About

Who we are

A word from Michael O’Mara

In July 1985, Michael O’Mara Books published its first book. At that time the firm’s only two employees were Mr. and Mrs. O’Mara and the offices were the spare bedroom of their semi-detached Clapham house, it was, quite literally, a Mom and Pop business.

Now, after over forty years of publications, with a backlist of over a thousand titles, it is still a family firm, producing one hundred and fifty new books a year. Succeeding as an independent in a publishing world dominated by vast, multinational conglomerates is not easy but it is fun.

We hope that some of the fun we have had creating our list will filter through to our readers and we look forward to many more years of successful, independent publishing.

Our ethos

As an independent publisher, we depend on the passion and creativity of our employees, illustrators and authors as a key part of who we are. Every day we prove ourselves to be resourceful, imaginative with our ideas and supportive in our relationships – what we have achieved is testament to the potential of independent publishers everywhere.

We celebrate our people and creativity; we cultivate a reputation that is not only trend-led and nimble, but also strategic, passionate and creative; and we consistently prove ourselves to be a powerful commercial force in the United Kingdom and around the world.

Our values

Commercial success

We’re masters in balancing commercial appeal with originality.

Supporting authors and artists

We seek to give a voice to undiscovered talent, scouring every avenue to discover new voices and styles.

Growing globally

We work closely with our foreign customers to ensure our books have international relevance and appeal.

Design & production

Our titles promote the tactile qualities that make readers fall in love with books as physical products.

Influence

We work hard to establish partnerships, supporting charities and inspiring positive social change.

We support

In recent years, we have supported over 15 charities, including the Green Match Fund for environmental charity fundraising, The Childhood Trust, Client Earth, and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

Sustainability

Who we are depends greatly on how we tackle sustainability and climate change in our operations. O’Mara Books is committed to reducing its carbon impact as much as possible. Find out more about our measures to reduce waste and environmental damage.

I’m a blogger, please can you send me books to review?

If you would like to join our blogger mailing lists, please consider our criteria below:

You must be based in the UK, or have a UK mailing address, for us to send copies to.
You must have your own blog, or be a guest writer for an established platform. This does not include Goodreads, Amazon reviews, etc.
You must have an active social media account, either on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. We tend to work with bloggers who have at least 1,000 followers, however, we will also look at your engagement levels and consider bloggers with fewer followers on a case by case basis.
We will only send out review copies prior to and immediately after publication. There may be some exceptions to this rule but we very rarely send out books that no longer have active publicity campaigns.
If you have a particular genre interest then please do let us know so that we can add you to the relevant mailing lists e.g. children’s books, nature, biographies, history etc.
If we do send you books for review, please can you send us a link so that we can keep it on our records and show your reviews to our authors.

living wage
foundation

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