What is left is arrangement: getting what you know out of your head and into an order a reader who knows none of it can follow.
The common position for a non-fiction author is not a shortage of material. It is having too much of it, no obvious order, and no confidence that the order you have chosen is the right one. That is a structural problem, and it is solvable.
The house handles it from either end: a manuscript written from scratch out of your expertise, or an existing draft reorganised into a market-ready book. Either way the work is research, structure and argument, and the test at every stage is whether a reader who does not already agree with you can follow it.
Non-fiction is not one discipline. These are written by different people, researched differently, and read by entirely different audiences.
- 01
Memoir
Personal storytelling, theme development, and the structuring that turns a set of remembered episodes into a narrative, with your voice preserved throughout.
- 02
History
Archival research, analysis of primary sources, and the construction of a narrative that carries the context without stopping to explain it. Critical analysis included rather than implied.
- 03
Self-help
Identifying the reader and what they need, building practical strategies, and organising them into steps someone can actually follow. Anecdote used to make a point, not to fill a chapter.
- 04
Biography
In-depth interviews, research into the significant milestones, and character portraits that convey a person, the struggles as well as the achievements.
- 05
Academic writing
Literature reviews, research questions and hypotheses, data analysis and interpretation, with citation and referencing to the standard of the discipline.
Four commitments, and the second is the one that decides whether the book survives scrutiny.
- 01
Transparent throughout
You are kept informed and involved at every stage of the book's development. In non-fiction this matters more than usual, because you are the authority the book rests on and you need to see what is being claimed in your name.
- 02
Sourced and checked
Claims are traced to sources, sources are evaluated for credibility, and anything that cannot be substantiated comes out. A single unverifiable assertion undermines every well-researched paragraph around it.
- 03
Experienced across subjects
Non-fiction spans genres and disciplines that share almost nothing. Writers are matched to the subject, not assigned from a queue.
- 04
Support you can reach
A real person to raise concerns with and get answers from, for the length of the project.
Eight steps, and the fourth is where the book is actually decided.
Free consultation
Your idea and your goals discussed with someone who will tell you honestly whether it is a book, an article, or three books.
Topic exploration
The focus narrowed until it is specific enough to be useful. Most first non-fiction ideas are too broad, and the fix is early rather than late.
Extensive research
Reliable sources gathered and read, with everything documented as it goes so citations are not reconstructed from memory afterwards.
The outline
A full outline mapping structure and flow. For non-fiction this is the book, if the argument works in the outline it will work in the manuscript.
Writing
The chapters written, with the outline as the contract. Changes to the shape are raised with you rather than made quietly.
Iterative feedback
Regular updates for you to react to, so the book stays yours rather than drifting toward the writer's understanding of your subject.
Editing and polishing
The manuscript refined for grammar, style and coherence, and checked once more for anything asserted without support.
Publication assistance
Cover, formatting and the route to market, if you want the house to take it that far.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
The practical questions non-fiction authors actually have.
Use a range of sources (books, scholarly articles, reputable sites, interviews and primary material) rather than relying on one kind. Take organised notes as you go, recording the reference alongside the point, because reconstructing a citation months later is miserable and often impossible. Evaluate each source for credibility before you lean on it, and keep a running bibliography from the first day rather than building one at the end.
Define the objective first: what you want the reader to come away with. Brainstorm widely, then group related ideas until the themes emerge, those become your sections. Build a structured outline with headings and subheadings, arrange your research underneath it, and then keep revising the outline as you write. An outline you never change is usually one you stopped consulting.
Open with something that earns attention, an anecdote, a question, a figure that surprises. Use real stories and examples to carry the argument rather than to decorate it. Write plainly and avoid jargon that only your peers will follow. Break up long stretches of text with subheadings, and where a chart or an image explains something faster than a paragraph, use one. End with a clear takeaway rather than a summary.
Look at the author's qualifications and standing in the field; the reputation of the publication; whether the source cites its own evidence; whether it presents a balanced view or argues one side; and how current it is, which matters enormously in some fields and not at all in others. Then cross-reference, agreement across independent sources is the strongest signal you can get.
Facts are cross-referenced across multiple sources, with particular attention to names, dates, statistics and events. Primary sources are used wherever they exist, since errors multiply through secondary ones. Where a point is contested, experts are approached directly. And the editing pass includes a dedicated review for factual accuracy rather than folding it into the line edit.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.