Skip to main content

Blog Archives

Birlinn

Birlinn Ltd is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company is built on traditions of the written and spoken word and is constantly looking to the future.

Established by Hugh Andrew (2022 recipient of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society Shackleton Medal for leadership and citizenship in publishing) Birlinn publishes books under a number of imprints: Birlinn; Polygon; Arena Sport; BC Books; Origin and John Donald.

The long-standing aim of Birlinn Ltd is to create an inclusive staff team and nurture writers and illustrators who together reflect the diversity and stories of our nation and the audience who will read them. Whilst we sit at the heart of cultural life in Scotland, our authors are known far beyond, and we are proud of what we have achieved together globally since we started out in 1992.

 

Authors

Bestselling authors include Alexander McCall Smith, Rosemary Goring, Alan Taylor, Denzil Meyrick, Stuart Cosgrove, Jan Philip-Sendker, Muriel Spark, Liz Lochhead, Roseanne Watt, Norman MacCaig, Denise Mina, Jenni Fagan, Sorley Maclean and Edwin Morgan.

 

Books

Books which have had most success in terms of international rights to date have been:

FICTION: The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat; Rizzio by Denise Mina; Hex by Jenni Fagan; It Takes One to Know One by Isla Dewar

CRIME: The Rebecca Connolly Mysteries by Douglas Skelton; The Goldenacre by Philip Miller; The Devil’s Blaze by Robert J Harris; Bone Deep by Sandra Ireland; Six Wounds by Morgan Cry

HISTORY / ENVIRONMENT: Vienna by Angus Robertson; The Salt Roads by John Goodlad; Northern Lights by Edward J Cowan; The Two Headed Whale by Sandy Winterbottom; Native by Patrick Laurie; A Scurry of Squirrels by Polly Pullar

POP CULTURE: And In The End by Ken McNab; Cassius X by Stuart Cosgrove

DRINK: Whiskypedia by Charles Maclean; Pocket Guide to Whisky by Blair Bowman and Nikki Graeme

CHILDREN’S: Bear’s Adventure and Little House by the Sea by Benedict Blathwayt

 

Established: 1992

Types of books published: We cover genre and subject from fiction and poetry to local, national and international history, biography, literary non-fiction, nature and environment, academic, children’s, sport, music and much, much more.

Submission details: birlinn.co.uk/submissions

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland is an independent publisher of research in Scottish history and archaeology. Our publishing activity dates back more than 200 years to the Enlightenment: the first volume of the Society’s transactions, Archaeologia Scotica, was published in 1792. We follow in the tradition today by producing research papers, reports and books written by leading experts on Scotland’s past.

Our list includes many large-format, highly illustrated non-fiction books, such as Painting the Town: Scottish Urban History in Art, as well as academic monographs, including Portmahomack on Tarbat Ness: Changing Ideologies in North-east Scotland, Sixth to Sixteenth Century AD.

We are a charity advocating for the heritage sector and we work towards sharing the knowledge of Scotland’s past as widely as possible. Open Access is a key part of the Society’s publishing programme and we offer a range of Open Access options for all our publications.

Established: 1780

Types of publications: Scholarly and non-fiction books on Scottish history and archaeology; excavation reports from sites across Scotland; and papers covering new research, ideas, interpretations and discoveries. All publications are fully peer-reviewed.

Submission details: Please contact the Managing Editor with a summary of your project in the first instance. See our website for further information on making a new submission.

Scotland Street Press

Scotland Street Press is a small, independent publisher of fiction, history, poetry, biography and translation based in Edinburgh. The Press was founded in 2014 in Scotland Street, Edinburgh after Head of Publishing Jean Findlay returned to Scotland wanting to publish work that was exciting, challenging, grounded in literary history and a sense of place.

We publish seven books a year and promote books through live events. We have been nominated three times for the Bookseller’s Small Press of the Year Award and as Scottish Publisher of the Year by the Saltire Society. Our books have been recipients of the PEN translates award and two books have been celebrated as Winner of the English Pen award. In 2020 Alindarka’s Children, translated from Belarusian and Russian into Scots and English, was longlisted for the prestigious Republic of Consciousness prize.

We celebrate individuality, prioritise women’s writing and continually seek to include more diverse authors. In 2021, we produced our first ever themed publication list, International Women 2021, celebrating women from all over the world specialising in different kinds of writing.

We publish varied, challenging voices who have good stories to tell, and in doing so bring Scotland into an international conversation. We create books that not only read well but look beautiful, combining the visual design, binding, and cover with the literary merit of the contents; we have published several artists as well as authors. We seek to be brave and take risks by publishing new and unheard voices, we have an open submissions policy, because we believe it is worth it.

Rymour Books

Rymour Books is a small but fast growing publisher of, primarily, titles of Scottish interest. Our books have received excellent reviews, been nominated for awards, and in the short time since Rymour’s formation we have established a growing reputation, attracting grants from, for example, The Doric Board, and working in partnership with the Scottish Poetry Library, The Royal Scottish Geographical Society and others.

Rymour Books are committed to supporting new writers and first-time authors and, in this category, we have published works by Spike Munro, Kirsti Wishart and Calum Smith which have been enthusiastically received.

People: Ian Spring, Ruby McCann

Established: March 2020

Publications: 12 per year average

Types of books published: Poetry, ficton, contemporary fiction, nonfiction, academic, historical, anthologies

Submission details: Please refer to Rymour Books JOIN US page

 

Leamington Books

Leamington Books publishes a variety of fiction and non-fiction titles under our ethos, Transformative Publishing.

Our authors are chosen for their undiscovered talents, unique perspectives and one-of-a-kind stories to tell. Leamington’s work is driven by a wish to bring these concepts into reality with passion, drive and support ― to make our authors’ dreams come true.

Our work can be summarised in our company values: fun, safety and creativity.

In 2021, we published 14 titles across multiple genres, including fiction, non-fiction, anthology and poetry.

At present, we manage six imprints: Leamington Books, Garrison, The Magic Road, Gothic World Literature Editions, Pierpoint and Poetry Imprint. We aim for our imprints to carry an interesting, multifaceted set of work ― for example, Garrison is the home of crime and psychological drama, whilst our Gothic World Literature Editions re-introduces and re-presents important but ‘lost’ or forgotten classics, such as The Crux and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; our best-seller The Black Vampyre by Uriah Derrick D’arcy; and Hell by Henri Barbusse.

Our 2021 titles included Charlie Roy’s emotional drama, The Broken Pane, and Colin Burnett’s Scots socio-political story collection, A Working Class State of Mind; alongside Ewan Gault’s gritty small-town thriller, The Sound of Sirens, and Karen Taylor’s exciting serial-killer chase, Fairest Creatures.

We have recently partnered with Scotland’s best-known radical political blog Bella Caledonia, to produce an anthology of writing from 2007 to 2021.

We have published popular non-fiction titles The Runes: A Grounding in Northern Magic by James Flowerdew; and Blockchain, Bitcoin and You by Temple Melville.

Leamington also publishes the work of John Herdman, Scotland’s key post-war novella and short novel writer, whose books have a gothic and sometimes supernatural edge, in the tradition of Scott and Hogg.

We value neurodivergent, disabled and chronically ill writers and editors, taking measures to ensure that every submission opening or writing opportunity strongly encourages these works and narratives.

In 2021 we became a Community Interest Company on the basis of carrying this goal into the future.

In 2022 we have published Carla the debut poetry collection from Carla Woodburn; and Polaris by Scotland’s premier Gaelic writer Marcas Mac an Tuairneir.

We are delighted to have become a country finalist for The Bookseller’s Small Press of the Year Award in 2022.

Our title The Sound of Sirens by Ewan Gault is currently longlisted for the 2022 McIlvanney Crime Award.

In 2022 we launched an ambitious international publishing project, Novella Express, featuring largely new writers from across the world.

Submission details: Leamington Books is open to submissions across all genres. More information on their submissions process can be found here.

Frontline Noir

Frontline Noir, founded in 2008, is a publisher of current affairs and recent history titles covering controversial topics and events, often written by people who were participants or otherwise affected. Our aim is to ensure such subjects are given a human and personal touch as often such important events are viewed without due appreciation of the human story. Based in Aberdeenshire.