I have written over 11,000 words of literature review, someone clap 🥵

Our crowdfunder to raise more money for small presses in the UK is also live now!

The applications for small presses in the UK to apply for our bursaries are now OPEN! 👇

Seeing this headline a few weeks back made me think "you know what, I AM going to get those expensive heels and get my hair done again, fuck it, we're all gonna die" so I did buy the shoes and booked my appointment 🤷‍♀️at least I'll look fabulous when the nukes drop

Another example of how these guys’ MO is to always be pitching to investors even when they’re trying to communicate with the public. They can’t turn off the pitch mode

Very grateful for the wee reviews of Publisher Not Found coming in! I'm hoping those who read it will truly understand why it's ultimately a good thing 404 is closing, but indicative of a sad trend www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

Appreciate the nod. Our bursary, launching VERY soon, seeks to mitigate some of that depression...

Not quite halfway through @404ink.bsky.social’s Publisher Not Found and finding it an engrossing, honest and revealing read - thank you @heathermmcd.bsky.social & @laurafjones.bsky.social for writing and offering us this book as a final publication!

We are excited to be @thebookseller.com Small Press of the Year for Scotland! www.thebookseller.com/british-book...

The fire in Glasgow has been awful but this little piece of engagement on threads really had me bark out loud

Very exciting to see copies of our book landing with peeps now. I've seen at least 3 people say they're reading it on the way to LBF and given how bleak some of it gets, I apologise. But hopefully it's something to chat about in the one hour long queues for coffee?! www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

Thinking we need to launch a competition of most meta photo of Publisher Not Found on bookshelves. Preorders being sent out tomorrow! www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

I wish we were launching this in the halcyon days of a better Twitter when we had much more reach but hopefully there's some aspiring publisher or currently struggling publisher (lol, aren't we all) who might need this and see it! Bursaries for small presses coming very soon!

Coming soon! The 404 Ink Bursary for small presses and accompanying crowdfunder will launch in mid-March. This will give away at least £3,000 to small presses - we hope to raise more to pay it forward to even more people.

With all this chat about student loans, can I throw in my tactic of being 18 years in without reaching the income threshold to start paying it back and only have 12 years left before it's written off. In my area of work, pretty sure I can keep it up for that remaining time 🤞

yay us / @charcopress.com ! thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

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Any fellow central Edinburgh dwellers noticed the 5G is barely functional these days? I'm used to it crawling during fringe and christmas but damn, can barely buy a train ticket on the way to the station on a Feb afternoon anymore 😕

Hey pals. We finished our book, Publisher Not Found, and it'll be in our hands in a couple of weeks. If you'd like a copy, you can order it now and have it first: www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl... More soon!

On Saturday the 21st of February the shop will be open all the way through the night as we're fundraising to pay our bills! We'll be switching over to a purple ink stamp for the night shift featuring a time stamp so you can prove you were chilling in a bookshop at 3am. Stay tuned for more details...

I need people to understand the process I'm going through to identify more sustainable business practices for small publishing companies I am in arts and humanities 🫠

"Many medium-sized independents have either been acquired by larger publishers or have closed down. A recent example is 404 Ink, who published award-winning books but never managed to make it their sole source of income.” We actually knew in short time we didn't WANT 404 Ink to be our sole income.

Today @heraldscotland.bsky.social published Dominic Ryan's interview with our CEO Sheila Pinder. Read on for insights into the diverse structure of the industry, and the value of its perseverance in the face of funding struggles and AI-related copyright fears: www.heraldscotland.com/news/2582878...

In 2026, in Scotland alone, we're losing @404ink.bsky.social, @quindriepress.com & @hauntpublishing.bsky.social. I really want to see new nimble presses rise from the ashes but it's difficult to recommend starting a company in this market.

[explaining to a child why they are living in poverty] for every hundredth pint i drink i can get one free pint

It's kind of an open secret that AI companies are hiring creatives to produce new material to train their models since they've basically run out of data to mine. They're trying to make it so the only job you can still get is training your replacement

[niche PhD post] Finding out that book publishing actually inspired one of the most pivotal studies in business in the 80s: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Realising it was never adapted to help publishers and publishing has ignored it all: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck. [/niche PhD post]

Happy large boulder the size of a small boulder day for all who celebrate

this invoice could have been a podcast

Ah, if only attention was indeed paid

She is typeset! Let the existential dread commence!

don’t want to do anything? just melt into a puddle of goo and let the new Google Goo Assistant take care of your gelatinous nothing of an existence

at last we will be free from the backbreaking drudgery of ordering pizza from a menu and even counting how many people the pizza is for www.theverge.com/tech/863365/...

"Publishers in general are really backward with their marketing strategy so these AI guys are filling in the gaps." I sympathise with this overall issue but this "gap" is having an audiobook available on YouTube for free, not one publishers seek to fulfill, obv. www.thebookseller.com/news/author-...

Truth. also would make a cool tattoo

As we're now in 2026, the year of our closure, we're beginning to mark some books as out of print via our distributor, meaning it's your last chance to get your hands on some 404 Ink history before they're gone! Books now marked as out of print with last copies available via us directly...

Happy NYE, the publishing industry is failing because of 5 non-fiction books, pass it on

still my favorite christmas post

The bus we took home today was so old that I'm pretty sure it has the same yellowed 90s branding as the bus I took to school 25 years ago. It might BE the same bus. And then it broke down in the middle of nowhere, Aberdeenshire. Must've been the same bus.

What's the Value of Early Career Arts & Humanities Research? I wrote about this for the @sahavoice.bsky.social blog, drawing on my experience as Director of @sgsah.bsky.social over the past few years saha.scot/the-value-of...

What's the worst year wrapped/recap you've been offered? It's WeTransfer for me. Why not relive all the files that were left un-downloaded, expired, and became my problem to re-upload as opposed to the client's for not downloading in time? Yeah, let's feel that again

Survey closes on Friday! Please fill it out if you've ever been accepted for or declined funding by Creative Scotland's Open Fund! I sent through my overly comprehensive thoughts... www.creativescotland.com/news-stories...

"Put together, the picture is mixed: individuals, creators and publishers are caught between clear productivity gains and serious questions about value, work-role shift and creative livelihoods." So, AI offers... Pro: productivity Con: question of livelihoods Can we really call that 'mixed'?!

Another weekend drafting this book, I finally understand when authors say they're sick of reading and revising their own work and would rather do anything else. I am there. But at least I can punt the book at last! Preorder! Royalties going to other small presses! www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

Ah yes, put those classics on my tree

ANNOUNCING: PUBLISHER NOT FOUND - our final book and the 404 Ink Bursary, coming 2026. We will be launching the bursary with an initial £3,000 pledged from us towards small press projects. We are also publishing PUBLISHER NOT FOUND, a behind the scenes look at 404. www.404ink.com/blog/publish...

Announcing our 2026 bursary for small presses and crowdfunder AND book that Heather and I have secretly been writing about @404ink.bsky.social over the last few months. Our way of saying farewell! www.404ink.com/blog/publish...