Publisher of the Year
 

This is a company that has shown shrewd and strategic business thinking in a shifting context. They are collaborative, innovative and are distinguished by fresh thinking in their use of digital technology. Their move to new approaches still has the interest of authors at its heart. Typically of many SMEs in the industry, they punch impressively above their weight.’

SaraBand

Sara Hunt is an experienced publisher with more than 25 years’ experience in publishing, commissioning, creating and producing high-quality fiction and non-fiction titles in the arts, environment, architecture, history, mythology and memoir. 

Publishing imaginatively in a variety of media, Sara runs Saraband, a member company of the Faber Factory Plus alliance of quality independent publishers.

After gaining experience with London publishers (including Octopus and Penguin), Sara founded Saraband in 1994 as a content creator/book packager, based at that time in the New York area.

Saraband began publishing independently around ten years later, back in the UK, but still working with publishers internationally, in North America, Europe and Asia. 

Saraband maintains strong editorial and design and high production values for physical books to make them special in a world where so much has become disposable. 

The publishing company has also been early adopters of various digital formats. It has been simultaneously publishing in print and digital for some years; publishing its first app in 2009 and having since moved on to projects including fixed-layout epub for iPads/phones, an app for smartphones that went viral – Burns Night – and producing its own audiobooks.