We have started The Urbane Monthly! This is a brief newsletter that keeps you, our readers, updated on our latest releases and much more. We will send out email notifications every time we hold a promotion. We hope to feature give away discount coupons for paperbacks and/or ebooks to subscribers as a thank you. We also […]

Press Release                                                                                                                                    10 October 2016     Rights People represent Urbane Publications rights portfolio.   Rights People and Urbane Publications are delighted to announce that Rights People will represent the Urbane Publications rights portfolio in international markets with immediate effect.   Charles Nettleton, Managing Director of Rights People said: ‘Having recently expanded the Rights People […]

WHERE’S WALLY?  (Or why Twitter and Facebook are bad for your confidence) This is the usual dinner party narrative: “So, what do you do then?”  – asked with polite interest. I try to keep my face neutral.  “I’m a novelist.” The answer is new, and my natural response is still somewhere between grinning with pride […]

Fabulous new book trailer for Tara Moore’s Fade to Dead now on YouTube  

Author Jared A. Carnie recently asked me five questions – here they are with the answers for the curious amongst you! Did you ever have intentions of being a writer yourself? A quick confession, I’ve actually written about 10 or so non-fiction books, all under pseudonyms. One of them was even on sale at the Tate […]

Allez les Verts   As Euro 2016 beckons, can the two Irelands dare to dream?     One sunny day during the 1982 World Cup, we watched with eager anticipation as Northern Ireland shaped up to host nation Spain in Valencia. Spain were, at that time, not the powerhouse they have since become, but were […]

The Ribbonfish team is extremely familiar with the publishing industry, having delivered successful enterprise tech projects for major publishers in the UK and the USA. In this series of articles, we’ll we interviewing some superb publishing industry players about their thoughts on the sector, current trends, and their own business. In this first edition, we […]

When Matthew asked if I would like to write a guest blog post about the literary zine that I run (PAPER AND INK, for those not already in the know), I thought I would give it the usual sales patter and try to win over a few new readers or even writers who will one […]

Enjoy this brilliant interview with comedy romance author Daniel Gothard. The original post appears on the Retreat West site here:   Urbane author, Daniel Gothard, has just had his third novel published. Simon Says is a funny, bittersweet tale of a man trying to get over his engagement ending and find a new way to be […]

Guest Blog by Eden Burning author Deirdre Quiery   I love the courage of salmon. They leave the fresh water flow to enter the salty sea. I admire their wisdom. They know when to turn around and return to the river of their birth. Spawning. Eggs placed with new life into the gravel of the […]

Meeting? Joy? The two words don’t sit easily together, at least in a business context. There is so much to criticise in the way meetings have taken over our lives – and not in a good way. I set out to analyse the meetings phenomenon, and to spell out what I believe has gone wrong, […]

In the 80’s, I wrote the author, Stephen King, a letter. You see, he is one of my favorite writers ever and I was a bit obsessed with him, had even thought of going to Bangor, Maine just so I could possibly catch a glimpse of him walking down the road or drinking coffee in […]

Just in case anyone thinks we’ve been idle here at Urbane towers, this is what’s coming your way in the first half of 2016…..   JANUARY Simon says – Daniel Gothard – FICTION To the Lions – Claire Meadows – POETRY   FEBRUARY Public Affairs: A Global Perspective – Stuart Thomson – POLITICS & CURRENT […]

In my editorial consultancy work, I sometimes advise clients that: ‘A successful book is a marketing project with a printed product attached.’ Usually, the context is business publishing, but of course the same applies to fiction, as I’ve learned in my first four months as a published novelist, after the launch of Close of Play. […]

This week it’s a guest post from bestselling thriller author Tim Adler:   This week I signed a paperback publishing deal with Urbane Publications, an independent publisher which launched in February 2014. For me, Urbane represents the future of publishing in that both author and publisher have some skin in the game. It’s a joint […]

It’s time to do something about the curse of bad meetings. Most of us are frustrated by how many meetings we have to go to, how long they last, the number of people around the table, and how seldom they lead to real progress. But we don’t spend too much time complaining about it. Most […]

Try changing people before changing the people Ours is a hire and fire culture. Perform or you’re out. We don’t have time to bring you up to speed, so we have found someone else. It is such a limited view of the world, and completely at variance with everything we have learned in marketing and […]

Men don’t ‘do’ romantic drama. Or do we? Recently, I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association. As expected, there are rather more women than men. I thought that the ratio might be 85-15 or 90-10. In fact, it’s more like 99-1, and a few of the male card-carrying members use female pseudonyms. There is a similar […]

I was chatting to a prospective author last week and they said something rather marvellous – that they’d got in touch because Urbane appeared to put the author first. This was particularly gratifying for two reasons – firstly, because it shows the message is getting out there and making sense; but more importantly that it […]

I was thinking about Monica Bellucci today. Not that I do this constantly you understand – at least no more than once a day anyway. Maybe a couple of times. And despite what you might think (I’m not always that predictable honest) I was thinking about Ms Bellucci because I can’t believe the fuss that […]

  THE MOST IMPORTANT COLLABORATOR? Crikey, the new year has got off to a flying start, with barely time to grab a cake with my coffee, let alone keep up with all the hyper-positive publishing ‘trends’ that seem to do the rounds at the start of every year. While it’s always gratifying to hear about […]

This week I’m delighted to host a guest blog from writer Ian Probert, the author of rather brilliant children’s tale Johnny Nothing, which is available to buy from Amazon. Ian has a website and you can also follow him on twitter @truth42                   GUEST BLOG – IAN […]

                What a year – both gone and to come! A very simple act has put a very big cherry on top of what was already a wonderfully delicious 2014. Yesterday one of Urbane’s newly signed authors preordered a copy of another author’s forthcoming book. Why on earth […]

As a little helpful treat in the run-up to Christmas, here are six essential tips from Diego Masciaga on perfect Christmas entertaining: 1 – The seating plan • It’s often actually easier to seat work friends and neighbours than it is family. Spend a lot of time thinking about whether it’s a good idea to […]

Rather than write a blog this week, you can have the dubious pleasure of listening to my dulcet tones as I natter about Urbane Publications. Stuart Williams of The Unlimited Podcast was kind enough to interview me this week about publishing and what Urbane does differently – do have a listen and let me know […]

Urbane Publications pursues a collaborative publishing strategy, partnering with authors to work together on shared goals for each project, and combining the best of both a traditional and self-publishing approach. Today Urbane is delighted to host the latest blog from author Sarah Lynch, a prolific self-published author, and asked her to explain why she chooses […]

Urbane Publications is determined to ‘become a leading independent publisher and a genuine positive choice for authors and readers alike’, says director Matthew Smith. In the second part of our in-depth look at the collaborative publishing option, Urbane answers some of the most obvious questions from authors who are now realising that the Third Way […]

I’m a very lucky chap, as I’ve been fortunate enough to work in and around books for 25 years (hard to believe I know, given my youthful good looks). I started as a bookseller, when readers bought books, and digital was a watch. And I’ve worked for publishers big and small over the years, building […]

Here are a few thoughts that came out of a Q & A with Authoramp. Please do come back to me with comments and questions, be great to hear what you think! Q&A with Matthew Smith, Director of Urbane Publications Hi Matthew, thanks for sitting down with us on this lovely September day for a […]

Things are seldom as they seem Inspiration comes from many places and in all shapes and sizes. In my case, it came from India, in the hefty form of an elephant. That elephant was long dead, and I never had the chance to meet him. It also turned out that he wasn’t even real. But […]

Inspiration? It’s criminal! Writers are often advised to write what they know. This in itself could be a rather troubling piece of advice when you’re embarking on a novel about a remorseless, barbaric serial killer. But much of the world’s greatest fiction, particularly crime fiction, is driven by fact, and the real crimes perpetrated by […]

Influence…It’s inevitable. We are all subject to influence. That’s what the research tells us. People, places, memories, expectations and a whole host of other stimuli influence us. In the main they influence us subconsciously. In other words they get into our heads and into our psyche, they affect the ways we feel, the things we […]

There are certain aspects to business– and our ability to embrace and exploit them successfully -that we all take for granted. Partnering? I think we’re all guilty at some point of assuming we’re brilliant at partnering, pointing to the number of successful business relationships we’ve harnessed, confident in our ability to persuade and enthuse. We […]

I may have just done something monumentally daft. Or mad. Or beautifully crazy. Or some kind of wonderful. In fact I’m plumping for the last (with a soupçon of crazy). Because I’ve given up a respectable paid position in publishing to throw myself headlong into running my own business. All this at a time when […]

I’m a publisher. Which must mean I love books – right? And in many ways I suppose I do. Perhaps not that all consuming passion where I’d hammer Dustin Hoffman-style on the windows of the local library and whisk away cherished volumes, eloping for a happy lifetime of illicit page turning. But certainly where I’d […]

Is there a crisis of quality?  There are some panic pants in the publishing industry who would like to blame the current ‘challenging situation’ on the phenomenon that is self-publishing. The ease with which anyone, and I mean anyone, can piece together some words, call them a book and throw them at an ever eager […]

That Robert Galbraith fellow has really set tongues wagging. Turns out the former soldier had the temerity to not only be a bestselling author masquerading as a publishing virgin, but a woman as well. Shock! Horror!! It’s bad enough the industry has to deal with failing bookshops, self-publishing, price fixing and all that digital nonsense […]

There’s been a great deal of discussion in the publishing industry recently about the ‘showroom’ issue, that as bookshops continue to close, and those that remain seem determined to lurch from one retail crisis to another, the only hope for the bricks and mortar channel is to act as a shop window for digitally savvy […]

With the continuing decline of bricks and mortar channels, and the huge explosion of self-published authors (more people writing is always a positive in my humble opinion), there’s a genuine challenge facing indie authors and publishers alike – how the dickens do you engage and build an interested, enthusiastic, loyal (and paying!) readership? Latest statistics […]

I woke this morning to a rather wonderful tweet from the gifted Aksania Xenogrette, a writer  and artist who often combines words so beautifully it gives me brain bliss (for the record you can catch Aksania’s tweets @gadgetgreen). Aksania sent me the following, calling it ‘a lovely vision of our intrepid locomotive’ and I wanted […]

There is one question authors always ask me – how will you market my book effectively (closely followed by ‘what do you mean you’re not printing 10,000?’)? It’s a very valid question, and unfortunately just staring off vacantly into space doesn’t really cut it as an answer. The pressure to create a marketing plan of […]

BOOK  – noun – Portable written or printed treatise filling a number of sheets, fastened together, sewn, or pasted hinge wise. (Oxford Dictionary) When is a book just a book? By definition, a book is no longer just a book – often books are no longer limited to the physically-bound pages of a spine. A […]

As a publisher and an avid reader I continue my internal debate on ebooks. As a publisher I recognise their importance to the industry, creating growth, developing new markets, encouraging new readers. But as a reader, as a lover of books, I still find my e-reader cold, uninvolved and purely functional, a practical way to […]

There’s something so utterly compelling and addictive about books, about storytelling, about characters, knowledge, opinions, thoughts. That’s why Urbane Publications started. To feed a wonderful addiction for amazing books and share it with you. But at a time when anyone with a story to tell or knowledge to impart can take their words and self-publish, some […]

Remember to Breathe by Simon Pont is available now!!!! Set in the buzzing location of London in 1999 it charts the high, lows and in-between dreams of Samuel Grant, wild bunch of one, twenty-something survivor and lover of life. At least sometimes. Join Samuel as he rushes towards the 21st century, pondering his past, coping […]