Publishing: our history

Based in Sheffield, on the doorstep of the Peak District, we’re blessed with access to world-class hillwalking, running, mountain biking, climbing and more than a few secret swimming spots. This landscape provides the ongoing inspiration for our ever-expanding range of books.

We released our first title, Dark Peak Mountain Biking: True Grit Trails, in 2004 to critical acclaim. Bikemagic.com called it ‘a very high-quality volume and certainly far and away the best Peak guide we’ve come across’, and Singletrack was also impressed: ‘one of the best guides to the Peak District we have come across’. It’s been reprinted, reissued as an all-new edition and continues to inspire riders visiting the Peak.

Our range of mountain biking guidebooks now totals eighteen books, covering most of the UK along with a guide to the amazing riding in the Western Alps. MBR Magazine called our MTB guides ‘a series of glossy, highly polished and well researched guidebooks to some of the UK’s favourite riding spots’. That’s certainly our plan. We want to provide all cyclists with well-researched, informative, functional, inspirational and great-looking guidebooks that document the superb riding across the length and breadth of the UK and beyond. So, if you want to go riding somewhere, you can count on us to point you in the right direction.

But we don’t just publish cycling guidebooks. We’ve developed ranges of hillwalking guidebooks, running guidebooks and open water swimming guidebooks. Being local climbers, we also have a few climbing guidebooks on our list, including the guides to Peak District Bouldering and Lake District Bouldering.

In January 2009 we published our first narrative title, Revelations, the autobiography of British rock climbing legend Jerry Moffatt, co-written with Irish writer Niall Grimes. Critically acclaimed, Revelations has proven to be a great success and scooped the Grand Prize at the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival – one of the biggest prizes in publishing in the outdoor, adventure, and environment genres. With the hardback edition sold through, the book is now available in trade paperback and has been reprinted a few times.

In late 2009 we secured the UK and Irish rights to American alpinist Steve House’s Boardman Tasker Prize-winning title Beyond the Mountain, and we published this in trade paperback in the UK in early 2010. Rock Athlete, our autobiography of British rock climber Ron Fawcett – co-written with Ed Douglas – was published in March 2010 and went on to win the 2010 Boardman Tasker Prize. Since then, we’ve published many other climbing narratives – several of which we’re proud to say have either won or been nominated for awards, including John Porter’s One Day as a Tiger which won the Grand Prize at Banff in 2014, Andy Kirkpatrick’s Cold Wars which won the 2012 Boardman Tasker Prize, and Simon McCartney’s epic book The Bond, which won the 2016 Mountain Literature Award in Banff and the 2016 Boardman Tasker Prize – our first book to do a Banff/BT ‘double’.

In early 2013 we acquired Bâton Wicks from Ken Wilson, and have subsequently made many classic mountaineering books available in ebook and print-on-demand formats.

In recent years we have made a commitment to publish more books by female writers, with our award-winning Waymaking at the front of this new surge in woman’s adventure writing.

With the loyal support of the outdoor community throughout the Covid years, we've been able to continue to grow our current book list into new and exciting new areas, including stand-up paddleboarding. This has led to further success and strengthened our mission to publish books that inspire adventure, share stories of adventures and enable each of us to go off and have adventures for ourselves. We are championing the right of access to the landscape to have an adventure whoever you are.

The last few years have been a lot of fun and hopefully will propel us forwards to continue our journey. Winning the TGO Outdoor Book of the Year Award for 2021 has definitely been a highlight for us, as was the Small Press of the Year Regioanl Award in 2022. The journey continues.

If you think there’s a book that needs publishing – or republishing – and it would be right up our street, then read our notes on the submissions page and please do get in touch.