Paperbooks

Paperbooks is moving!

The Paperbooks website is moving to sister company Legend Press's website www.legendpress.co.uk. We enjoy blogging on both sites but want to make a central blog that everyone who is interested in what we are up to can visit - a mega website some may say!

We are currently in the process of updating the Legend Press website - making it easier to navigate, updating the online shop across the lists and making it generally nicer to use! If you have any suggestions please email info@legend-paperbooks.co.uk.

Lucy

Company profiled on The View from Here Magazine online

Legend Press and Paperbooks have been featured on The View from Here website. Tom was interviewed about the company history, our submissions process and what we are looking for in a book. Below is a taster:

Could you begin by telling us a bit about the background of Legend Press and PaperBooks?

I set up Legend Press in 2005, having worked in publishing for two-and-a-half years, and initially ran it by myself from home. Starting with a short story collection (The Remarkable Everyday), we then published two novels in 2006 and have roughly doubled in size each year since, currently with 54 authors on our books. We now also publish a selection of non-fiction, have a business list – Legend Business – as well as offering a print-on-demand service, New Generation Publishing. We have also recently taken on the management of the newly launched Books etc site.

In 2007, I was approached by the previous owner of PaperBooks, Keirsten Clark, about taking on the company. Having previously recognised it as one of the most interesting new lists and having a huge amount of potential, I was delighted to acquire it and set up PaperBooks Publishing. We have ambitious plans for PaperBooks, generating a really strong brand for writers and growing alongside Legend Press.

Both companies are based at our small but well-formed office in London and I have the brilliant assistance of Marketing Director Lucy Boguslawski and Publishing Manager Lauren Parsons, as well as a number of regular freelancers. We are very excited about the books we have coming out this year, with great new writers such as Matthew Crow (Ashes) and Ruth Dugdall (Woman Before Me), Gurpeep Mattu (Sons and Fascination), newly acquired high-profile writers such as Zoe Jenny (The Sky is Changing) and further books for existing writers such as Mark Liam Piggott (Out of Office), William Coles (Mr Two Bombs), Nick Griffiths (Looking for Mrs Dextrose) and Paul Burman (The Grease Monkey’s Tale).

To read the interview in full click here

Lucy

Booksetc.co.uk to launch on Monday!

The new BOOKS etc website www.booksetc.co.uk is to launch on Monday 22nd February. Capital Organisation purchased the Books etc name, website, and Borders database in January, and took on Legend Press to handle the site’s management.

The site will run weekly promotions, which will not just focus on best-sellers but will include expert-selected ranges. It will also offer a loyalty scheme and a school’s project. The site will include e-books, the chance to sell second-hand books at the best prices in the market and further social networking in due course. The site will look for national and international growth.

www.booksetc.co.uk will also develop a range of additional products, such as e-books, DVDs and CDs. Pre-launch BOOKS etc emailed the company’s 1.3 million customer database asking what type of loyalty scheme they would prefer. As a result, all registered users have been offered 5% off all purchases made on the site during its launch week.

Books Etc is a strong brand and the company’s sourcing capability, coupled with a social media push, will cement it as a powerful competitor in the books market. The site will compete both on price and personality.

Our e-books range has started!

We announced a little while ago that we were planning to be at the forefront of the e-books development with our frontlist to be offered as e-books by Christmas with our entire lists by early next year.

Well, it is great to see the first books appearing as available, and in ebook format - rapidly accepted as the format of choice! See an example here for the PSYCHOTIC ESCAPING JUSTICE by Mark Hayhurst.

We have contracts with an epub conversion house and ebook distributors Ingrams, Gardners and ContentReserve and while I think the ebooks market will be slow to start with, as the technology improves so will the popularity and so we believe it is important to be one of main publishers there from the outset. Rather than take sales away from the hard copy we also hope it will create a new market of book reader and be a very positive development for the book trade. We're very excited to see how it develops!

Tom

Publish your book and win a signed publishing contract!

As part of the launch of its revamped service, New Generation Publishing has announced that the highest-selling book by 30th June 2010 of the next 300 titles submitted will be offered a traditional publishing contract by Paperbooks Publishing.

Styled as the perfect bridge between traditional and the new world of publishing, New Generation Publishing is a project run by Legend Press as a service offering authors the opportunity to have their books published via Print-On-Demand, whilst retaining all rights and receiving high royalties.

NGP has also just launched a raft of add-on services, including e-books, editing, digital proofs and post-production revisions. (See www.newgenerationpublishing.info for details.) Sales will be judged via the distribution feeds, which enable books to be available via booksellers such as Amazon, as well as through New Generation’s new direct-selling Marketplace.

Using the experience of everything we are involved in at Legend Press and Paperbooks Publishing, it is exciting to offer a multi-layered services to benefit  authors and to bring publishing into step with the current consumer and reading world. The chosen author will be traditionally published by the Paperbooks team, who are passionate about championing and promoting new writers.

To find out more about New Generation Publishing click here!

Lucy

Paperbooks competitions

Paperbooks' two forthcoming competitions 'A Novel Ending' and Gary Davison's blog prize have been featured on popular blog site http://strugglingauthors.co.uk.

The website is a really useful resource for new and established authors, or anyone interested in books and the publishing industry. The site is run by author .

Lucy

Writers half book featured in Poets and Writers Magazine

Paperbooks' 31st October release A Novel Ending has been attracting lots of attention in the writers' media recently. The ‘half book’ is an innovative idea to promote novel writing and offer a new way for us to discover writing talent.

The book will begin with 10,000 words written by Gary Davison (author of Streakers and Fat Tuesday), then writers will be invited to complete the story. The winning entry will win a publishing contract with Paperbooks for one novel.

The competition has been featured on The Bookseller and the Poets and Writers Magazine.

Lucy

Launching half book - A Novel Ending

We are delighted to announce an innovative idea for writers – a ‘half book’ to promote novel writing and offer a new way for us to discover writing talent.

The book titled ‘A Novel Ending’ will be published in October 2009, and will begin with 10,000 words written by Paperbooks author Gary Davison. Printed with blank pages, authors will be invited to complete the novel. The winning writer will win a publishing contract with Paperbooks Publishing.

This project is an exciting opportunity to find new writing talent, offering something a little bit different to the traditional submissions procedure. We are keen to develop innovative ways to find new authors and build-on our existing successful list by discovering new talent.

The competition will be open to all writers, whether established authors or previously unpublished. The project offers a new and interesting writing challenge, with authors invited to interpret Gary’s storyline and theme in any way they wish.

Lucy, Lauren and Tom

A brief look into 2010...

There is so much to do today, this week, this month etc, that it is sometimes hard to look forward too far, but being the strange world of publishing, it is vital that we don't only have good books set-up now but for the next year ahead.

And 2010 is already starting to look very exciting. We have new titles recently signed up from our existing great range of authors, exciting new talent, and also have managed to attract some big-name writers who, thankfully and as reward for all the hard work, are keen to work with us.

In addition, we have plans to extend the range of titles and also the formats - an aspect of publishing that will play a vital role in 2010 and onwards.

And so, amid all there is currently to complete, we look forward to announcing the new titles over the coming weeks and months and hope an unbelievable 2010 can follow a fantastic remainder of 2009!

Tom

Launch of the Summer Sale

Today we are launching our special half price summer sale 'Take a Paperbook on Holiday'!

We would like everyone to take one of our fantastic titles on holiday, so hopefully there will be a book to tempt everybody. As a special incentive we offering a free book of your choice to anybody who emails a photo of themselves reading a Paperbooks title on holiday to info@legend-paperbooks.co.uk

To access the online shop follow the link on the right of the page!

Lucy