Prepare to Publish is a publishing agency which offers professional editorial and typesetting services – specialising in books and magazines (consumer, trade and contract publishing).
We are based in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, but we’ve had clients in the US and Europe as well as across the UK. The company was founded and is run by Andrew Chapman, who has 25 years’ experience in all aspects of publishing; he is a Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). His colleague in providing editorial services to book publishers and authors is author and screenwriter C M Taylor, who has assessed or edited hundreds of manuscripts for Writers’ Workshop.
We also have a network of more than a dozen tried and trusted freelancers who we can call upon to suit the needs of the project in hand. Our business is to help you get your project into a suitable printed or digital format.
Our editors have turned out books for, among others, Penguin Random House, Little, Brown and Company, Orion, Ebury Press, Simon and Schuster, Thames & Hudson, and Unbound. As writers, our names have appeared on books published by Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Orion, Tor, Black Swan and Duckworth, to name a few.
We can also edit and design for your magazine. Andrew has worked for, among others, Dennis Publishing, Future plc, Immediate Media, Centaur Media, Trinity Mirror, Reed Business Information, Haymarket and Quarto. We work closely with numerous printers and can advise on all aspects of publishing. We have regular clients for whom we produce a wide variety of books and magazines, but we are always open to discussing new projects. Samples of our recent work are featured in the portfolio on the home page.
We can also offer ghostwriting. As a writer working across a number of genres, Craig is a very fluid literary mimic who can enter stories and tones on their own terms. As well as publishing literary and commercial work under his own name, Craig has ghostwritten a novel for an internationally bestselling author, and a true-crime work of non-fiction which was offered a deal with the leading publisher in its field. So if you are a publisher or a private client, we can help with any ghosting needs.
‘Spotting problems in a manuscript without offering practical solutions means you’re just a critic. My work as a published novelist informs my editorial practice every single day – I can get under the hood to help fix things. Writers make good editors, they’re experienced, and they really care. We will always try and place structural edits with a working writer.’CM Taylor
As C M Taylor, Craig has published multiple novels with independent and mainstream publishers alike, ghostwritten fiction, and lectured widely on creative writing, including devising the new Jericho Writers Ultimate Novel Writing Course. An Associate Lecturer at the Oxford International Centre for Publishing, Craig has edited more than 40 novels and written structural reports on over 200 more.
‘Bringing something to publication is a collaborative process – and it’s about getting the people right as well as the words. Working across many publications over the years has helped me to gather a great list of tried and tested freelancers, so it’s always possible to find the right people for each project. And best of all: freelancers love their work.’Andrew Chapman
Andrew has been an editor and page layout expert for more than 20 years. He has been the editor of three consumer magazines, a B2B title and a newspaper; the typesetter on countless magazine editions and books; and the copy editor of many fiction and non-fiction books. He has put together different teams of freelancers appropriate to the job in hand, operating under his forensic eye. He is a Professional Member of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP).