I spent some time with my father in law over Christmas. He was a writer and a publisher. He founded an imprint, sold his own rights at Frankfurt, was surrounded with writers, designers and editors all his working life. What were we talking about? How great things used to be ? The hand-selling, the craft that went into creating wood cut illustrations, the lost art of book-binding ? No. We were talking about how wonderful it would be to commission new covers and illustrations for a series of Christmas stories he’d written many years ago, how straight forward and liberating it would be to make the books available as ebooks and handsome POD editions, how amazing their reimagining and redistribution would be for something that has been sitting on his shelf at home for too long. And how he could do all of this himself without waiting for a publisher to pick up the rights. With a little help from the odd expert service provider or two.

This year, whitefox will celebrate four years of trying to create a new business model within the world of publishing. Many of the conversations we were having back in late 2011 and early 2012 which must have seemed somewhat outlandish or unnecessary to some people are now taken for granted. No one now blinks at the talk of more outsourcing, the need to bring down fixed-costs, the drive for greater trust, transparency and quality, vetted services within self-publishing. It is accepted that freelance professionals will play an increasingly important role operating in the space between writers and readers. 

Whether you are a traditional publisher, an indie author, a brand or an agency, we understand that everything you are doing is constantly evolving and adapting. And beneath the radar, facilitating that change, are the skilled individuals – the editors, designers, the indexers and marketers, the copywriters or coders or illustrators – who help make everything happen, whose professionalism and knowledge adds value to content. In 2016, whitefox pledges to continue our crusade to grow awareness of those specialists making a difference all over the world. And we will keep trying to shine a light on how talented freelancers can grow and develop and be recognised for what they do within the broad publishing eco-system, wherever they happen to live. That promise hasn’t changed in the last four years and we will dedicate ourselves to it again in the coming year.