Question 1

Where do I buy Pudding Press Ltd Books?

Accepted Answer

We sell our books in all regular formats including physical copies and sometimes ebooks.  Two other popular ebook stores are Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks. You can purchase our books from these stores in their respective formats.
 
The best place to buy the hard and paper back copies of our books is from our online store on this site. Our books are also on all the main book lists, so you should be able to buy them from your local bookstore, although sometimes this can involve a wait. We are a tiny press so work with a range of different printing solutions but usually print in small quantities. As we're also the main distributer for our books, an accurate retail stock quantitiy is usually shown next to the product in out store.

Question 2

Are you taking writer submissions?

Accepted Answer

We have specific projects from time to time where we might be looking for writers. Please check this website or subscribe to our news and updates if you would like notice of these times. 
 
Otherwise we're such a tiny concern that we don't take specularive enquiries at the moment.

Question 3

What is different about your publishing model?

Accepted Answer

We're tiny and cheapish to run, which means that we've been able to make choices about publishing our books differently. Nothing is ever perfect, and so this has been an evolving project but at the moment we have a few points of difference.
 
By buying a book from us you're supporting these aims and also supporting independent publishing. Due to the nature of our business setup at the moment, as well as marketing power, our books have not so far been in WHSmith shops in the airport or won the Man Booker prize. We don't offer giant publishing advances to writers either, and for many people finding a large traditional publisher will be a better route to becoming a full-time, well paid author. 
 
We do however do some things that make our books a bit different. If you read one, let us know what you think. 
 
- Being fully independent and without the need to run hugely expensive ad campaigns and swanky offices we can publish whatever we like. Short stories, unusual subject matter, unpopular niches and different writing styles all feature, even when the market tells traditional publishers not to touch these things.  We also work with writers who have found it hard to break into mainstream publishing and are able to offer them a similar experience where we front all the costs of publishing, and they get paid when books sell. 
 
- Our founder and creative director started the company so she could publish her own writing but within a strong editorial structure, so this is a company that was set up with creativity in mind. 
 
- We often work within a collaborative editing structure that helps to shape the work really differently than otherwise, and editors who work on these titles also get royalties in the same way that authors would. 
 
- We put our writers at the top of the pile when it comes to revenue and work with generous royalty percentages. As a small press our manufacturing costs are usually higher, so profits for all vary as a result, but we do make sure that writers get a fair cut. 
 
- To make up for not being able to offer big publishing advances, we have a range of other interesting contracts that offer the chance to get long-term royalties on slow burners.

Question 4

Have you got any other jobs going?

Accepted Answer

As we're so small we rarely take on new writers but are sometimes looking for other roles. We'll usually advertise for these, so sign up for news and updates if you are interested in working for us. We don't use unpaid interns, as we have a commitment to paying at least something for work undertaken, so this means we can employ far fewer people, but the following types of jobs can sometimes come up. Most of these at the moment will be freelance positions but help us spread the word or buy our books and we might be able to have some permanent staff some day. 
 
- Graphic Designers / Book Design
- Proofreaders
- Copy editors
- Collaborative editors
- Illustrators
- Accountants and book keepers 
- Admin assistants
- Sales staff

Question 5

Where are you based?

Accepted Answer

We're currently based in the UK, in England, and if we earn enough money we pay our corporation tax here too.

Question 6

Any thoughts about piracy and free downloads

Accepted Answer

It's a tough one because as teenagers we remember taping songs off the radio, getting 2/3 of the song and desperately hoping the DJ wasn't going to butt in too quickly at the end. Getting the actual album for birthdays or with pocket money was better but we still made the tapes. 
 
Overall though one of our ebooks costs as little as £2.50, and if you won't even pay that then you're saying you feel it's okay to enjoy reading something but not to pay the author, the editor, the publisher and by extension anyone else who might be working for the publisher, tax that the publisher would be paying. In the UK, so much corporation tax goes towards funding the NHS, pensions, schools etc. So just spending a few pounds on a book helps to support all of that infrastructure. Without anyone paying for books, that's a lot of jobs that would not even be there. Not all book sellers are big faceless off-shore giants who don't pay their tax anyway. Buy from our shop and at least you'll know you're feeding a real economy and not just a hedge fund.

The above has of course been complicated by the recent upsurge of generative AI and unfortunately publishers and authors are finding their work is being scraped by large organisations we do not have any financial or legal power to stop. While not against technology or artificial intelligence itself, we are publishers of specifically human work and will carry on doing all we can within our industry to support human creativity and jobs. 
 
Digital technology is amazing and it's one of the reasons we got to be a tiny micro press. We probably couldn't have done this in another era. The digital by nature is viral, borderless and collaborative, so wonderful as that is, it just aids things like book piracy.  That is book piracy by individuals and also now on a giant scale from multinationals.

Maybe a solution to this is to organise society a bit better so that even poorly paid authors can afford to live without being hand to mouth. But until we've done that, please consider just buying the book instead of downloading for free, and and buying from publishers of human writing.  The price of a book is a very, very cheap way of saying thank you to someone for giving up a bit of themselves to you.
 
If you choose to still download a pirate copy then we hope you enjoy it anyway. Please consider giving back something by spreading the word or leaving the author a review - Goodreads, Amazon or social media are great places to do this. Also please just be aware of the choice you are making.