Why are Matador different?

Serious About Self Publishing

Matador has deliberately positioned itself as a quality self publishing imprint for authors who are serious about getting their work in front of readers through traditional and non-traditional book retail outlets. Our aim is to publish quality books that people want to read.

Unlike most other companies that will offer to publish your book, we are discerning. Your book is important to us, but we will only take on books that we feel are good from a content point of view. In practice, this means that we turn down around 25% of the fiction and poetry titles that we are asked to take on by self publishing authors. In addition, we don’t believe in producing books that have poor production standards. So if an author is looking for a company who will just print what they are given, no questions asked, then that is not us. We are looking for quality of content and quality of presentation… both of which are essential if a book is to stand the slightest chance of selling even a single copy.

At Matador we've been publishing books for more than a decade. Everything from short run pamphlets through novels, local histories, specialist academic books, we have extensive experience in taking manuscripts (and their authors) through the publishing process. And at Matador, our experience is put to good use in a partnership arrangement with our authors, because we believe in working with you to achieve the best possible publication. We want you to be satisfied with your publication, so we work with you every step of the way.

We are not a printing company. Our own commercial publishing lists have been built up over the last fifteen years, so we've used a fair number of printing companies and we know a good one from a bad one! Every book is different, with different requirements, but we have the expertise to match a book with a printer to get the best possible publication -- at the best possible price. There are no restrictions on what we can publish as a result, be it a paperback, a full colour 'coffee table' book, an academic tome, a hardback or a slim pamphlet. If you want 50 or 5000 copies, we know what printing processes are available (and they change rapidly), and what pitfalls to expect for each.

As an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd, Matador authors benefit from our years of experience working with major publishers (see some of our commercial customers detailed on our web site). From full project management, design and editing through to publishing and distribution, as a commercial publishing house we have been working successfully with other publishers for many years.

But having produced your book, we don't just leave you there. We can register, promote, market and distribute your title along with our own, ensuring a presence in the major online bookshops through our Partnership programmes with Amazon and The Internet Bookshop. And we again work with our authors in getting the best possible promotion for their book, by helping them identify specialist interest publications, local newspapers, specialist radio programmes and the like, and then targeting such avenues with press releases and promotional copies.

Our aim is to produce great books, and to get them into the hands of readers. And it's our reputation that's at stake too, as we have our own publishing programmes to consider. Authors publishing their work with us become our partners rather than our customers.

Telephone for an informal chat about your work, even if it's not ready for publication yet. We freely give advice on preparing your manuscript, and how to proceed towards publication every step of the way.

Why are we different? We have the experience, expertise and infrastructure to do a good job.