Scottish publisher announces closure after 'labour of love'

The Herald Scotland

11-07-2025

The award-winning company, which published both books and literary magazines, has been funded by Scottish Government arts agency Creative Scotland in recent years.
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In a statement on the 404 Ink website, McDaid and Jones-Rivera said they had decided to wind down the company by next summer as they had "ticked off every aspiration and goal" that they had set.
However they have cited a significant increase in "costs and obstacles" since the launch of 404 Ink, which was honoured last year in the British Book Awards.
Chris McQueer is among the writers published by 404 Ink. (Image: Wildfire)
And they have admitted their work on the company had been a "labour of love" which had been "mostly unpaid."
Recent titles have included Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson's recent celebration of their cabaret double act Victor and Barry.
Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson reunited to write their Victor and Barry book Kelvinside Compendium, which was published by 404 Ink. (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan))
Other writers published have included Chris McQueer, Genevieve Jagger, Heather Parry, Helen McClory and Ellie Nash.
McDaid and Jones-Rivera have pledged there will be an "ethical wind down" of 404 Ink by continuing to trade until next year and working with the Glasgow-based publisher Saraband to continue Inklings, a series of pocket-sized non-fiction books.
Authors and agents were also alerted about the closure plans earlier this year "to give them as much time as possible to process the news and act accordingly."
The company has largely focused on developing the careers of new and emerging writers based in Scotland, and published fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
However the pair said they had decided "it is time to step back and leave space for others to pick up the mantle, or disrupt the mantle, or just create their own mantle and future they want to see in the book world."
McDaid and Jones-Rivera had pledged to focus on "quality over quanity" and "always punch above our weight in all areas to get our authors in front of as many people as possible."
Other writers the pair have championed include Andrés N. Ordorica, Arun Sood, Carrie Marshall, Joe Donnelly, Liam Konemann and Nadine Aisha Jassat.
McDaid and Jones-Rivera said they had "paused and reflected" on the future of 404 Ink ahead of its 10th anniversary in July 2026.
In their closure announcement, the pair said: "Struggling to come up with a revised mission statement for the next ten years, we realised that we had ticked off every aspiration and goal we had set as fledgling publishers back in 2016 and couldn't think of any way to better those aspirations.
"404 Ink has been run by two people the whole time. We were 24 and 25 years old when we launched the company, fresh-faced out of university and full of confidence that we could ruffle some feathers in publishing. Ten years later, we can confidently and proudly say that we did, and it is time to step back and leave space for others to pick up the mantle, or disrupt the mantle, or just create their own mantle and future they want to see in the book world.
"Running a company isn't easy - 404 Ink was, is, a labour of love, mostly unpaid to the two of us, who are no longer the scrappy upstart graduates, and have different, bigger responsibilities than our younger selves, and over the years the costs and obstacles in independent publishing have increased significantly (we won't bore you with the long, long list.
"We have also seen many publishers come and go over this time - some burning out in these conditions until they can no longer continue, others stepping back not-so-ethically and leaving their authors in the lurch.
"We felt the best service we could do, to ourselves, our authors, and the legacy of 404 Ink, is to go out while on top, following our biggest year ever, and on our own terms."
McDaid and Jones-Rivera said all future books would still be coming out as planned over the next year.
They added: "We aren't commissioning any further titles under 404 Ink and we are focusing our efforts on the ethical wind down of the company, ensuring that all our authors find the future they hope for as much as we are able.
"We still have one year until the company fully shutters and plenty of time for goodbyes (and maybe even a big farewell party/funeral), but for now we want to thank our incredible authors who trusted us with their work, the freelancers who we could not have made these books without, the partner organisations who have shared these books far and wide, the funders who made a lot of this business possible and viable, those who have offered insight or supported us through the past ten years and, finally, the wonderful readers who pick up books, whether that's from us, bookshops, libraries, or shared via friends.
"No matter how you got them, we're glad you read them. Please keep reading them."