How to Publish Yourself in the UK
As soon as you have your ISBN, you need to provide Advanced Information to the trade and you also need to ensure you are set up as a Publisher. It takes time for this information to work its way through the system so don't delay. There are a few steps:
You need to register yourself as a Publisher as well as registering your new book. You can register yourself on Nielsen’s web site using the link below. This will ensure that anyone in the book trade knows who the publisher is and how to contact you about your new book.
Once you have an ISBN you need to provide your book data to the book trade. This will ensure the book is discoverable and orderable as soon as it's available and that all the details are shared correctly to both online and offline book sellers. Both Nielsen and BDS offer this service free to Publishers. Since Waterstones only use Nielsen data and Blackwell’s primarily use BDS data, you should register with both, using the links below. The kind of information you’ll need to have ready includes:
BDS will also provide your data to all the UK public library authorities, as well as to their suppliers and the British Library. So make sure you complete their BDSLive form as soon as the ISBN is sorted. It's on the BDS homepage, link below.
In addition, since 1662, Publishers in the UK and Ireland have a legal obligation to send one copy of each of their publications to the British Library Legal Deposit Office within one month of publication. You may also receive an email or letter from The Agent for the Legal Deposit Libraries who is responsible for acquiring legal deposit material for five other legal deposit libraries: The Bodleian Library, Oxford; The University Library, Cambridge; The National Library of Scotland; The Library of Trinity College, Dublin; The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. If they ask, you are legally obliged to provide the copies.
Legal deposit ensures that your book will become part of the nation’s heritage and preserved for future generations!
Details on how to do all these things are in the links below.
Many book shops will also allow you to upload images and data directly. We’ll cover more on that in the Sell it Chapter.
One word of warning – it takes time for the process to work. Some in the trade reckon you should allow around 5 months for your book info to permeate through so first of all get it done as soon as possible and secondly, be patient!
