Hawberk principles

First and foremost, we want to publish the best possible stories while rewarding the authors we work with as fairly as possible, and supporting their work to the best of our ability.

Beyond that, some of our core principles include:

Hand-crafted fiction

Everything we publish will be created solely by humans, with no AI involved at any stage of the process. Our contracts include clauses to this effect, for both Hawberk Press and our authors.

Editor-led decision-making 

Rather than relying on sales figures, we’ll ensure authorial and editorial voices drive our decisions as much as possible.

Genre-defying fiction

We want to publish stories which exist irrespective of genres to tell their own tales, rather than sticking to familiar, easy-to-categorise pigeonholes. There are so many amazing publishers putting out straight-up fantasy, science fiction and horror stories – but that’s not us. We’re interested in fiction which slips through the cracks.

Slow and steady

We’re not interested in bombarding readers with loads of books that just add to the publishing noise, and the difficulty of knowing what to read. Instead, our philosophy is to release a small number of carefully curated works, emphasising consistency over volume.

Accessibility 

We want our books to be available and accessible to as many people as possible. Our release formats are part of this - digital releases first, along with paperbacks rather than hardbacks. In addition, we’re actively looking into whether we can produce dyslexia-friendly editions, and as soon as possible we also hope to create audio editions.

Books as cultural artefacts 

We don’t just love books for their narrative content - a beautiful book is a high-value cultural artefact in its own right. With physical editions in particular (but where possible with digital releases too), we want to make sure that every book we produce is a beautiful item that you will enjoy holding, reading, and owning.

Owned, not rented

Ever feel shortchanged when your subscription service removes your favourite shows, music and books? If you buy directly from us, it’s yours to keep, forever, no fuss.

Joined-up storytelling 

We love joined-up worlds that are built and explored across multiple works - think Discworld, The Culture, Golden Age detective stories like Poirot or Miss Marple, P. Djèlí Clark's Dead Djinn stories, Aliette de Bodard's Xuya universe, and Peter Fehervari’s The Dark Coil. So not so much ‘shared’ settings where multiple authors tell stories in the same setting, but rather each author building out their own world and ongoing narrative over time, through stories which share subtle connections but don’t require the reader to read through them in sequence.