Laura Jones-Rivera

Ah thank you!

An open copy of Publisher Not Found on a cafe table, with a pot of tea in the background

Not quite halfway through @404ink.bsky.social’s Publisher Not Found and finding it an engrossing, honest and revealing read - thank you @heathermmcd.bsky.social & @laurafjones.bsky.social for writing and offering us this book as a final publication!

We are excited to be @thebookseller.com Small Press of the Year for Scotland!

www.thebookseller.com/british-book...

Darren McGarvey saying 'anyone with a vape shope might want to sell up asap. Its [sic] over.' Someone replied 'Aye, that's how it works. Which is why we haven’t seen any bakeries since the great fire of London'

The fire in Glasgow has been awful but this little piece of engagement on threads really had me bark out loud

Also, the idea of anything other the actual authors on the cover seemed a little too egotistical for what is arguably already an egotistical project. It was also lovely to get Maria again to illustrate after being our first cover illustrator for Nasty Women. We just love gestural symmetry too much!

Photo of someone holding a copy of Publisher Not Found

A copy of Publisher Not Found with caption "happy to have received my pre order from the wonderful 404 Ink. Feels like this will be a galvanising read ahead of LBF'

Very exciting to see copies of our book landing with peeps now. I've seen at least 3 people say they're reading it on the way to LBF and given how bleak some of it gets, I apologise. But hopefully it's something to chat about in the one hour long queues for coffee?!

www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

Photo of our book Publisher Not Found on a bookshelf surrounded by Inklings

Thinking we need to launch a competition of most meta photo of Publisher Not Found on bookshelves.

Preorders being sent out tomorrow!

www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

I wish we were launching this in the halcyon days of a better Twitter when we had much more reach but hopefully there's some aspiring publisher or currently struggling publisher (lol, aren't we all) who might need this and see it!

Bursaries for small presses coming very soon!

Coming soon! The 404 Ink Bursary for small presses and accompanying crowdfunder will launch in mid-March. This will give away at least £3,000 to small presses - we hope to raise more to pay it forward to even more people.

With all this chat about student loans, can I throw in my tactic of being 18 years in without reaching the income threshold to start paying it back and only have 12 years left before it's written off. In my area of work, pretty sure I can keep it up for that remaining time 🤞

On Earth As It Is Beneath | The Booker Prizes An unsettling novel that sets us among an isolated group of men whose bonds break down in ways both hard to comprehend and impossible to look away from

yay us / @charcopress.com !

thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

👀

Any fellow central Edinburgh dwellers noticed the 5G is barely functional these days? I'm used to it crawling during fringe and christmas but damn, can barely buy a train ticket on the way to the station on a Feb afternoon anymore 😕

Publisher Not Found: A Decade of Disruption by 404 Ink — 404 Ink What really goes on behind closer doors in publishing? After ten years of running their own award-winning company, 404 Ink, McDaid and Jones-Rivera call time on their venture and invite readers into t...

Hey pals. We finished our book, Publisher Not Found, and it'll be in our hands in a couple of weeks. If you'd like a copy, you can order it now and have it first: www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

More soon!

A picture of the bookshop doors with purple glowing text overlaid on top, saying "Typewronger All-Night Bookshop Fundraiser". Below it there is a purple image of a 24-hour date and time stamp

A picture of the Typewronger stairs, with purple glowing text overlaid reading: "We need YOU to help us keep our lights on, so we're staying OPEN ALL NIGHT 21st-22nd Feb"

A picture of the Typewronger window, with purple glowing text overlaid reading: "WHY? We're struggling to pay our bills, and we've got a big tax bill due in March"

A picture of the Typewronger stairs, with purple glowing text overlaid reading: "No, but why are you staying open all night? ... because it's a badass move! Typewronger is already the latest open indie in Edinburgh and our ridiculous opening hours are a commitment to our community. When else will you be able to say you chilled in a bookshop at 3 am?"

On Saturday the 21st of February the shop will be open all the way through the night as we're fundraising to pay our bills! We'll be switching over to a purple ink stamp for the night shift featuring a time stamp so you can prove you were chilling in a bookshop at 3am. Stay tuned for more details...

That sounds infinitely more enjoyable, tbh

Quote from a 1975 article that says "you have to get out to lunch to find out what's going on out there - and what's going on out there is where an editor's books come from," says James Silberman, editor-in-chief of Random House. "Over the years, I've watched people in the book business stop having lunch, and they stop getting books."

A palate cleanser from 1975

WON'T SOMEOME THINK OF THE LUNCHES?!

An article with a massive math formula I don't know how to read, let alone type out

I need people to understand the process I'm going through to identify more sustainable business practices for small publishing companies

I am in arts and humanities 🫠

Just adding some perspective to the narrative that we couldn't make 404 Ink pay the bills. It's true, but we also didn't want to. We imagined 404 being our full time jobs and neither of us were thrilled about it, interestingly. We were proud of our work, but we felt we could do more elsewhere also.

It became more costly to stay the same size as we had to publish more books to keep the level of turnover at least consistent - the opposite of what we wanted to do. Right now, funding and market conditions make avoiding growth difficult. We have to justify our funding (to GROW!) and it's too hard.

But we couldn't have it all, and eventually 404 had to go as the one that couldn't reliably pay us. Small publishers are pressured by funders and awards bodies to grow grow grow so we're penalised when we don't want to. Deciding to not grow 404 was effectively the first step towards closing, sadly.

While 404 Ink took off, we realised we valued the opportunities that arose outside of the company. We enjoyed having jobs elsewhere with other publishers/companies that ended up paying the bills while 404 could not. We enjoyed the variety when elements of 404 began to feel a bit grindy.

"Many medium-sized independents have either been acquired by larger publishers or have closed down. A recent example is 404 Ink, who published award-winning books but never managed to make it their sole source of income.”

We actually knew in short time we didn't WANT 404 Ink to be our sole income.

'A third of writers said AI has reduced the income they received from other work' Scotland’s book publishing sector defies simple economic analysis, prioritising cultural value over profit. Challenged by financial barriers and…

Today @heraldscotland.bsky.social published Dominic Ryan's interview with our CEO Sheila Pinder.

Read on for insights into the diverse structure of the industry, and the value of its perseverance in the face of funding struggles and AI-related copyright fears:
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2582878...

We know returns suck, we know AI sucks, we know the slim margins suck, we know the faux meritocracy sucks - what DOESN'T suck? Is it as simple as having capital at the very beginning? How much? Do we have to grow? If not, what problems does that create? We should grapple with these issues together.

I have admiration for all the conferences and panels that discuss small press issues to help, but I think what we really need is some dedicated, honest, uncomfortable LONG discussions about how we're running our companies. Do we suck at it? Is it our fault or not? Or both? Is publishing too broken?

I have a dream of facilitating an in-person two-day workshop/gathering where all small indie publishers gather, with their business plans in hand (and if they don't have one, must write one), and openly, candidly discuss what they want for their press, what is working and what isn't.

In 2026, in Scotland alone, we're losing @404ink.bsky.social, @quindriepress.com & @hauntpublishing.bsky.social. I really want to see new nimble presses rise from the ashes but it's difficult to recommend starting a company in this market.

It's been an honour to be part of the journey!

If it turns out I need to make an unexpected January payment randomly...lol, I'm fucked