Welcome to Bluemoose Books.
We’re a multi award winning independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, a family of readers and writers and our committment through editorial rigour is to bring the best literary fiction to you.
At Bluemoose our aim is to publish great stories that engage and inspire.
The corporate and conglomerate nature of publishing these days means that the BIG publishers have different sensibilities in their approach to publishing. They have to satisfy the demands of the shareholder who requires double digit growth year on year. The only way they deem this possible is to get NAMES onto their books because NAMES receive more column inches and shelf space than new writers. Some of it works and they have bestsellers, most of it doesn’t, and they don’t. Why do they do this? Well, they have become so risk averse, they are merely following trends and aping what they think will work because it has worked before, for another publisher.
Literature is nothing if it doesn’t invest in new writing. When a book is published I personally drive our authors around to all of the library events and festivals our writers appear at. It is part of the Bluemoose ethos. We are a family of readers and writers. We nurture, encourage and promote our writers, because we don’t just invest money into their books, we invest time and energy making their stories the best they can possibly be, so that you, the reader receive the best book possible.
The Strokeability Test
We spend a lot of time on design and our production values matter because we want our books to be more than just objects. The jackets have to be striking and impart a dramatic question. A recent study by The Booksellers Association states that a book cover has a fifth of a second, that’s 0.2 of a second to catch the casual browsers eye. Jackets have to be dramatic. We have found that readers pick up our books, touch, feel and then stroke them too. If we pass the strokeability test, we know our designers have done their job and once they read the first page, hopefully they will be hooked enough to buy the book.
This Deli Has Yummy Stuff
At Bluemoose we see ourselves as a delicatessen as opposed to a supermarket. We don’t stack them high and sell them cheap but put them at the front of the store with a big bow on each one because we’re passionate about what we’re doing and proud of what we’re publishing.
We hope that you will be too.
Cheers,
Kevin, Hetha, Lin, Leonora and Flora.
The Bluemoose family