In forming Hoolet Publishing, there were a number of characteristics we wanted to embed from the very beginning.

Central amongst those ambitions was “creating relationships”. 

Relationships are the foundation of stories. How we relate to the protagonists have defined generations of readers, from early childhood to our final breath. We all invest a significant degree of our life to caring about our fictional friends and despising the awful adversaries. The relationship between a reader and the characters is clearly important.

As important to us, is the relationship between the reader and the author. An early memory of mine was a children’s author visiting our school to read us her book. Sitting starry eyed at the authors feet I remember a description of a cantankerous ocelot and an early seed of outrageous creative writing was planted.

So we will do everything we can to create these opportunities and we do this both for the author and for the reader. We feel the reader benefits when they hear from author, whether that is in a blog, a video on their favourite social media channel, a picture shared on Instagram, or face to face. We believe the author benefits as it allows them to reach the widest audience possible, in a format as unfiltered as it is possible to be.

To achieve this, we will use technology as freely and fearlessly as our authoring heroes used typewriters. 

Technology surrounds us, aids us and enables us and will be a key feature of every part of our process. It will give readers a window into how we work, how our authors think, the direction of their stories and the goals of our business.

It will be a little scary, for us at least. Undoubtedly we will make mistakes but importantly, we will learn from them, and always look to improve the way we engage.

Already you can expect us to use the internet to share the stories, interactive stories that benefit from the rich features web can offer. We are in a position to create animations and add audio to help guide and lift the stories our authors produce, making them richer and more accessible. We anticipate readers enjoying an online ecosystem where they can safely engage with new and exclusive content, where they can enjoy games that branch off from the books.

We also aim to reduce the distance between Hoolet as a business, the authors as our creative partners and the audience as our lifeblood. 

We are planning live events, streaming of discussions with the authors, blogs about the challenges we have faced and the subjects we feel important to discuss. I hope authors will feel comfortable previewing early drafts of their book, gather feedback and begin engaging the readers from the earliest stage.

And more – so much more. We are excited by virtual reality, voice activation, artificial intelligence – these are all aspects of technology that can and will have an impact in publishing. Those companies that embrace them as a way to enhance stories and build relationships will be the ones that succeed in the next decade.

Ultimately, a publishing company will only succeed if it publishes good stories. We believe we will publish the best stories if we engage and build relationships with the best authors and the widest audience. We know that using technology will enhance the access and reduce the distance between reader and author in a sustainable and positive fashion.

And what is positive for the author and the reader is positive for us.