Frequently Asked Questions

We have been in publishing for many years using our experience and knowledge of the industry to take advantage of the new technologies, distribution and marketing avenues provided by the Internet and Social Media. We have our own official imprint (identity) and contracts with the various suppliers and distributors to our industry. Our main distributor is Ingram and our main print on demand (POD) supplier is Lightning Source.

Cambria provides services and facilities for both authors and local trusted publishing professionals to work together to get books published quickly, professionally and distributed to readers via bookshops and online.

We do NOT charge for publishing your book.

The professional services that you may or may not need to use to complete your book. eg. Book cover design or editorial work are provided by our experienced and talented associates.  The more you are able to do yourself or with your own providers to a high specification the less will be those costs.  In order for us to pair you with one of our professionals and an accurate quotation tailored to your specific requirements, you will need to complete and send back to us our BOOK PROPOSAL form which can be downloaded from this page.

Want to know exactly whom we work with via Ingram Book Group to make your books available to retailers worldwide? HERE you will find a list of print distribution partners helping to connect you to readers across the globe.

We also distribute locally in Wales through the Wales book council.

NO. We are a full service publisher with our own imprint and all our authors are published by us under that imprint. Many authors these days do ‘self publish’ and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Nevertheless, many authors also want the reassurance of being published by a ‘publisher’ as it takes away the complexity involved and allows them to ‘just write’ rather than having to deal with marketing and expert technical book construction, and trade distribution  (ie. the boring bits). You can also receive copyrighting, proofreading and writing advice that will help make your manuscript professionally ‘publishable’ without all those amateurish bits that are a dead giveaway. Similarly, bookshops, libraries and the trade will not stock self-published books for the obvious reasons that there is no distribution system in place for a single author on their own no matter how good the book is.

No. As long as the writing is good we publish all types of books from fiction to journalism and business books. Our customers and readers are worldwide with interests in and expectations of good literature and good writing.

NO. We don’t do this because it is a specialist market.

Please go to the relevant submission page HERE and read the instructions. It’s not difficult. You may want to read some of the information that we provide first to make sure you understand what we do.

A finished ‘manuscript’ is not the final finished book.  There is much pre-publication work that must be done to prepare a manuscript for printing (or eBook formatting). These SERVICES are available to authors and they include cover graphic design, editing, proofreading, story construction advice and many other writing advice services that may or may not be needed. You need to understand that these services have to be paid for. That said, our providers offer these services at very reasonable and competitive rates exclusive to us. Some (but not all) authors undertake to do these tasks themselves which obviously saves costs.

The rather harsh answer is NO except in very exceptional cases. As an author with us you receive 100% of the profit from sales less a 18% account management charge if you use our distribution network. Talk to us if you need further explanation.

YES you do.  This is a formal standard contract that is a requirement to describe your and our responsibilities and for our mutual protection. It is not a ‘publishing’ contract

As stated in our contract you, as the author, will retain copyright except in certain rare circumstances.

We are not a big concern so most of our promotion and marketing effort on behalf of our authors is done online via email marketing, social media marketing and via our website. Our books are also listed in monthly communications sent out by Ingram to the trade and various other trade channels. That said, where possible, we support our authors with press releases, review copies and attendances at book launches. We do like authors to get involved in promoting themselves online and we provide them with the tools and facilities for doing so.

Print on Demand (POD) technology means that no book needs to be printed until it has sold or been ordered. Also gone are the days when you had to have a ‘minimum print run’ of several hundred books.  No longer do you have to keep boxes of unsold books decaying in the attic or back room and wondering how to shift them. If you want only one book you can get one book whether you are a bookshop, reader or author.

If you are concerned about quality, don’t be. All our books are of better or equal quality to those printed (and bound) cheaply in China or India or wherever. It is also FAST. Our maximum delivery time is 6 days and is usually less.

The quickest we have got a physical book into the hand of a reader is 2 weeks – manuscript to finished printed book.  Obviously, not all our books can be done that quickly but in comparison to the usual speed of most publishers (sometimes years) we are really really FAST. In addition, we give you answers to questions in hours not weeks. However, we never compromise on Quality.

YES. All our print and ebooks are listed with Amazon. Whatever you think about Amazon they have over 70% of the eBook market and increasing share of the print book market. Customers buy books from Amazon.

YES, of course. Our print book trade distributor is Ingram who are one of the largest and best book distributor on the Planet. Bookstores order their copies direct from them.

YES. Most of our authors buy as many copies as they want at ‘author cost‘ price and then sell at whatever price they can get for them and through whatever channel whether it be their own website, at book launches or at events. We have no limitation, constriction or clawback on this – in fact we want to encourage it!

Clawback is the way in which some publishers. even well known big publishers, recoup their costs and any advance that is made to an author. WE DO NOT DO THIS!

It works in two ways. Firstly, if an advance has been made but book sales have not met a target income, within a certain time frame, equal or greater than the advance, the publisher will ask for the advance to be returned pro rata. ie. an author might end up owing the publisher money! Secondly, publishers will not pay out any 'royalty' until book sales have covered their costs - this cost is never divulged to the author and could run into thousands - an author could wait for years until a royalty is paid!