Hi everyone,

I hope this is the right area of the forum for this post!

I’d like to quickly introduce Moriarty Press, a new imprint recently established to focus specifically on fiction (and some non-fiction) within the Sherlock universe. Moriarty Press is owned by Andrews UK; that may well be a name you’re not aware of, as traditionally we have tended to deal directly with publishers, working quietly in the background… however, moving forward, we wanted to make what we do available to individual authors as well.

To give you an idea of our history in Sherlockian fiction, we are the company who constructed the eBook versions of - and of course distribute books such as - The Sensible Necktie and Other Stories, Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants, Mrs. Hudson in New York, Sherlock Holmes and The Scarlet Thread of Murder and some 100 other similar titles from well-known authors in the community such as David Marcum, Dan Andriacco, Alistair Duncan and more.

The best way I can explain the model behind Moriarty Press is to say it is somewhere between self-publishing and being signed up to major publisher – of course, we see it as ‘the best of both worlds’! For many people, the down side of self-publishing includes issues like getting professional covers designed, getting your eBook made such that it works perfectly and looks great on all devices, and the big issue of coverage – many retailers and sales channels (especially libraries and subscription-based models) just don’t like dealing with individual authors, and yet they can be a fantastic source of income if you can access them. On the other hand, getting signed up to Random Penguin doesn’t happen to everyone – they just don’t have the budget to put their weight behind all of the great books that are out there!

So our model works quite simply; we do plenty of the hard work – conversion, cover creation, distribution, royalty collection and so on - and quite simply pay you what you earn every month from all the sites we cover (which is about 98% worldwide… with the 2% generally being unproven retailers or those who never pay their bills!). We work not only digitally, but also regularly release titles in paperback form – again, elements that are often difficult for self-publishers to access. How do we earn our money? We simply take a % of the royalty earned… but importantly we don’t deduct anything – i.e. you don’t have to ‘pay off’ the cost of conversion, or artwork, or anything like that before you get your ongoing royalties.

I don’t want to make this post seem like a sales leaflet though, so quite simply if you are an author of either short stories or full-blown novels set in the Sherlock Holmes universe, and want to know more about the new imprint, either ask any questions here or pm me and I’ll be happy to help. We’re an open and honest company, and will always give you a balanced view – we want authors who we work with to be happy with what we do… and, for the most part, they are!

Thanks,
Joe