About

A publishing house for people who have never published

SG Publication has taken more than four hundred authors from a first call to a book on sale since 2016. Almost none of them had written a book before, and most arrived having been quoted a number by someone who would not explain what was in it.

The business is arranged around that. We are paid for work rather than a share of your sales, every account is in your name, and everything is written down before you pay. That is not generosity: it is what lets a first time author tell whether they are being dealt with straight.

Three things that never change

They apply to the cheapest package and the most expensive one equally, and they are in every contract we send.

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  You keep 100 percent of your royalties

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  Every account is registered in your name

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  The price is fixed before we start

What we will not do

A list of promises tells you very little, because everyone makes the same ones. This is the more useful half.

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We do not take a percentage

We are paid once, for the work. No royalty share, and no "partnership" that is really a cut of every sale.

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We do not hold your accounts

Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Audible and the rest are registered in your name. Revoke our access tomorrow and the book keeps selling.

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We do not guarantee a bestseller

Anyone who does is misleading you, or planning to buy a ranking in a category too small to mean anything.

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We do not buy reviews

Reviews come through legitimate reader programmes. Paid reviews breach every retailer’s terms and get books delisted.

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We do not bill surprises

The price is fixed when you sign. Anything outside the package is quoted in writing before the work starts.

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We do not take every book

If the market for yours is very small, or you do not need us, the first reply says so.

Who you would be working with

You meet the people on your book before you sign, with their names and backgrounds. Not a team size, not a stock photograph.

Named profiles and photographs are added before launch. The four below describe how the work is divided.

• Editorial

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  Editorial

  Developmental and line editors, several with Big Five backgrounds. You get the name and background of yours before you sign, and they stay to the end.

• Writing

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  Writing

  Ghostwriters who work from recorded interviews, matched to a subject rather than assigned by availability. If the voice is wrong we change the writer at no cost.

• Design and production

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  Design and production

  Cover designers and typesetters who set for print and reflow for ebook. Covers are designed for how they read as a thumbnail, because that is where the buying decision happens.

• Publishing and marketing

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  Publishing and marketing

  The people who register the ISBNs, open the accounts in your name, test the listing, run the advertising, and send a plain language royalty report each month.

What our authors said

Each of these named a specific fear before they signed. That is what we asked them about afterwards.

Sample testimonials shown. Replace with real, permissioned quotes before launch.

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  “I had eleven years of clinical notes and a folder of talks, and three separate companies had quoted me somewhere between nine and twenty two thousand dollars without ever explaining what the difference was.

  What made me sign with SG was that they sent me the milestone schedule and the name of my editor before I had paid anything, and the editor emailed me herself.

  The part I was most afraid of was that it would come back sounding like a corporate brochure, and it did not, because they sent me two chapters at week four and I could hear my own voice in them.

  It has sold just over four thousand copies, and more importantly it is the reason two hospital systems now call me instead of the other way round.”

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  “I had forty thousand words and absolutely no idea what the next step was.

  They read the whole thing before quoting me, which nobody else did.

  The developmental edit cut nine thousand words and the book is far better for it.

  It has been in the top three of its category since March.”

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  “I am seventy one and I did not want to be sold to.

  My daughter sat in on the first call and afterwards she said they were the only ones who answered a direct question directly.

  The interviews were the best part, because I talked and somebody finally wrote it down properly.

  My grandchildren have a copy each and it is in two libraries in the county.”

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  “My first book was self published badly and sold nine copies, most of them to relatives.

  SG relaunched it with a new cover, a real edit and proper categories rather than starting again from nothing.

  They told me upfront that the middle third was the problem, which stung and was correct.

  The relaunched edition has done just under twelve hundred copies and the ads have been profitable since month two.”