Archives: FAQs

As a small publisher, we do not have a dedicated free library for education and not-profit. However, please feel free to contact us with requests of this nature. If a book is public domain, we can offer it as a free eBook for education and non-profit. For copyrighted works, we need to get the agreement of authors, but we find most are happy to waive commission when it is for education or non-profit.

Accessibility is the main reason we love digital books. Many people struggle to read physical books for a variety of reasons including visual impairment, neurodivergence or physical disabilities. Digital books are able to overcome many of the challenges people experience with physical books. Standard features include the ability to adjust the text size, change colour and contrast and update the font (there are special fonts designed for conditions like dyslexia). Other possibilities with certain e-reading software or hardware include ‘text-to-speech’ functionality so digital books can be listened to like audio books, conversion to braille format and automated translation into different languages. The simple ability to search digital books is also a very useful feature. Unfortunately there are some digital books out there that do not offer accessibility benefits, because rather than being true digital books, they are merely digital images of a print book. Beware these imposters! At Lewisham Press, we only ever publish proper accessible digital books.

We find digital books the most environmentally friendly way of reading. Digital is a way of avoiding the production, material and transportation costs associated with physical books. We acknowledge that e-readers and other electronic devices used to read digital books have a carbon footprint, but, if, like us, you read a lot of books, the overall environmental impact is widely considered to be lesser than in the case of physical books. We note that it is not the same for everyone. In some situations, physical books could be the more environmentally friendly option. The environmental cost of physical books can also be greatly reduced by using libraries and/or buying second-hand, locally if possible. Currently, the practical reality is that readers often don’t have a format choice, because many books are only available in physical format. This is one of the reasons we at Lewisham Press prioritise publishing in digital format. We’d like to see a world where many more books are available in digital format.

No, Lewisham Press does not sell books directly to consumers. Our books are available to purchase from various popular book marketplaces. The book pages on our website provide links to retailers.