Clan Destine Press acquires UK small publisher

15 April 2019 Books+Publishing

Melbourne-based genre specialist Clan Destine Press has acquired Improbable Press, a small UK publisher.

Improbable Press began in London in 2015 as a publisher of Sherlock Holmes titles, but will expand to publish ‘adventure tales where the heroes are women, people of colour, and any part of LGBTQIA+’.

Clan Destine publisher Lindy Cameron said for ‘too long these characters, and neurodivergent or differently-abled people, have been relegated to sidekicks or footnotes in a world of heteronormative, male-driven narratives’. ‘Improbable and Clan Destine are all about banishing those stereotypes, one book at a time,’ Cameron said.

Cameron told Books+Publishing the acquisition was a combination of ‘right place, right time’ and knowing of the publisher’s books and their editor, Wendy Fries. ‘She wasn’t in a position to take over Improbable Press when the opportunity arose but I was, so I gleefully put up my hand … as long as the company came with Wendy as commissioning editor,’ said Cameron.

Improbable Press has a production schedule of up to eight titles for the next 18 months, including six Holmes & Watson titles. The first, A Question of Time (Jamie Ashbird, illus by Janet Anderton), will be published in June.

Category: Local news