Clachan Publishing

To preserve and promote publications dedicated to Irish family and local history

Make your Book

Want a book for friends and family?
It's easy.

What sort of book?
We are happy to help you publish :
  • your family history 
  • your novel
  • memoirs
  • travelogues
  • poems and ballads
  • letters
  • out-of -print books, journals, photographs, event programmes or any facsimile publications
  • books of specialist interest.
We are particularly interested in preserving stories, memories and publications that are available to only a few or are in danger of getting lost altogether.
All you have to do is contact us and we can arrange that you send us copies of what you have and, between us, we can decide how best to preserve them and make them generally available as a book, pamphlet or ebook.


It's not expensive.

We use the most up-to-date, print-on-demand internet publishing technology to produce your book. To give you a rough idea, it will cost in the region of:
  • £1.00 per B&W A5 page of well edited, proof read text.
  • £2.00 per clear B&W or colour image.
Negotiated charge for additional editing, proof-reading, image improving.
(Seen here for more details)
We offer
  • Wide range of book sizes
  • Full colour if required.
  • ISBN for small fee.
Plus
  • No minimum order required
  • Only pay for the copies you buy
  • Royalties negotiable for  commercial publications
  • See your book also as an ebook  - for  a small additional fee.


How easy is it?

Ours is a very personalised service. Drop us an email or give us a call and tell us what sort of book you want to make.
Send us the text and any photos by email, if you wish. We can help you get them ready for publication.
We can also help you scan photos and documents.
Once all the material is collected we can talk about how it is to be presented and arranged.
We do this all time for people who have never published before, so don't worry.
You will be consulted at every stage.


We help you get your book out there

Purchase an ISBN from us and we will promote your book though:
  • Direct sales to bookshops using Ireland's main book distributors
  • Clachan's catalogue circulated throughout Irish bookshops
  • Twitter
  • Facebook.

Our books are also distributed through the following web sites:

  • Amazon
  • Barns Noble
  • LuLu
  • Irish Books Direct
  • Clachan Publishing.
It should be born in mind that 7 copies of  ISBN publications need to be deposited with the  deposit libraries.

This usually involves submitting at least two files:

  • A text file of the book interior
  • An image file of the book cover

However images, illustrations and captions will be submitted separately (see below).

Files can be submitted by email (size permitting), Drop Box, and by personally delivering or posting material on a pen drive.

For best value, the text of an original book should be submitted as a Microsoft Word file, or in Rich Text format, (DOC, DOCX, RTF, or ODT file) fully formatted, using style based formatting, and proof-read. We will then format the text, after consultation with you.


Sizes and styles

We offer a wide range of book types: paperbacks, hardback books, books with dust jackets, spiral bound books, pocket books, photo books. 

We offer full colour covers and full colour or black and white interiors.


Getting the best value

To give you some idea of what your book might cost you, here are the usual prices for a perfect bound paperback, with full-colour cover and black and white interior.

  • A5 (14.81x20.99), Comic (16.83 x 26.03 cm), Landscape (22.86 x 17.78 cm). - £10 per 10 pages of text, or part thereof.
  • Royal, (15.59 x 23.39 cm), Crown Quarto (18.91 x 24.59 cm), Pocketbook (10.79 x 17.46 cm) - £12.50 per 10 pages of text, or part thereof.
  • A4 (20.99 x 29.7 cm) - £14.00 per 10 pages of text, or part thereof.
  • Square (21.59 x 21.59 cm) - £15.00 per 10 pages of text, or part thereof.
  • US Letter (21.59 x 27.94 cm) - £16.00 per 10 pages of text, or part thereof.

The file submitted need not be in any of these sizes as final formatting will usually be agreed after submission. However, these prices refer to text formatted using style-based formatting (SBF).


Further ways of keeping production costs down

You can reduce your costs further by following these guidelines.

  • Ask a competent person to proof read all your text before submission.
  • Submit your text using Style-based formatting.

However, we specialise in assisted self-publishing. So if you need help with proof reading,  copy proofing, formatting or editing  we can assist you for a reasonable fee, which depends on how much editing is required.

We assess this when we see the files.

The work must be proof read

Even professional writers use proof-readers. It is a special skill and not every well-educated person is good at it. It certainly  does not involve just using spell and grammar check.

We will proof read the entire text for you, at the price quoted above. However, if we consistently find we have to correct more than one error per page we will ask for an additional proof-reading fee, depending on the frequency of corrections.

If the frequency is much higher than that we may wish to save you money and return the text to you for further work.

Use style-based formatting

This involves creating headings and normal or indented paragraph styles etc. through the word processing programme style box. This creates consistent styles that can be altered easily and uniformly. Authors should avoid using direct formatting, i.e. creating headings by increasing the size of normal text. Also they should avoid inserting additional spaces between paragraphs using the Enter key. Rather, they should create additional space between paragraphs and headings through the style box. New pages should not be inserted into on-going text. Insert only when required, e.g. for a new chapter or to mark a full page illustration.