Are You Publishing a Book? What do you Know About Legal Deposit?

Recent posts on Facebook indicate a great deal of confusion over Legal Deposit. Some self-publishing authors have never heard of it, while others question what it means to them. Combined with this is a misunderstanding of where the books have to be sent, mainly because a lot of the Depositories are National Libraries. To many people, writers included, a library is a place which lends books, and the distinction between Legal Deposit libraries and public libraries is not clear. So, it might be best to start off with a clarification of this issue.

 

Montrose Library courtesy of Russ Hamer, Wikipedia Commons

Public Libraries

Public libraries can be found in every town. They provide a free book lending source for the general public. These libraries should not be confused with the Legal Deposit libraries which I will discuss in the next section. A public library buys the books it requires to stock the library and is not entitled to free copies of an author or publisher’s book after publication, although an author may gift books if they so wish. However, library contacts have informed me that not every library will accept free copies and if an author sends them they will not be added to the library shelves and will probably land up in the next library book sale. The reason for this is related to health and safety because many donated books are not in good condition.

Legal Depositories

Legal Deposit of publications is a requirement in every country. Legal depositories are mainly National Libraries which also includes University libraries in some countries. In addition to National libraries, university libraries are used as depositories in the UK, Russia, Poland, Slovenia, and Sri Lanka. Books acquired for Legal Deposit are archived and not available for lending, although they can be viewed and accessed for research.

Legal Depository stacks at the National Library of Scotland

What is Legal Deposit

Legal deposit is a statutory requirement to submit copies of publications to a repository. This has been limited to printed publications but the system is currently under expansion to include digital publications. It is referred to as Legal Deposit in most countries, however, it is referred to as Mandatory Deposit in the United States.

Legislation

Most countries have their own legislation setting out the statutory requirements. In the UK the current legislation is the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, although the legislation originated in 1662. Secondary legislation was brought in to deal with non-print publications (electronic) with the Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013.

In the Australia legal deposit is embodied in the Copyright Act 1968. In Canada, it is the Library and Archives of Canada Act 2004. In China, it is article 22 of the Regulations on the Administration of Publication 2001. Each country has its own legislation.

The Legal Requirement

This varies from country to country, ranging from one copy of each new publication in Brazil, to nineteen copies in Poland. As I reside in Britain I will restrict this discussion to UK requirements.

The legal requirement in the UK is for six copies of each new publication to be submitted for legal deposit. The legislation states that one copy of a new publication should be sent to the British Library within thirty days of publication. The British Library will not ask for it and the publisher is expected to send the publication within the allotted time scale. If the book is not sent they will send a reminder informing you that you have not complied with the legislation.

The five remaining books do not need to be sent unless a request for them is made. But once the request is made by the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries the same time scale applies.

It is important to note that the British Library legal deposit of one book and the five books required by the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries are sent to different addresses. If you combine the six books into one parcel and send to either one or the other address it will result in lost books.

The addresses are:

Legal Deposit Office, The British Library, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BY (one copy)

Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries, 161 Causewayside, Edinburgh EH9 1PH (five copies)

Agency for Legal Deposit

As mentioned previously, the Agency for Legal Deposit is separate from the Legal Deposit Office at the British Library. The agency’s role is to collect and disperse the remaining five copies of the new publication to the various legal deposit libraries. These libraries are:

• the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford;
• Cambridge University Library;
• the National Library of Scotland;
• the Library of Trinity College, Dublin;
• the National Library of Wales.

Who has to comply with Legal Deposit?

The statutory duty to comply with the legislation rests with the publisher. This is another area of confusion with self-publishers. They sometimes find it difficult to determine who is the publisher. The term self-publish can lead to the assumption that everyone who self-publishes is liable for Legal Deposit, and in many cases that is the correct assumption. However, some self-publishers accept the free ISBN that Createspace and similar companies offer, and if they do this they are not the publisher of their self-published book.

So, to clarify the position, it is the person or company who buys the ISBN who is the publisher. So if a free ISBN has been accepted this makes Createspace, or the company supplying it, the publisher. Therefore, the responsibility lies with them. And, of course, if Createspace is the publisher the book is a US publication. If, on the other hand, you have bought your own ISBN and are using Createspace as a printer, rather than a publisher, and you reside in the UK your book is a UK publication. If you reside in a different country it is the country of residence of the publisher.

I have tried to include everything in this post but if anything is missing, or you have a question, please put it in the comments and I will try to answer.

In the meantime, I suppose I should mention that I have included a section on Legal Deposit in my new book the Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing: How to Self-Publish Ebooks and Paperbacks. There are also other sections on PLR (library lending), ALCS (secondary royalties) and loads of other information as well as step-by-step guides to formatting.

Chris Longmuir

Where to buy Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing

UK

Amazon.co.uk – paperback

Amazon.co.uk – Kindle

Kobo

US

Amazon.com – Paperback

Amazon.com - Kindle

Kobo

My website: https://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

Amazon author page UK

Amazon author page US

Turning from a Life of Crime to the Mysteries of Self-Publishing

Normally, with a new book, I’d be treating you to a tale of murder mystery, something to make you frightened to turn out the light, and to make you look over your shoulder as you walk down the street. But, I’ve left my life of crime behind in my new publishing venture to bring you a comprehensive guide on how to self-publish. ‘The Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing: How to Self-Publish Ebooks and Paperbacks’.

I’ve been writing professionally for the best part of twenty years now. At first, I concentrated on articles and short stories, and then several years later, after I’d served my apprenticeship, I started writing novels. Like almost every other author I went through the wilderness years of constant submissions and rejections, but after winning a major book prize I eventually broke through the wall I’d been trying to batter down for several years. This was in the heady days, not so long ago, when ebooks had not yet made their mark and publishers looked on them as a passing phase.

Dundee International Book Prize

Fast forward a few years to 2011 when I decided to publish the first book in my Dundee Crime Series, Night Watcher, to Kindle. After a bit of trial and error, I succeeded and soon followed it up with other novels. What I didn’t realise was that I was building up my expertise and knowledge of the electronic publishing business.

You see, I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’m also very curious. I like to know how things work. I’ve even gone to the lengths of building my own computers because it’s not enough for me to simply use a computer to do what I want it to. I need to know how it works. The same applied to electronic publishing. It wasn’t enough to simply format and upload my books, I had to understand everything it was possible to know about the process.

A year after I started to publish ebooks I branched out to publish paperbacks. Once again, I studied the processes to become as knowledgeable as it was possible to be. But it still didn’t dawn on me that I was becoming something of an expert in the field of self-publishing, even though I was by now being contacted by other authors seeking advice on how to go about it.

The turning point came last March when I was asked to do a workshop on self-publishing at a writers’ conference. I took a deep breath and agreed. What I produced and delivered was a workshop called the Nuts and Bolts of Self-Publishing, and at this stage, I still wasn’t thinking of writing a book on the subject. Well, the workshop was so successful I had great difficulty winding it up and we overran. It would have continued all day if the participants had had their way.

However, it was only after I returned home and looked at my notes and handouts that I realised that these were the synopsis of a book. And now, almost a year later the book is written. It has involved a lot of research as well as calling on my expertise in this area, and I hope the result will be helpful to all aspiring writers who might be thinking about self-publishing.

Chris Longmuir

You can buy the book here:

UK

Amazon.co.uk – paperback

Amazon.co.uk – Kindle

US

Amazon.com – Paperback

Amazon.com - Kindle

  

My website: https://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

Amazon author page UK

Amazon author page US

Happy New Year

I said it at the beginning of my Christmas post - Where has the year gone? and I'm saying it again. But, it's now time to stop wondering about that in order to look forward to 2017 and make our resolutions.

Resolution 1: Send my nonfiction book 'Nuts & Bolts of Self-Publishing' off to be published before the end of January. It should be a piece of cake (I hope), the first draft is complete, the cover designer geared to go, and there's only the editing! Groan! That could take forever.

Resolution 2: Finish writing my next Kirsty Campbell mystery, Bloody Murder, I'm five chapters in. It should be a piece of cake (I hope). I'm being optimistic here because it all depends on Kirsty and whether she'll share the story with me.

Resolution 3: Promote and market my books more. Nah! That won't work. I'm not very good at the 'Buy my Book' spiel, nor would I want to be because I write my books for the pleasure of writing, and the pleasure of pleasing my readers. So, scrap that resolution.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to you all and I wish you joy and success over the coming year.

Chris Longmuir

My website: https://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

Amazon author page UK

Amazon author page US

The Dundee Mafia and the Year Chris Went Hybrid

I quote directly from Caro Ramsay’s talk at the Scottish Association of Writers conference where she was Keynote Speaker. After I picked myself up off the floor, where I’d landed when I fell off my chair convulsed with laughter, I wondered what on earth I had done to Caro to deserve such treatment. But it was all in good fun and she drew a brilliant mind picture of a Dundee filled with zombies after ‘Chris went hybrid’. So, if you find any zombies in Dundee, just remember, it’s all my fault.

Top Table waiting for adjudication

But to get back to the conference, it was a brilliant weekend, which started on Friday night with a special reception for the adjudicators and speakers to get to know each other. And guess who I met there? None other than the legendary Frances Gay (in his most recent incarnation), from the Sunday Post. He’s been writing as long as I’ve been living, and probably longer. In addition, I chatted to Catherine Czerkawska, Helen Forbes, Linda Strachan, Douglas Skelton, Alex Gray, Alanna Knight, and a host of others.

Adjudicating the self-published book

My first task came after a lovely dinner when all I wanted to do was put my head down and have a nap. But it was the first of the adjudications, and because I’d adjudicated the self-published book competition I had to stand up and talk about it before announcing the winners. My turn came all too soon, and the irrepressible Marc Sherland introduced me, including in his introduction that 2011 was ‘the year that Chris went hybrid’, and that was where Caro got some of the fuel for her keynote talk the next evening.

Saturday was a day off for me, so I could mingle, chat to old friends (in the sense of people I have known for a long time), and make many new ones. The variety of workshops always poses a problem as to which of them would be of most value, but Al Guthrie had a couple of workshops on Self Editing for Novelist, so I popped along to those. Al has a wicked sense of humour, and it made us think twice before sticking our heads over the parapet to voice an opinion, but there was nothing nasty about it, in fact it was the direct opposite. It was all good fun.

We had already had a full breakfast, followed by elevenses with delicious pasties and fruit, and a full lunch, when the time for the gala dinner rolled round. You would think we wouldn’t have been hungry enough to tackle the meal that followed, but it’s surprising the amount you can eat at these conferences, and I’m sure I returned home a couple of stones heavier, and I still haven’t found my waistline! Anyway, the room for the gala dinner was a treat for the eyes. We sat at round tables, with immaculate white tablecloths, there was a Hogwarts style candelabra in the middle of each table, and the blue ceiling lights gave it an atmospheric feel.

Stuffed with food we settled back in our chairs, promising ourselves we wouldn’t nod off during the keynote speech. Well, there was no danger of that. Caro Ramsay is noted for her sense of humour and she had us all in stitches. She poked fun at quite a few of us in the audience (it’s dangerous to be a friend of Caro), but she started off with the Dundee Mafia, and zombies taking over the city, and it all happened the year ‘Chris went hybrid’. Dundee, you have been warned. The zombies are coming!

Suzanne hitting the high notes

I meant to go to bed after that because I had a workshop to think about for the next day. But, somehow or other, I found myself in the clubroom for the talent Show & Poetry Penthouse. What a brilliant evening, some great singers, funny poetry, and a hilarious monologue. I stumbled into bed several hours later, but I wouldn’t have missed that evening for the world.

Sunday dawned, and I was quaking in my shoes. I’d agreed to do a workshop on ‘The Nuts and Bolts of Self-Publishing’. Now, if you’ve ever been to a writers’ conference you will know that by the last day your brains can be pretty well scrambled, so I was hoping I wouldn’t make a fool of myself or that I would be stuck for something to say before the hour was up. I needn’t have feared, because once the adrenalin kicked in, I was off and running, and we actually overran by 15 minutes because the audience were so interested. I could have talked for another hour!

The prizewinners - self-published prizewinner on the right of photo

With the workshop done and dusted I could now relax, chat and enjoy myself. The weekend was finished off with a Dragons’ Pen event, where writers pitched their book to a panel of judges. And then it was off home, exhausted, bloated, and several inches fatter. I reckon it’s going to have to be toast and tea all this week, or I’ll have to widen the doors.

  

Chris Longmuir

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

http://chrislongmuir.blogspot.co.uk/

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Fake Reviews and Gaming the System

I don’t know how many of you noticed recent articles in The Sunday Times on how to game Amazon’s book review system to fake a bestseller. Link to article. Apparently the newspaper hired a ghostwriter to write a fake book about bonsai trees, and then hired reviewers to push it to the top of Amazon’s bestseller charts.

This article certainly generated a lot of interest, and although it wasn’t stated directly, the reference to self-publishing eg “An undercover investigation by this newspaper into the robustness of Amazon’s safeguards with regard to self-published books was mounted . . .” made the inference that it is only self-publishers who employ these unsavoury tactics.

However, one of the biggest scandals in the past few years involved a bestselling author published by one of the big six publishers. Check out the article Sock Puppetry and Fake Reviews: Publish and be Damned published in 2004 by The Guardian. Link to article. The article also mentions other traditionally published authors, and I am sure there must have been many more who were never found out.

Looking at the issue of fake reviews, it seems to me that The Sunday Times deliberately sought out reviewers who promised five star reviews for a fee. I don’t see any reference to reviewers who promise to supply ‘honest reviews’. So, by selecting their reviewers in this manner, they have also cast aspersions on the many reviewers who supply reviews with or without a fee. If the fee is the criteria used for pinpointing a fake review then that will make every review you see in the newspapers and magazines, fake. I used to review for the Scots Magazine and I was always paid for these reviews. It never affected my ability to review honestly.

No doubt there are dishonest people in the book world, as there is in any other area of production, whether that be books, cowboy tradesmen, theatre tickets, you name it, there will always be people who want to make easy money. But to draw generalisations against a whole industry of self-published books is unfair. To also suggest Amazon are culpable, despite what any of us think of Amazon, is also unfair. You just have to read this article on Marketing Land to realise Amazon are aware of the problem and are doing something about it. The article is titled Amazon Sues 1,114 Fiverr Users for Offering too Write Fake Product Reviews. Link to the article. Another thing Amazon has been doing for a long time is to remove reviews they deem to be fake, although unfortunately they don’t always get this right, and many genuine reviews have been removed in the process.

Amazon bestselling chart comparisons

There is another issue with this article. Most people who read it will be unfamiliar with Amazon’s bestselling ranks. They will assume that this fake book became Amazon’s number one bestseller. Not so. It was a free book and came top of the Gardening and Horticulture bestselling chart, a very small chart in relation to the number of books Amazon sells. If you search for the category All Books on the Amazon website, it throws up 1,137,731 books – that’s right, over a million books. The bestseller list the fake book topped Free Garden and Horticulture only has 1,325 books. Now, I’m not a mathematician, but even I can see that the percentage of fake books sold would have been extremely small. If my books were competing with this number of books, I’d be top of the bestseller list for evermore. But there is much more competition in my field.

In any case, what makes a bestseller? Michael N Marcus in his article Opinion: Why Amazon Bestsellers Don’t Impress my Dog puts forward several suggestions. Link to article. According to him any book can achieve bestseller status, although that is often more to do with a strong marketing push than good writing. If your book is a niche book, like the fake book above, it is easy to become a bestseller because the competition is less. But a bestselling book may only be a bestseller for a week while the marketing push is on, but that is sufficient for the label to apply for evermore. Offering free copies may also push a book up the charts, there are loads of ways to achieve bestselling status. Read the article it will give you food for thought.

As for me, I don’t believe in gimmicks, nor do I offer free books as a ploy to push them up the charts. My marketing and promotion is sporadic at best. But as long as my sales are steady and people enjoy reading my books, I won’t ask for anything more. And I won’t lose sleep wondering how I can climb up the charts to prove I’m a bestseller.

Chris Longmuir

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/

Amazon

Amazon Author Page

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Apple iBooks

ITunes Book Page UK

iTunes Book Page US