The Story of Imagier Publishing

Imagier Publishing was unforeseen, an accident, as it were, I had been asked to write an introductory book on the Kabbalah for a new publisher in the USA, the book had been set and was ready to print when I was informed that the publisher had taken ill and was unlikely to proceed with the Publishing House project. Based on the principle of want-not-waste-not, Allan was encouraged to go it alone and publish it himself. Thus, Imagier Publishing was born – the name ‘Imagier Publishing’ already existed as a redundant decorative-art print company so the book was relatively easy to integrate – so I thought – but the truth was very different.

I quickly discovered that in 2007-8 the publishing of books was heavily influenced by the established publishing houses; ‘Print on Demand’ was relatively new and for various reasons not very popular. One either sold ‘Print on Demand’ onlione; printed a low run edition, and tried to sell it through book-shops, which appeared to be very much under the control of established publishers, who were also struggling to sell in difficult times, or, started a website, and again, sold online. The alternative was to sell through online companies such as Amazon et al, who did not generally deal with small publishers.

I decided to establish a website www.imagier.co.uk. Thus, Imagier Publishing became an online presence that focussed on the Western Mystical Tradition – an essentially esoteric Christian tradition, at a time when the Christian Church was becoming increasingly undermined by the media who focussed, so it seemed, only on the negative aspects of Church life, a situation exacerbated by the infighting taking place between different groups of Christians seeking to redefine the Church in secular, rather than spiritual terms.

A numbers game became apparent when I became involved with a traditional Distribution Company, who were all very decent folk, but Imagier’s market is a niche market that does not suit 21^st century high volume business models. The publishing world has changed dramatically over the past few years. Online book stores such as Amazon, have taken the world by storm, with Kindle books, and Audio-books, in some genres outselling printed books.

Fast coming to the fore was another medium, that of pod-casts. The traditional model of printed books, both hardback and paperback, has become less desirable because the online stores are taking up more and more of the trade, not only in printed books but also e-books such as kindle and Audio-books. This is fine in terms of popular demand and accessibility, but the danger lies in the politicisation of such monoliths, who can censor any electronic book in seconds. Thus, Imagier Publishing, who produces traditional hard-back and paperback books is also focussed upon preserving the printed book as well as furthering the e-book and audio-book. tbc…