One of the Trust’s major aims is to encourage Self-Publishing. In their 19 year, these are now run jointly with Writers’ News. To enter your book must have been published during the previous two years. There will always be a category for books of local interest, and usually for other Non-fiction works, Fiction, Poetry and for Children or young people. Please note we need two copies of your book (however many self-publishing categories you enter) and an application form will gladly be sent on request. The overall winner, only announced at our prizegiving, is chosen from our category winners.

 

As commercial publishers increasingly concentrate on best sellers, the case for self-publishing is ever strengthening, especially for books of local interest where it is as easy for local self-publishers to keep in touch with core outlets that would account for a high proportion of sales whoever undertook the publication. At the opposite extreme, a general (as opposed to one with a local setting) novel which anyone might like but nobody positively needs is a hard proposition for self-publishers, though some of our competitors have come up with intriguing solutions.

 

To be a self-publisher you must actually fulfil some of the publication procedures yourself with a minimum of being directly involved with marketing and sales. The fact of merely paying for your book to be published does not automatically render it ‘self-published’. Some services for self-publishers are much fairer than those offered by so-called Vanity Publishers who offer much for high charges but usually deliver little. But again, to qualify the self-publisher must actually do self-publishing as opposed to contracting everything out.