Status | Active |
---|---|
Founded | 2006 |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Distribution | United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada |
Publication types | Books |
Official website | www |
Austin Macauley Publishers Limited is a British publishing company, with offices in London, New York and Sharjah. The company was founded in 2006 and publishes fiction and non-fiction books. It publishes new and established authors.[1] The company publishes books in English and Arabic languages.[2]
The company operates what it calls a 'hybrid' publishing model,[3][failed verification] claiming to offer some 'traditional' contracts to prospective authors as well as 'contributory' contracts, in which the author pays a part of the publication cost.
Authors published by the company have included:
Publishers Weekly named Austin Macauley one of the fastest growing independent publishers in 2018.[18]
Their International Publishing Director is Jade Robertson.[19] She was also listed among 'The 30 Most Influential Women in the Arab World 2019.[20]'
Associated with Independent Publishers Guild (IPG)[21] Austin Macauley Publishers is a member of The Publishers Association.[22]
Austin Macauley appears on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America 'Thumbs Down' Publishers List, which, according to the association, contains the companies ''about which [they] have received the largest number of complaints over the years, or which [they] consider to pose the most significant hazard for writers".[23]
Austin Macauley was the company most often mentioned in "comments made by writers about misrepresentation and lack of transparency in the way some ‘hybrid’ / paid-for publishing companies promoted their publishing services" in a survey of their members by the Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) and the Society of Authors (SoA). In an analysis of Austin Macauley's websites and available marketing presence the survey report, entitled "Is it a steal?", said that the company "adopted an opaque approach to promoting their services ... [T]here was no indication at the time of review (October 2021) in Austin Macauley’s advertising, in its advertising landing pages, or in its active submissions pages, that it will charge a writer. ... It also referred to authors paying ‘a small proportion’ of the cost of publication, but all the Austin Macauley contracts seen by the SoA and WGGB asked writers to pay more than it would cost to self-publish the work, even with the assistance of legitimate self-publishing services". Regarding the industry as a whole the report said that "the average loss for a writer in a ‘hybrid’/paid-for publishing deal was £1,861, with some participants reporting losses as high as £9,900", while "[a] median of only 67 books were sold per deal, resulting in royalties of only £68".[24]