Lendal Press rides again

Our imprint is back, and it means business

Once upon a time (circa 1860), a bridge was constructed in York to span the River Ouse, near Lendal Tower – but it collapsed during construction. The pieces were taken to Scarborough to form a bridge over Valley Road, while a second, successful attempt was made in the same spot in York, which is still standing today.

A century and a half later, I bought my first ISBN numbers, and named my fledgling publishing house after the bridge that dominated the view from the windows of my student flat. Ten years after that, I started my first imprint, named after Valley Bridge’s spiritual twin; two years of excellent publishing followed, under the careful stewardship of Paige Henderson and Seline Duzenli, with stunning design work by Peter Barnfather. Then, at the end of 2022, with the Lendal Press team moving on to new opportunities, I put the imprint on hiatus – apart from our annual projects in collaboration with York St John University.

So time passed, and the Lendal name enjoyed a peaceful retirement; until, as I hinted in mid-November, I began looking at putting it back to work. Today I’m pleased to announce that Lendal Press is back in action, and open to submissions, for works of literary fiction (novels and short story collections) under 120,000 words.

Read on for the full details. After all, as we’ve learned from the story of the bridges, sometimes the second attempt is the one that really lasts…

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The Deal

First things first: Lendal Press is a ‘hybrid’ imprint – a category of publisher which occupies the under-served mid-point between self-publishing (where you do and spend everything) and traditional publishing (where we do and spend everything). For a deeper dive into this business model, you might consult this excellent article by

Brooke Warner

, or the hybrid publishing Wikipedia entry.

For each title commissioned, the author will contribute half of an agreed budget (as outlined in the table below), and Lendal Press will match their investment. It’s a lot of money, for both of us, so I knew that to make such a deal worthwhile, I would have to put together an offer that had a tremendous amount of value; a publishing journey that you couldn't access anywhere else, that would be worth every penny…

So, the budget covers thorough editing, top-quality design, a print run of 1,000 paperback copies (with at least one luxury, brand-defining special feature), and some serious sales representation and publicity – enough to produce each book to the very highest standards, and place it on bookshop shelves all over the UK.

Authors will be paid a royalty equal to 10% of the RRP (a.k.a. cover price) for each copy sold, and also receive 100 copies of the finished paperback for potential resale – enabling us both to break even after the first print run. (Of course, as always in publishing, there are no guarantees; like any investment, it's a risk.)

The overall budget will be based on the book’s word count at the time of submission. Here are the figures as they currently stand:

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The Team

Lendal Press went on hiatus at the end of 2022 when the Valley Press team was briefly reduced to just me, on my lonesome; it didn’t make sense for one person to run two imprints, and of course, it still doesn't. Therefore, I’m pleased to welcome a new face round these parts: Juliette Tomlinson, starting today as Lendal Press Managing Editor.

Although the word ‘Editor’ is in her job title, and Juliette will be choosing which books get taken on, her particular speciality is in sales – having spent 13 years at Signature, a leading literary sales agency (representing the likes of Granta, Redstone, Verso and Saqi), followed by 7 years as a Sales Consultant for Oxford University Press. She is also skilled at publicity, and the crucial business of project management – so will be an excellent all-round ‘champion’ for the new Lendal titles. Working alongside our long-serving sales agency Inpress, this should be a potent combination; sales is the one area of publishing which can never receive too much attention!

Juliette offers the following words of greeting to potential authors, and the Valley Press community at large:

“I am thrilled to be back in the world of independent trade titles. Literary fiction is my passion, and I am delighted to be part of the Valley and Lendal Press story, championing its authors and finding new voices and words to showcase this wonderful publisher.”

How to Submit

As you can see, there’s only one thing missing: the books! If this has piqued your interest, and you have a typescript you’d like to be considered for Lendal Press, please send a sample as an email attachment to lendal@valleypressuk.com, along with a few words about yourself and your work. We can’t wait to get started – I’ll keep you all updated on our progress, and may even tempt Juliette to write a blog or two!

(P.S. Thank you to my regular subscribers for reading this far, especially such an uncharacteristic effort of pure promotion; those long-promised guest posts will be along shortly, to help us get back into the literary long grass…)