Who we are
Reading Room Cafe Project Publishing is the publishing and fundraising offshoot of the Reading Room Project. We aim to offer affordable publishing to talented writers. Using competitions we intend to find the best writers we can and offer them hard copies of their books.
"Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss."
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
All emails will be answered as soon as possible by the Bunny. She’s our hard working receptionist, when she’s not taking a nap.
​What is Reading Room Publishing and the Reading Room Cafe Project?
We, (Rachel and Emma) have had an idea about a bookshop in our minds since we met in a high school ICT class and became firm friends. Reading Room Publishing is an attempt to get creative people involved in the project and be able to offer them something in return.
We aim to create a place for books to be sold and swapped, a home for knitting and book circles, a platform for writers, musicians, actors and artists to showcase their work, and a sanctuary for a nice piece of cake and a cuppa.
Until then, we want to give writers an opportunity to hold their books in their hands.
I (Emma) am a writer myself, and the first time I held a copy of my own work in my hands,albeit some ghost written trash with someone else’s name on the cover, I got such a rush. I want others to feel that too. I’ve written all sorts of things since then, and while some of my books do have my own name on them, they never really felt like mine, there was always someone else in control.
I looked at self publishing, but it can be an expensive and risky venture, and a lot of competitions that have publication as a “prize” don’t really care about the writers involved and ask "winners" to buy their own books from them at full price, people included don't even get a free copy! This never felt like much of a prize to me, so I started looking into what I could do about it.
The Reading Room Cafe Project aims, eventually, to be a teashop and book-bar that will stock indie titles and host book signings for any writer who wishes to come along. We want to showcase all sorts of other talent too, like comedy, art, music and drama.
Until then, we want to give writers an opportunity to hold their books in their hands.
We are a brand new indie publisher. We’re just starting out and we’re always open to new ideas. For the moment we will mainly be publishing work that is important to us but as our portfolio grows we might look at expanding our range too.
Emma’s parents used to have a bookshop – long before we were born – so we’re painfully aware of how hard it is to be a smaller bookshop. As such, we urge you to ask for more of a discount or for different terms. Be cheeky, we’re flat broke but we’ll do what we can!