Ian Allan Publishing Ltd

Ian Allan Publishing was an English publisher, established in 1942, which specialised in transport books. It was founded by Ian Allan. In 1942, Ian Allan, then working in the public relations department for the Southern Railway at Waterloo station, decided he could deal with many of the requests he received about rolling stock by collecting the information into a book. The result was his first book, ABC of Southern Locomotives. This proved to be a success, contributing to the emergence of trainspotting as a popular hobby in the UK, and leading to the formation of the company. The company grew from a small producer of books for train enthusiasts and spotters to a large transport publisher.

From the Wikipedia article “Ian Allan Publishing”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Large trade publishers generally accept manuscripts only through literary agents, while many independent and small presses accept direct submissions during reading periods. Before submitting anywhere, read the publisher's current guidelines, study recent books on its list, and never pay a reading or publishing fee to a traditional publisher.