In our September newsletter, we were very excited to spotlight a new indie publisher, based in Bradford. Fox and Windmill are a small indie publishing British South Asian writers. Here's some more about them!
How did Fox and Windmill start?
We founded F&W Books in 2021, although it was five years in the making! We knew we wanted to see accessibility and diversity within the publishing industry and also in the type of books we read. We were lucky enough to be mentored by Kevin Duffy at Bluemoose Books whose experience within the indie publishing industry enabled us to widen our network within the community and really inspired us to find a space for our company. With first-hand experience of the difficulties of finding work within publishing and becoming published outside of the south, we wanted our indie publishing company to become a space for aspiring writers to reach out so we can help develop their ideas. We felt determined to diversify the work being published and started this venture to create a platform to inspire, innovate and showcase the voices of the north.
Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming titles?
At the moment we have plans to call for manuscripts in autumn of next year. However, our inbox has an “open door policy” for any queries in the meantime. You can reach out to us on submissions@foxandwindmill.co.uk
Because we are determined to make our indie publishing company accessible, we have an agent-less submission process which allows writers to send unsolicited manuscripts and we will get back to each and everyone. We are keen to learn what inspires our authors and what invokes them to write their stories.
We are currently planning to release a pamphlet later this year, with a collection of short stories between 1,500 and 2,000 words across all genres. Further details can be found on our website www.foxandwindmill.co.uk or by contacting submissions@foxandwindmill.co.uk
What has been the most challenging or rewarding thing about running an indie publisher so far?
We’ll start with the challenges!
We thought from the start that the idea of ‘setting up’ an indie publishing company or a business would be daunting and incredibly tough. Many times, that was our biggest challenge and definitely delayed our process of setting up.
We are creative individuals and we had absolutely no idea how to register a company, purchase ISBN’s, set up our finances and these tasks were so challenging not to mention terrifying individually. However, being mentored by Kevin enabled us to overcome these fears and slowly we were able to tackle each challenge. There are still some challenges that we face each day and probably more in the future, but we know that with the community that we have created around us, we’ll be able to overcome anything that’s in our path.
The rewards definitely outweigh the challenges that we face. The outpour of support that we have received nationally and locally towards the aspirations for our publishing company show that we have made a big step towards our goal in diversifying the publishing industry.
Establishing our indie press in the north has been incredibly rewarding as we have discovered many creatives in a similar situation to us. Unsure of who to turn to and those that don’t want to move away from their communities to London for a chance to be published. We are able to showcase the talent of the North from a Northern hub.
You can find out more about Fox & Windmill by visiting their website, and make sure you're signed up to our twice monthly newsletters for lots more indie bookish news.
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