I have had numerous conversations lately about how and why to name your publishing imprint.

If you are going to be an independent or small publisher, if you are going to take on the time, expense and trouble of publishing your own book instead of letting a vanity press do it for you, you need to know the following about the name of your endeavor:

1. Bookstores ARE willing to stock books by independent authors who have published themselves
2. Bookstores are NOT all willing to stock books that look like they were published less than professionally
3. Having the author’s name as the publisher name, or naming the publishing entity in a similar vein to the title of the book will look amateurish
4. Avoid this… come up with a professional sounding, independent book publisher name for your new small business.  This is small business… name it as such
5. you MUST register the name with Bowker and make sure all of your materials and data uploads contain the name exactly as you gave it to Bowker.

Enjoy being treated like a professional!