UK NON-FICTION MARKET
The street where books live
Salamander Street is a new, Edinburghbased independent publisher of cultural and counter-cultural titles.
‘We began life as a specialist drama publisher, publishing play scripts and books about theatre,’ said publisher George Spender. ‘The pandemic (and lack of theatre) meant we started diversifying our list, and we now publish a range of titles under the broader remit of arts and (counter-) culture
George was previously the editorial director of Oberon Books, an indie drama publisher which was acquired by Bloomsbury in
2019. ‘I had left to work for the Edinburgh International Festival by then and had always wanted to set up my own press. I was living on Salamander Street in Leith at the time – hence the name. Our first published title was a dual volume of plays about the Tay Bridge disaster by Peter Arnott. We continued doing plays and acquired the backlist of Mark Wheeller, who is the UK’s most performed living playwright and has several plays on the GCSE Drama syllabus – those have been very successful.
Salamander Street has published 62 titles in just over two years of business. ‘The bulk of those have been playscripts but we’ve also published a number of trade books too, and one book of photography.’
The pandemic has meant that Salamander Street has had a slower start than George anticipated. ‘We’re still just getting started in our output, it’s been an interesting couple of years to start a new indie press to say the least. We’ll continue publishing play scripts as that’s my first love, but I’d also really like to publish more books about theatre, good biographies, books about music, particularly electronic music, rave culture, grime, rap, hip hop. Anything with a counterculture vibe.’
At the moment George is interested in books about theatre and musical theatre, contemporary music or counterculture. ‘I particularly like working on non-fiction, essays, and biographies, but if you happen to have a play being professionally performed do get in touch,’ he said. ‘I’d also be really interested in titles with an American interest.’
George is happy to hear from prospective authors. ‘Just drop me a line at with a brief proposal and I’ll tell you if it’s one for us. If you want to submit a play for publication it should be being professionally produced in a theatre, otherwise it’s just too hard to sell them.’
Salamander publishes in paperback and ebook format. George says that advances for plays are usually a couple of hundred pounds depending on the venue, and book advances are in the low thousands.
Details: email: george@salamanderstreet. com; website: https://salamanderstreet. com/