The Book Depository: What/who do you see as your primary market?

Will Mackie (Flambard Press): We’re aiming for as diverse a readership as we can find for our books and are always looking for new fiction and poetry readers.

BD: What are the principal challenges/opportunities you see at the moment in the business of publishing books?

WM: Flambard is a small publisher with a miniscule marketing budget, so operating in the aggressive fiction market is a big challenge. Online opportunities can be advantageous for us. We have to work harder than larger publishers to get our books noticed and maintaining a presence in high-street book chains is difficult, particularly given the kind of discounting all publishers now face.

Being a small publisher does mean that we can take chances that larger outfits are uneasy with. We’re supportive of first novelists and continue to be committed to poetry even though it tends not to sell in huge quantities. When we really believe in something there are probably less restraints on us than for publishers who are more commercially motivated. Our continued support from Arts Council England helps to keep us flourishing.

BD: What brings you to the decision to publish a particular title/author?

WM: Flambard publish around eight or nine titles a year, split between fiction and poetry, so are very selective about what we take on. We’re looking for innovative and inspiring writing and are particularly sympathetic to authors who may be overlooked in the mainstream arena. If we think a book could reach a readership that isn’t well represented it may appeal to us.

BD: What books are you most proud of having published?

WM: We’re very proud to be the publisher of John Murray, who has been writing incredibly funny and ingenious novels for years. His latest, A Gentleman’s Relish, is characteristically full of wild humour yet at times very sad.

We recently published Richard Aronowitz’s Five Amber Beads, acclaimed for its poetic style and unusual blend of fiction and reality. It’s rewarding to be able to support such a talented novelist at the beginning of his career.

Our Modern Classics series has seen the short stories of Andrée Chedid published in English for the first time. Chedid was born in Egypt in 1920 and settled in Paris as an adult. Between the Worlds reveals a writer capable of traversing the cultures of the Middle East and Europe. We also brought the work of the hugely influential Newcastle writer Sid Chaplin back into print – where it belongs. Chaplin’s The Day of the Sardine is a personal favourite.

Our poetry list is well loved and we’re proud of all the poets who have contributed to its evolution. The Voice by Josephine Dickinson and William Radice’s novel in verse Green, Red, Gold are two highlights of recent years.

BD: What books are you working on right now?

WM: Published in July is Four Taxis Facing North, the debut short story collection by Trinidad-based author Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw. This book takes us deep inside the lives of contemporary Trinidadian families, a world of marital anguish, abandonment and secrets. Elizabeth will be in the UK in May to promote the book.

Late April sees the publication of Minotaur in Love, the second novel by Fraser Harrison. This is an elegantly written tragi-comic love story about a bibliophile who can’t escape his unhappy childhood. Fraser has a talent for evoking a sense of place and beautifully captures Norfolk’s salt marshes, 1970s Soho and Bohemian Biarritz.

Before April 2008, we’ll be publishing a further two first novels and three debut poetry collections.

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These are The Book Depository's 5 favourite Flambard titles: