Revamp, rebrand
Chiselbury Publishers rebranded in 2021 to reflect the way it has evolved beyond its initial aims.
‘Our titles now range from memoirs, biographies and history books, to contemporary and historical novels,’ said managing director Stuart Leasor. ‘We have just published Seaton’s Orchid, the latest work from Chips Hardy, the writer of the award-winning TV series Taboo.’
Chiselbury Publishing was originally established as James Leasor Publishing in 2011 to make the works of James Leasor available to new and old readers.
‘James Leasor had been one of the bestselling and most prolific British authors of the second half of the 20th century, writing over fifty books ranging from thrillers and historical novels to histories and biographies,’ said Stuart. ‘However none were available as ebooks and the few in print had legacy contracts with publishers who had little interest in them. We were then approached by leading journalist Dominic Midgley to see if we could make the bestselling biographies that he had written with Chris Hutchins on Roman Abramovich and Sir James Goldsmith available as well.’
This marked the beginning of a change in approach for Chiselbury.
‘We have since been approached by other authors wanting us to publish new and previously published works and so we have rebranded as Chiselbury to reflect our new profile,’ said Stuart. ‘Since our rebrand in 2021 we have been adding a number of new authors to the line up, with more in the pipeline for 2022.’
Stuart wants to establish Chishelbury as a destination publisher for interesting titles. ‘I hope to continue to expand and help more authors who might have been wrongly rejected by other publishers achieve their aims. I hope that Chiselbury will become known for continuing to publish interesting and readable books.’
Chiselbury Publishing titles reflect a variety of interests. ‘A good title for us is something that I would like to read myself!’ said Stuart. ‘I don’t think that there is set formula or type of book. Our four most recent books show the range: from Seaton’s Orchid, a historical novel, and BloodLine, an alternate [sic] Scottish history thriller by Nick Bastin, to The Early Plantagenets by Alan McLean, a sort of horrible histories for adults, through to two memoirs of wartime heroes, Not Enough Said by Duke Sell and, our most recent title, The Man Under the Radar, by Linda Nissen Samuels.’
Last year Chiselbury published four new books and four new editions of previously published books. ‘In total we have 46 titles available,’ said Stuart. ‘To date we have published two new works in 2022 with another two nearing issue in the next month or so. I expect that we will have done about ten this year in total.’
Writers interested in being published by Chiselbury should send an introduction to themselves and their work in the first instance. ‘Initially I would like a brief synopsis to see whether the work is something that we would be interested in,’ said Stuart.
Chiselbury publishes in print and ebook and pays royalties.