Valentine Press was established in 2013 to publish one book, “Witch Girl and The Push”, by Lyn Gain. The venture has now expanded with new books under consideration as new authors approach us. 

Australia has a highly competitive publishing industry. The big publishers and even medium sized publishers usually back known authors, public personalities or well known imported titles because they need to sell a very large number of books relative to Australia’s small population to cover their overheads. This often means that dozens of high quality books never get the backing they deserve and many don’t even make it to print. It can be very demoralising for great, worthy and new writers alike.

After Witch Girl, Valentine Press steps into the Australian publishing void and offers a haven for very high quality writing. We are small, lean and supportive of Australian authors and writers of all kinds. 

Our central purpose is to share skills and provide a low-cost Australian publishing service where the author comes first. We help authors, rather than publishers and distributors, benefit from their work  to enrich Australia’s cultural past, present and future.

Valentine Press works like a real publisher, unlike a number of organisations who may only assist you in self-publishing. We publish fiction, non fiction, poetry, plays, so long as we are satisfied with the technical quality.

At our discretion, we can offer a full publishing partnership, where we handle production and distribution but also collaborate on publicity and marketing. We are happy to work with authors who are more “hands on” at various stages of the publishing process and also with authors who would prefer to leave their work in more experienced hands.

From an author’s perspective the philosophy of Valentine Press is to talk with you, discuss your options, and see if we can work together. For readers, we want to ensure that you get high quality publications with the best design and layout and the best quality writing and analysis. Valentine Press benefits when you buy our books online from our Website. They are shipped directly to you and we pride ourselves on our service. We also work very cooperatively with Australian book sellers of all kinds 

Lyn Gain was the founder of Valentine Press. After a successful career in social advocacy, Lyn left her job as Director of the NSW Council of Social Service and semi-retired to the country (Bellingen) and part-time academe.

After many years of writing and publishing books on social policy and research, she wrote “Witch Girl and the Push”. In her venture into the world of traditional publishing she learnt a lot, enough to set up her own independent publishing company, where the value of a book is judged on the quality of its writing and what it has to say, not on traditional publishers’ views of whether it will make a lot of money through appealing to the general public. Lyne died in 2023 and bequeathed Valentine Press to Rebecca Cox, who along with April Pressler, is running it now.

Rebecca Cox has had a long and storied career in publishing, starting as the work experience sub-editor at Vogue Australia. A few twists and turns later she ended up as the editor of a number of best-selling food magazines, back when they were a thing. Remember that time? Seems so long ago but it was only last decade. Sigh. Nowadays she works in the digital content creation space on B2B websites and newsletters.

April Pressler is a journalist, producer radio broadcaster, and editor. She has established communications networks with various sectors – government, Australian media, foreign correspondents, sustainable business,  renewable energy industry, NFPs,  space industry, the arts. She has managed government media and public affairs programs and  produced print and broadcast material for overseas audiences, sub-edited government publications, and worked on official programs and projects. She represented Australia on long-term postings abroad in Europe, Asia and Latin America. 

How it all works

When we have the book print ready (or e-book formatted), Valentine Press uses IngramSpark for print-on-demand (POD), distribution and filling orders, including e-books. Lightning Source Australia print our titles, through their partnership with IngramSpark, and as part of the Ingram Content Group, the world’s largest distributor of print and digital content.  All titles published by Valentine Press will be listed via IngramSpark’s international distribution channels for POD and e-books.

See our publishing services here.

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