Our marketing team are involved throughout your book’s publication journey. Everything we do is directed to supporting sales of your book – to libraries and to individuals – and helping your work to reach the greatest number of readers. 

Book proposal stage

Before your book is accepted for publication, your editor will take it to a proposal meeting. Our marketing team are among the specialists who will read your proposal. We may recommend changes that we believe will give your book the best chance in the market. Your editor will share any suggestions with you and discuss how you might incorporate our advice.  

After your final manuscript is accepted  

For sales success, it is essential that we send complete and accurate information about your book to the market as soon as possible. Once we have your final manuscript, we can confirm details such as the page count and the publication date of your book, and share its bibliographic data globally. We release this data simultaneously for print and ebook formats. 

We review all copy and data relating to your book before it feeds out to:  

• Our own website
• Trade bibliographic services such as Nielsen Book Data
• Booksellers’ bibliographies: Waterstone’s, Blackwell’s, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc.
• Online booksellers: Amazon, Bookshop.org, the Book Depository, etc.
• Our global network of distributors

We also create Advanced Information sheets for our sales partners to share with library suppliers, wholesalers, booksellers, foreign publishers seeking translation rights and others. These sheets help buyers decide if your book is right for their customers and how many copies they might want to order. 

Four months ahead of publication 

You know your book, its content and intended audience better than anyone else. Not long after your book is announced to market, we will get in touch to invite you to share your insights with us. We do this by asking you to complete a Marketing Brief.   

The Marketing Brief asks for information about: 

• you – For example: Will you be attending any events close to publication? Do you use social media?
• your audience – For example: Are their any learned societies to which they are likely to belong? What are the journals they are most likely to read?
• the content of your book – For example: standout facts or personalities, relevance to current events, upcoming anniversaries, etc.

We use this information to target potential readers effectively and help them engage with your book’s content, increasing the likelihood that they will buy it or recommend it to their librarian.    

On publication of your book

On publication, we accelerate the pace of marketing activity to make the most of the groundwork that has been laid over the preceding months. The following page sets out what you can expect to see on and around your book’s publication date.