – until you begin wondering what you’ll do with the rest of your life.

As I took the train home from my last business meeting in London, I realised I needed something that would challenge me every bit as much as my work had done.

It didn’t take long to find an answer. Since childhood, when I devoured Enid Blyton’s adventure stories, I’d harboured a desire to become a novelist. Having spent my career as a journalist, I hoped I could tell stories readers would enjoy.

There was no question where my novels would be set – Cornwall’s wild north coast, steeped in myth and legend. I have strong family connections with the county. In fact, my dad was one of Cornwall’s early lifeguards.

And so, the journey began, full of a few successes and hundreds - and I mean many hundreds - of rejections.

Three years later, my first novel had won a couple of awards but been turned down by numerous publishers, many complimentary before ending with the familiar: ‘Regretfully, it does not fit with our current lists.’

The self-publishing route beckoned, full of possibilities, endless unknowns and the opportunity to get my stories out into the world. If I was going to self-publish, I wanted readers to judge the novels on their quality rather than how they had reached the shelves.

All my books are professionally edited, proofread and formatted by trusted freelancers. My covers are designed by a talented team in Lviv, Ukraine, recommended by fellow writers. They have done a wonderful job at a very reasonable price. In fact, the whole process of producing a book costs surprisingly little in pure monetary terms.

Research is essential, even in fiction. I spend weeks exploring each subject before I begin writing. My first novel, Hidden Depths, is a thriller centred on a long-distance swim between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Only three people have ever completed the 28-mile swim solo, two of whom helped me with the novel.

The Echoing Shore and The Silver Tide, my second and third novels, were both inspired by true stories I heard while acting as a shore-based volunteer for the RNLI.

The research for The Silver Tide was particularly extensive, involving the RNLI Archive, the National Meteorological Library and Archive and the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
It was inspired by the astonishing 19th-century story of Margaret Brown, a fisherman’s daughter who saw her father and three brothers killed in a summer storm before helping establish her community’s first lifeboat, never missing a launch for more than 50 years.

The Silver Tide was entered in the General Fiction category of Cornwall’s prestigious 2026 Holyer an Gof Awards, now in their 30th year. The shortlist included books from some of the largest publishers, so I was naturally delighted when my novel was named among the final five.

On awards night at Kresen Kernow, Cornwall’s archive centre in Redruth, I was completely taken aback when Cornwall’s Grand Bard, Jenefer Lowe, announced The Silver Tide as the winner.

Sales of my books have continued to grow, reaching nearly 30,000 paperback sales and ebook downloads. That’s small beer compared with the millions sold by bestselling authors, but the journey has brought an enormous sense of achievement.

Sometimes, though, the success of a novel is about more than numbers. As I left the ceremony, a librarian who had helped judge the awards stopped me in the car park simply to tell me how much she had enjoyed reading The Silver Tide.

Knowing that something you’ve written has touched the heart of a reader makes all those long hours at the keyboard worthwhile.

My fourth novel, House of Twisted Shadows, inspired by another remarkable true story, was published on July 24. My fifth, The Last Light, recently won the Ancient History category in the Historical Novel Society’s international First Chapters Competition against entries from 25 countries. Whether it ultimately finds a traditional publisher or becomes my next self-published novel remains to be seen, but it has already been an exciting stage in the journey.

My ‘Wild Cornwall’ novels are available from a variety of retailers, including Amazon. Find out more here: jhmannauthor.com

Are you writing a book about a niche or specialist interest? Find out how a music journalist found that self-publishing was the best route for his books on The Beatles and Squeeze

Helping you get clued in to the latest trends in producing, marketing and distributing your books, Reedsy’s two-day online conference will walk you through How to Self-Publish a Bestseller in 2026. Give yourself the advantage, and get booked in for the 5th and 6th September.

On September 5th-6th, Reedsy is bringing together the leading voices in the indie publishing world for How to Self-Publish a Bestseller in 2026, a two-day online conference that will take you through everything you need to know about producing and marketing your books.

Book your ticket

📚Learn how to market your book with Amy Jackson — marketing manager at Random House, responsible for the success of authors like Taylor Jenkins Reid, Andy Weir, and Jodi Picoult.

📊See what readers are really buying as Alex Newton, founder of K-Lytics, unpacks data from millions of books to show you what top-selling authors are doing well.

📖Break down your distribution options with Draft2Digital and IngramSpark, and learn how to choose which distribution platform is best for you.

✍️ Hear how successful independent authors navigated the self publishing journey, assembled their dream team, and launched their own bestsellers.

Plus, attend sessions on understanding self-publishing, leveraging social media, creating winning Amazon ads, and avoiding burnout.

See the full line up

Whether you’re working on your first book or your tenth, you’ll leave with a clear strategy for getting your book into readers’ hands.

Can’t make it on the day? Replays are available for up to 28 days when you grab your ticket in advance.

To help understand the merits of the various Points of View, it helps to write your story as if you are making a movie of it (writing visually is good practice, anyway, as it is your best chance of writing something that will jump off the page with colour and immediacy). We have mentioned several times - and I will continue to mention it - the analogy of the Movie Camera. In terms of the analogy, the Point of View you choose is directly connected to the placement of the Movie Camera. In First Person Simple, the camera is placed inside the head of the protagonist, looking out through their eyes. Every successive First Person Point of View choice places the camera a little further away: First Person Peripheral has the camera inside the head of a character other than the main character, witnessing the story as it unfolds. First Person Multiple shares the camera between more than one character, thus telling the same story from more than one point of view.

Note, all First Person Points of View are viewpoints from characters inside the story.

A very important point to note, also, is that the subjectivity of First Person Point of View renders All First Person Points of View UNRELIABLE.

And that, people, is a lot of fun.

In this, the fourth part of our look at Point of View and Tense, we are going to shift the placement of the Movie Camera from inside the story to outside the story, using Third Person Point of View.

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i) Movie Camera analogy

It can often help to write as if you are watching a moving of what you are writing. You are the Director, the script writer, the set designer, the dialogue coach. You are everything. In terms of Point of View, you are the Director choosing where to place the camera.

In First Person Point of View, the movie camera is placed inside the head of the chosen character, looking out through their eyes and deep into their soul.

ii) First Person is real

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He explains how the Indian railway system served as a metaphor for the country's diversity and complexity, with his protagonist Charu working in the personnel department handling grievances across the railway network.

Rahul shares his writing career journey from mathematics and cricket journalism to novel writing, noting that his journalism background helped develop his understanding of pacing and character development.

We also find out about his typical writing routine, which has evolved from late-night sessions to morning writing, and his current project that remains in early development stages.

Get a copy of the Railsong now.

In the Third Person Point of View, for example, the movie camera is placed outside of the story, looking in, watching the events taking place and reporting them. In First Person Point of View – the POV we will be examining in this and the next couple of issues – the movie camera is placed inside the head of a character from within the story (usually the main character) looking out at the world through their eyes whilst also looking deep down into their thinking and feeling world. There is no distance, no separation between the character’s thoughts/feelings, and the reader’s experience of them. In First Person Point of View, as the writer, you are the character. You become the voice, the feelings, the thoughts. The all of it. And the only things you have to make all of these feel real are the words that you write.

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Our mission at Writers Online is to inspire writers and help them find the creative tools they need to realise their dreams and turn their imaginative worlds into stories on the page. That’s why we’ve created The First 5K Novel Prize – to reward and encourage writers embarking on the exciting and sometimes terrifying journey of writing a publishable novel.

We know that drafting a manuscript and navigating the publishing industry can be daunting, so to motivate you to start that novel and keep going, we’re inviting you to send us the beginning of your novel and a synopsis for the chance to win a hefty cash prize, plus equally significant writer development opportunities. Entering The First 5K offers access to industry experts who will offer professional opinions to winners to help them hone and craft their work to a publishable standard.

The shortlist will be read by two leading publishing insiders who will be familiar to readers of Writing Magazine.

By entering the first 5,000 words of your novel, you could not only win a £5,000 cash prize, but a consultation with our lead judge Piers Blofeld, literary agent at Sheil Land Associates Ltd, and author of the From the Other Side of the Desk column in WM. The runner up will receive £500 and a consultation with Monica Chakraverty, editorial director at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and the author of WM‘s Ask a Literary Consultant.

The beginning of a novel is where you get to introduce your lead characters, set up the story that will unfold, and bring to life their setting and circumstances. It’s what will – if you get it right – entice a reader to keep turning the pages – and vitally, the opening of your novel is your chance to hook the interest of a literary agent.

This contest, designed to showcase your creativity and gain its winners access to leading industry professionals, is the ideal motivation for you to polish your novel opening so it shines.

Whether you’re an experienced author or a first-time writer, we welcome original, compelling stories in any fiction genre. Any writer, from beginner to experienced, may enter an unpublished novel manuscript. Whatever level you’re at, our First 5K competition is designed to showcase your talent and build your writing profile.

With such great prizes on offer, the 5K Novel Prize is a major addition to our extensive competition programme – the opportunity to submit your best work, inspire readers, and compete with talented writers from around the world. Don’t miss your chance to turn your imagination into a full-length, award-winning novel – enter today! We’re excited to see your work and help you move closer to your publishing goals.

Enter here: https://www.writers-online.co.uk/writing-competitions/the-first-5k-novel-prize/

Novel-writing advice from Piers Blofeld

My five top tips for anyone brave enough to write a novel and who wants to get an agent at the end are:

1. Know your genre
There is hardly a writer alive who doesn’t feel that their book doesn’t neatly fit into a genre box. That’s not the point – publishers and booksellers have to market books and they do so by putting them into streams: genres. Spend some time thinking about how this works and accept that it is unavoidable. It is going to happen so you might as well work with it.

2. Know who you are writing for
This is not the same as genre: it’s about age, sex, gender and identity. Having a clear idea of your ideal reader, up to the point of being able to carry on conversations in your head with them, is a really useful technique and can give your writing a clarity of purpose and tone which is incredibly useful.

3. Good feedback is the hardest thing to get
To be honest I think it is almost impossible: friends will never be really honest, nor will paid-for editorial services – though both can be useful. The best reader you will get (until you get an agent) is yourself – one of the things which distinguishes really successful authors is that they have a truly ruthless inner ear.

4. Know what you are trying to say – and try to say it
At any given point you should know what the scene you are writing is doing, how it relates to the previous scene and the one that comes after. A huge amount of writing is signposting: if you are absolutely clear in your mind what you are trying to say then that confidence will communicate to the reader – and they will like you for it.

5. The synopsis is your friend
Everybody hates synopses – the reason they do is that they expose where your story isn’t working. The old agenting trick is to ask for a 5,000, a 500 and a 50-word synopsis: the 50-word is by far the hardest. If you can’t tell your story to yourself in a simple and clear way, then you’ll have no chance of doing so to a reader and that means that you are not in control of your material.

Top novel-writing tips from Monica Chakraverty, Editorial Director, Cornerstones

I’m the Editorial Director at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, where I head up the Scouting Programme with director Helen Corner-Bryant. We champion debut authors towards publication by introducing our key writers to agents or publishers, so we need a keen eye for what has literary and commercial merit.

The key, for me, is to find a strong, distinctive voice that feels secure from the outset of the book. However literary the novel, I’m looking for a strong hook that will have me invested in a protagonist up to the very last page. I love a hero who creates conflicting emotions, someone with complex layers that are revealed as the story moves on.

To drill further into genres, which should feel clearly defined in any submission, thrillers need a particularly strong hook to stand out for me, with a memorable twist at the end. Psychological suspense novels continue to dominate bestseller lists. I need to feel that rush of adrenaline within the first few chapters, taking me on a journey that allows a reader to (safely) explore a dangerous world that exposes our innermost fears.

I’m interested in anything with the potential to surprise. Some books can feel a little formulaic but I’m looking for what hasn’t been said, or a character who allows us to see the world in a new light.

Women’s fiction is perennially popular and needs to carry me on a journey that feels intuitive and effortless. I love a good historical novel that evokes a strong sense of place, allowing me to dive into that rich era, view it from the inside, and time-travel into that immersive world.

When times are tough in the world outside, romance and fantasy become even more popular with readers so I’ll be looking out for these genres too, hoping there’ll be something to catch my eye by approaching the story with, perhaps, a surprising approach that keeps me guessing until the end.

For authors, I’d suggest taking time away from the book before submitting. A final read with fresh eyes can really help that final edit. This can help highlight strengths and weaknesses in the plotting and to check the narrative flow.

This also holds true for the synopsis, so focus on something tight, between 500 and 800 words, that follows the key beats of your story. In our book On Editing, by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price, we use the three-act graph to chart those beats within the synopsis.

Finally, a strong elevator pitch is key to being scooped up by an agent and will convey exactly what the book’s unique element is, ideally making them desperate to find out more!

Prizes and rules:

First: £5,000 cash prize plus a consultation with literary agent Piers Blofeld.

Runner up: £500 cash prize and a consultation with Monica Chakraverty, editorial director and head of scouting programme, Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.

Everybody on the shortlist will receive a 12-month Writers Online Membership Plus.

Everybody on the longlist will receive a 12-month Writers Online membership.

Entry is open to any unagented writer of an unpublished novel manuscript in any genre aimed at adult or YA readers. Entries must be original and unpublished in any form, and the entrant must not be currently represented by a literary agent.

The entry package should consist of the first 5,000 words of the manuscript (double spaced in a clear font, ie Arial, Times New Roman, 12pt) and a one-page synopsis (single spaced) in the same document.

There is no limit to number of entries. International entries are welcome. Entrants retain copyright in their manuscripts. The entrant can have been previously published either independently (self-published) or traditionally but the manuscript being submitted must be unpublished.

Manuscripts that have been in any way AI generated are not eligible for entry, but entrants may have used Assistive AI in the writing process.

Entry Fees
Fee for each entry is £27.5 BUT ONLY £24.00 for subscribers to Writing Magazine, Writers Online Membership and Writers Online Membership Plus.

Closing date: 31 December 2026

Have you got a story that deserves to be a winner? Here’s everything you need to know to give your writing competition entries the best chance of success!

You see, where our stories come from, what they mean, who the characters are, why they do what they do, we never quite know, at first. They come to us as and when they come to us. They are not ours to control. The best we can do is to listen, to catch a glimpse. Our only job is to give birth to these stories in the clearest words we know, let them go and await the next one to form. Stories are always an incomplete representation of their truth – for we have only words to tell them. And words are never enough.

Still, words are all we have.

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Richard joins us to talk about his breakthrough post-apocalyptic series, The Undead, and what it was like to revisit, tear down, and fully rewrite his iconic debut world with over a decade of extra craft experience under his belt.

Get the Book: The Undead series by R R Haywood is available now on Amazon and major retail platforms.

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoyed the episode!

The Society of Authors has joined forces with the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain to update its guidance for authors on how to protect themselves from scammers.

Through the use of AI, scammers create authentic-looking emails, often impersonating real people in the publishing industry, to flatter and encourage authors to hand over money or their rights on the promise of boosting their publishing careers. Self-published authors are often targeted with offers of contacts with literary agents, traditional publishers, or marketing campaigns that just don’t exist. For further information, download How To Protect Against Scammers: A Guide For Authors.

If you’re ever approached out of the blue by someone offering to connect you with an agent or publisher, treat it as suspicious until proven otherwise. Legitimate industry professionals don’t cold-contact authors this way.

Beating the Scammers
Eleanor Dawson, Organiser at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, shares her tips on how authors can protect themselves from a growing trend of fraudulent activity, often driven by AI, that has spurred urgent new joint guidelines in partnership with the Society of Authors

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MailerLite has changed the features and limits on its free plan with effect from 1st July 2026, which may affect self-published authors. MailerLite is a popular email service used by authors to send newsletters to readers who have signed up to receive news about their books. The number of subscribers allowed on the free plan has dropped to 250, and users can now only have one landing page, three active forms, and three automations. For more detailed information, check out their Free Plan Update FAQ page.

Legal Deposit
Did you know there’s a UK law dating back to 1662 that affects self-publishers today?

It’s called Legal Deposit, and it requires all publishers (including self-publishers) to send a copy of their published book to the British Library.

In 2013, the law was updated to include electronic publications, including eBooks.

What Is Legal Deposit?
The Legal Deposit system requires every publisher to send a copy of their latest title to the British Library within twelve months of publication. Historically, this meant publishers had to send their best copy. If the publisher printed a hardback and a paperback version, the hardback copy was determined to be the best version.

Do Other Countries Operate Similar Legal Deposit Schemes?
Yes. Although schemes vary, the Legal Deposit system currently operates in over one hundred countries around the world, including the USA, Australia, Canada, South Africa, China, Ireland, and most European countries.

To find out if your country operates a similar system, search online for the term Legal Deposit and your country.

Why Does Legal Deposit Exist?
This system ensures that at least one copy of everything published is kept for future generations. Think of it as a nation’s collection of its literary, scientific, and social heritage.

We should be proud that what we publish is kept by the nation forever.

What Does a Self-Publisher Need to Send for Legal Deposit?
Historically, the British Library required both paperback and eBook copies if a self-published author published both formats. Recently, this has changed, and once registered with the British Library to deposit electronically, self-published authors can meet their responsibility by submitting an eBook copy only, even if they create print formats too.

If an author only publishes in print format, then a print copy needs to be submitted.

How Do I Submit My Book For Legal Deposit?
The British Library created the Publisher Portal, which authors need to register to use. Once registered, they can upload a copy of their eBook interior file and their cover file to the system.

However, as of mid-2026, the British Library’s Publisher Portal is still offline following a major cyber-attack in October 2023. Until it’s restored, email the British Library’s Digital Processing Team at LDO-Electronic@bl.uk to enquire how you can deposit your books. Ebook files are small enough to send as email attachments—I’ve been doing this myself since the attack. But only send your books by email once you’ve been invited to do so.

Do UK Self-Publishers Need to Send Books to Other Deposit Libraries?
Our legal deposit responsibility relates to the country we live in, not where our books are sold.

However, here in the UK we have a small quirk in that the Legal Deposit Act requires copies to be sent to five other Legal Deposit Libraries:

National Library of Scotland
National Library of Wales
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Cambridge University Library
Library, Trinity College Dublin

If you publish in print format only, you will need to send a copy to each of these libraries as well. Check out the Agency for Legal Deposit Libraries, which can facilitate this for you. (You can send one parcel of five copies to them, and they’ll distribute them to the five other libraries.)

If you publish in eBook format and have registered with the British Library to send eBook files to them, they will forward a copy of your eBook to the five other libraries on your behalf.

Do The Legal Deposit Libraries Pay For The Books?
No, the cost of supplying a copy to each of the legal deposit libraries is down to the publisher. This is why registering with the British Library to supply books in electronic format can be useful. The cost of sending two parcels of print books (one to the British Library and one to the Agency for Legal Deposit Libraries) soon mounts up.

Do I Have To Send Them My Book?
Yes. This responsibility applies to every published book, including those without an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). It doesn’t matter how big or small a print run the book has, or if it’s only available through print on demand or in eBook format. As long as the book has been published and is available to the UK public, publishers have a duty to supply a copy for legal deposit purposes.

Where Can I Find More Information?
Start with the British Library website and then check out the frequently asked questions on the Agency for Legal Deposit Libraries website.

The legal deposit scheme means our books become part of the nation’s published heritage. It doesn’t matter if our book sells ten copies or ten million copies; it is preserved alongside the books, newspapers, journals, and other publications that collectively document our culture and history.

Happy self-publishing!

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And then we heard a sound . . .

A beat throbbing.

A rhythm pounding.

From nowhere and from everywhere.

A melody floating softly, hovering above it all.

We search among the Building Blocks and cannot find the source of these sounds. We realise it is not the Building Blocks generating this noise. The pounding rhythm is coming from the ground beneath our feet and the melody is in the very air we breathe.

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Jen tells us about why so many writers are bypassing traditional routes to claim total creative control and tap into higher earning potential. We also speak on the life-changing impact of the award, spotlighting the success stories of past winners and finalists who used the prize to secure mainstream validation and career momentum.

Tune in for expert, insider strategies on how to deeply understand your target audience, ensure your formatting meets industry standards, and organically build a reader community.

For more information on entering the Kindle Storyteller Award visit -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/storyteller?ref_=kdpuk_ST26_P1

Hatty and Monty are work mates who become soul mates, the tsunami tears them apart, and they spend a year figuring out whether they can fix a relationship that the wave tried to destroy. This plot hasn’t changed since I laid down the first draft of what was originally called Disaster Victim, more than eight years ago.

Writing a plot was the easy part. All the scenes, smells and tastes from Thailand are from my personal experience. Whether that’s the chaos at Krabi hospital, the dreadful scenes at body collection sites, Royal Thai Navy boat 813 washed inland by the wave, even Hatty and Monty’s stay on a jungle raft hotel.

I drew heavily on my experience of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to describe Monty’s descent into alcoholism and nicotine addiction. We see his self-isolation and self-sabotaging behaviours, his occasional bursts of uncontrollable anger. His overwhelming loneliness. His inability to ask for help for fear of being judged, pitied or managed.

Searching is intensely autobiographical in ways that only my wife, Katharine, and my dad will fully appreciate, and yet it is, first and foremost, a work of fiction.

Having retired from the Diplomatic Service in 2023, I determined to finish the book, not realising the three years of emotional energy and keyboard hours I’d expend to do so.
Ironically, having suffered post-traumatic stress in silence since the terrible event of Boxing Day 2004, the best thing I did was to ask for help. Writing can feel as lonely an experience as depression, after all.

My developmental editor, Emily Ohanjanians in Toronto (author of recently published The Book Tour) was kind and supportive whilst also offering pointed, constructive advice on reading the first draft: My plot described what happened, but not why people should care about Hatty and Monty’s plight.

Searching has always been about the love Hatty and Monty have for each other and the resilience of their love against the devastation of the tsunami. The invaluable feedback from Emily spoke to my focus on the plot over the story.

With great patience, she introduced me to concepts such as story arcs. What were the underlying tensions driving Hatty and Monty’s behaviour and how did their love help them to overcome the obstacles to their happiness?

And so, hey presto, the first part of the novel was born, charting the relationship between Hatty and Monty, fully investing in their journey, and so adding emotional impact when his life is torn apart by the tsunami in Part 2, understanding his subsequent decision to return to Thailand, straining his unbreakable love for Hatty.

Yet her love remains a lifeline to him. Can true love conquer the most terrible trauma? That is the story explored in the final part of the book.

I have always enjoyed the process of editing. Taking my initial ideas, reordering them, adding, subtracting, trimming, refining and improving drafts until they feel just right. At the Foreign Office, I honed my skill at writing punchy diplomatic telegrams and ministerial submissions.

All the scenes, all the sadness and all the love in Searching come from the emotional archives of my experience. Writing fiction made me dig deeper, to develop a more emotionally grounded, skillset.

I came to realise that editors are absolutely vital. Think of them as tutors, helping you to spot flaws, inconsistencies and gaps. I took all the advice as opportunities to elevate and refine the story. My best advice to new authors is to see your editors as critical friends not critics. They want to help you make your novel as good as it can be.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with the journey Hatty and Monty take through this novel. I have watched their growth and emergence as work mates turned soul mates as part of my learning journey as a debut novelist.

But I also wanted Searching to be a celebration of the amazing people who offered to help after the tsunami in the most harrowing of circumstances. I have witnessed the incredibly supportive way that people of different nationalities and religions can come together when things go badly wrong. And it is the wonder of diversity that I wanted to imbue in all of the supporting characters that pepper Searching.

The hardest part of any writer’s journey is arguably the moment you push away the laptop and say ‘enough’. That time when you finally let go and allow your characters to live their own lives in the hearts and minds of the readers who share their journey.

I love both of my characters so dearly and they are real to me. Cue James McFadden’s song Real to Me, which offered me much solace in 2005, and which helps to explain the journey I have travelled in writing Searching, a love story.

Searching: a love story by Ian Proud was published in June 2026

Read more about writing though grief and trauma to create readable fiction in this piece by novelist Kim Sherwood.

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