Bluemoose Books is an award-winning independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge. They are currently finalists for Northern Publisher of the Year in the Small Press Book Awards 2025, and two of their books are presently in film and TV production with Disney and the BBC. In anticipation of their attendance at the upcoming Northern School of Writing Publishing Fair, NSW student Poppy Savage spoke with Kevin, the founder of Bluemoose Books, to find out more about Bluemoose and his experience of the publishing industry.
Q: Can you talk me through how Bluemoose Books got started?
A: I had been working for various publishers including commercial fiction, non-fiction, business, and academic. I got sick and tired of orange headed celebrity authors being handed massive advances for writing or ‘supposedly writing’ books. So, in 2006 my wife, Heather and I, remortgaged our house and started Bluemoose to look for working class and diverse voices who weren’t getting their books or manuscripts seen, never mind published.
Q: Had you always wanted to work in publishing then?
A: No, not at all. Although I loved reading and I did an English degree, I didn’t really think publishing was for me at the time. Publishing just seemed the kind of very upper middle-class occupation. There is still a working-class ceiling today.
Publishing is something I fell into. I worked all sorts of different jobs. I left Manchester in 1986 and was working in a library supplier in London while working in Burger King at night. I used to meet reps who were selling their publisher’s books. I then saw a job advert in the bookseller magazine for a central London Rep for Headline, which had just started. Headline is now part of Hachetter, which is the second largest publisher in the world, owned by Lagardere. So, I got this job as a sales Rep for London and that’s how I got into publishing: from the sales and marketing aspect, which is a lot easier than getting a job in editing.
Q: What does an average day look like for a publisher like yourself?
A: There are many roles within publishing such as editing, book designing, illustration, sales, marketing, publicity and more. For me personally, on an average day I get up and find out what great submissions are in the inbox. Lots of social media and stuff like that. It involves reading manuscripts, proofing manuscripts, liaising with our designers around the country, talking to both independent book shops and buyers at Waterstones. Looking over artwork, sorting out book launches, book events, and dealing with foreign rights. We have a foreign rights agent in Paris who looks after all our books in translation called Deborah Druba, and one in America called Helen Edwards. Also, talking to our film and TV rights people in London. Tanya Tillett looks after all the Bluemoose books. We’ve got two books in major film production at the minute. We liaise with those people on a daily basis. Every half hour is different.
Q: Do you have any advice for young people looking to start a career in publishing?
A: Read, read, read, read!! which is the obvious one, but also, join the Society of Young Publishers and attend all their events. There is a northern division outpost who will connect you with people within the industry. Look in the Bookseller magazine every week, as there will be positions and jobs advertised there. Make sure to follow trends and speak to independent bookshops to see what books are selling. Be interested, curious, and build a CV up in The North.
Bluemoose is part of the Northern Fiction Alliance. There are three or four other publishers who are a part of it that get funding from the Arts Council, which means they can offer mentoring schemes where you could get mentored for a month. You can talk publishers like Comma Press, Dead Ink, Peepal Tree, or And Other Stories. The University of Central Lancashire has a centre of publishing excellence, which can offer lots of guidance.
Q: Likewise, have you got any advice for new aspiring authors on how to approach a publisher?
A: It’s all about the writing. There are no emojis or ‘do it in green ink’ or nonsense like that- keep it simple. Have confidence in what you’re presenting. Do your homework, find out what the publishers publish before sending. Don’t send me short stories if we don’t publish short stories. Don’t send me poetry. Find out what we publish. Do your homework and be confident in what you you’re sending. And I don’t want to know whether your mum likes it or not!
Q: What do you think about the use of AI in publishing?
A: While AI can do some of the leg work, it has no place within writing. Great writing comes from a flawed brain and AI doesn’t have the nuance to do that yet. The government are trying to pass a law saying that creators have got to opt out, rather than the AI companies asking for permission to use work from writers, or pay them for the work that they’ve done. The intellectual property should always be with the creator of the work. AI just scrapes and copies knowledge from the past, it can’t create wonderful, flawed, beautiful writing. We’re an AI free publisher, and long may that continue.
Q: What are the main differences between mainstream and independent publishers, and why should writers choose independent.
A: Penguin Random House is the biggest publisher in the world, they publish a third of the world’s books. They are a thirty-billion-dollar organisation, so their main criteria is to provide money for their shareholders. The CEO of Penguin Random House in the UK, Tom Weldon, states every year that Penguin have to grow by 10% and have to deliver at least 10% dividend to their shareholders. This means that they are not going to take any risks. If you’ve got to provide 3 billion every year to keep your company going, you’re not going to invest in a great new writer because they don’t have a track record. So, what they do is replicate the successes that they think will provide money to their investors. Their first port of call isn’t editorial quality, it is ‘how much money can we make from this book?’ Not to say that we don’t have those conversations too, but
our first thought is, ‘is this great writing?’ if yes, we will publish it and then find readers. For larger publishers it is all about churning out books to make money, so it’s all mass marketable and generic, which we’re not interested in. When we create bestsellers, the bigger publishers helicopter in with cash to try and steal our authors. Also, they won’t tell you this, but the bigger publishers are even using AI to edit. There are so many errors now in big non-fiction titles that it’s kind of criminal, all because they don’t want to pay humans.
Q: I’ve seen that Bluemoose, and its books have won various awards, do you want to tell me about one that felt particularly meaningful to you, and why?
A: I suppose it’s the first one. We published Benjamin Myers before he went to Bloomsbury. The first award was for Pig Iron, which we published in 2012, and which won the inaugural Gordon Byrne Prize in 2013. That really raised our profile nationally and internationally. His second book Beastings, won the £10,000 Portico prize. Then his third book, The Gallows Pole won the biggest literary prize for historical fiction, the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize. But without pig iron, the first one in 2012, we probably wouldn’t have seen that scale up. That was the one that made literary editors in London start reading the stuff that we’ve been sending them for six years.
Q: Do you have a vision or specific goal for the future of Bluemoose?
A: Just to keep publishing quality writing and get it into reader’s hands around the world. That’s it, that’s the mission statement. Just to find great new talent, great new writers from backgrounds that don’t, perhaps, have the light shine upon them.
Q: If you could save only one book for the world, what would it be?
The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff.
Q: Three words that describe what you are looking for when you open a new submission?
Quality of writing.
Q: what is the most important quality for someone working in publishing?
Curiosity.
Q: Three words that describe what you love about the North of England.
Attitude. Swagger. Landscape.
Q: Favourite Fictional character?
Casper, the young lad from A Kestrel for a Knave.