I am frequently asked similar questions about self-publishing options in the UK, and this page – which is kept updated, and is informed by my own publishing projects – offers an overview of the common options and key considerations.
(Updated October 2024)
I’m always wary of presenting self-publishing as a golden ticket, but the authors who thrive in my experience are those who treat their work in some sense as a business; clearly your profile, connections in a specific niche or (perhaps) a healthy social media following are key aspects which will help. In many ways, the promotional side is where the real work is (not to denigrate the writing and other work involved!).
For authors in the UK, there are four main options in terms of getting your book to market, other than seeking a traditional publisher or using a full publishing services provider (such as Matador). The first three are commonly referred to as print on demand or POD:
1. Amazon KDP. The chief advantage is the speed of availability through Amazon itself, i.e. with fast Prime delivery available to buyers of your book; and printing costs are competitive. Amazon takes a 40% retail cut and your revenue is the 60% of the cover price minus the print cost (the latter depends on whether your book will be black and white or full colour, paperback or hardback, and how many pages).
2. IngramSpark. Ingram are more expensive for printing (and generally a bit slower in my experience) but very useful for the US market as they are part of the biggest, US-based global distributor – but availability of books through UK channels (including Amazon) has often been fraught, with ‘available in 7 days’ (or even weeks) common in online stores, including Waterstones, Blackwells and WHSmith (but: this is not guaranteed, and in any case it can take as long as two months for their websites to list your book, unlike Amazon’s almost immediate listing). In theory using Ingram means your book is available to physical bookstores too – in practice, it’s very unlikely that they would actually stock your book (unless you can persuade them directly for particular reasons, e.g. local to you or a specialist outlet relating to your niche), but if a customer comes in asking for your book, the shop can order it for you. Ingram does now distribute in the UK, but it’s not clear whether this makes much difference in practice: it is down to whether UK booksellers will order from them direct instead of the UK distribution leader, Gardners (see below).
Note: Amazon also offers ‘expanded distribution’, which actually uses Ingram’s network anyway; for this Amazon’s retail cut is 60% instead of 40%. With Ingram directly, this retail cut can be as low as 35% in the UK/EU and there’s little evidence that setting it higher makes much difference (although in theory it would be more appealing to physical bookshops), so the low rate can help with margins (but Ingram’s higher print costs also work against that somewhat).
3. Bookvault.app. This is a UK printing firm offering POD and its own retail outlet. Bookvault offer better options for paper/colour options (including colour ‘plates’, i.e. a section rather than the whole book being colour) and (in my view) their print quality has the edge, with costs similar (very slightly higher) to Amazon’s. Their retail outlet is The Great British Bookshop: useful if you want to direct buyers there as the margins are very good (the site only takes 10% for the retailing) but less use for general traffic as the shop is not well known. If you register your book with Nielsen Title Editor, Bookvault will pick up the metadata from there. (If you use Ingram, they send this info to Nielsen from their system.) In theory this means that a Bookvault title will also appear on Amazon – but in my experience this can be unreliable, as with Ingram. (In general, the universe is Amazon vs the rest!)
Whatever happens, you’ll want your book available to Amazon customers – this will happen either way, but going directly to Amazon optimises this. Some authors choose to ‘go wide’ and use (1) plus (2) or (3) or even all three, which is fine as long as you have your own ISBN and use the same one at each platform. Your choice will depend on various things: what sort of book it is, and how much you mind having to maintain accounts at more than one platform in particular (Amazon’s system is easier to use, though all are perfectly fine if you don’t mind filling in online forms). Amazon is free; Ingram used to have setup fees but generally waives them now; Bookvault has a one-off setup of about £20 per book (or regular plans for multiple titles). If you only want to use one option, my advice would have to be Amazon KDP.
The landscape does change over time, though.
At the moment the non-Amazon market in the UK is really in the grip of Gardners, the leading British book distributor, who supply Waterstones and most other retailers – when a customer goes into a bookshop to order a book, it’s Gardners’ catalogue they’ll typically use. If it’s a book published through Ingram, usually (in the UK at least) the bookshop will order it from Gardners, who in turn place a ‘special order’ from Ingram, which is partly why it takes so long. But Ingram’s direct UK distribution is intended to change this.
There is another option…
4. Clays (see https://www.clays.co.uk/market
(Based on info Clays gave me in 2022) Gardners buy the books from Clays at 50% of the RRP, and Clays take a 6% fee, so you as author get 44% – but again the print costs would come out of that. Warehousing (in 2022) was c.£5.50 a week ‘per pallet’ but 100 copies will be stored for free. 100 is the minimum print run.
Every book/author will have different needs but this hopefully gives you a picture of the landscape. Of course, there is always the 4th option, too: direct sales. You can use a printing firm to print X copies of your book, which you can then sell through your own website, at events or through other marketing channels such as your email list. This of course obliges you to handle the posting and ensure you have stock.
Note: Bookvault also offer help with direct sales: if you have a website using WordPress/Woocommerce or using Shopify, it can be integrated with their system so that orders through your site can be fulfilled directly without you having to do anything.
Ebooks: note that again Amazon dominates ebook distribution. Ingram can distribute ebooks but take a large cut and don’t seem to be very effective at getting them to a wide market. Another option is Draft2Digital, which can distribute your ebook to multiple outlets (including Amazon).
The above info doesn’t encompass marketing, however. Amazon offer paid ads which can be effective if targeted very precisely. Ingram have advertising options in a regular booklet of new publications, but there’s little info on success. Or there are many independent options, such as NetGalley (broadcasting to bloggers etc) or Bookbub (broadcasting to readers via offering free/discounted ebooks, depending on budget and whether they will take your book on.