By Madeleine Mankey
Main Point Books is a lot of things. It is an independent bookshop in Edinburgh. It is a publisher of Scottish literature. It is an important gathering place for the Edinburgh literary community. In this blog, I’ll try to explain what Main Point Books has been to me over the years.
When I first came to work with Jennie, it was 2018 and I was in my third year of university. I was halfway through an internship with an independent Scottish publisher and I ended up editing a piece with Jennie Renton, a freelancer who came into the publisher’s office on Wednesdays. For the remainder of the week, Jennie invited me to finish the work at her bookshop on the West Port. I was blown away by the place, its sense of history and its charm. There were books covering every surface and you could spend entire days staring at the shelves. I wasn’t there to browse, however.
I learned a lot from Jennie. When the internship was over, she offered for me to come back and keep working on publishing tasks. I dusted off rusty InDesign skills first used at The Student newspaper. I learned the basics of Photoshop. I thought I was a good editor, however I soon realised my skills were incredibly basic. We talked about our favourite authors and the literary culture of Edinburgh. Over time I learned important principles, not just in the world of book production, but in general life. To think critically about what works in a piece of writing, and what doesn’t. To stand up for yourself and your professional capabilities. To find the fun in repetitive, mundane tasks and to communicate with authors with respect and warmth. As a big fan of Black Books, I had always dreamed of working in a bookshop, but I didn’t anticipate how little bookselling I’d be doing, instead we were book-creating. I assisted with freelance work for other publishers, and sometimes individuals who wanted to bring their projects to life. I should say, the bookselling side of the business is very interesting, but completely Jennie’s process. I will leave her to tell that story in another blog.
In 2023, after we had survived Covid and the various lockdowns, we decided to publish a book of our own. It was a project to raise funds for the West Port Garden, a community-owned green space run by some members of the Grassmarket Residents Association. The garden itself was set up by Norah Geddes, daughter of Patrick Geddes, and is an oasis of calm in the urban noise of the Grassmarket area. We invited members of the 12, a collective of women writers, to sit in the garden, soak in its history, and produce poems about the space. The 12 are talented writers with a collaborative editing style, and their poems were strong, requiring minimal editing. As originally planned, the little book began to raise funds for the garden.
Ask anyone why they got into publishing, and they will not tell you it was to make money. Yet here was a pocket-sized poetry collection, produced on a shoestring budget yet high quality, with vivid and clever poems from some of Scotland’s finest poets. Main Point Books became an imprint. For the first time, Jennie and I were partners in publishing.
Over time, we produced more titles. People and place became a common theme that our books shared, from a guidebook to the Vennel Steps to a memoir of a Palestinian writer, relocated to Scotland for treatment for cerebral palsy. We organised author events and book launches. We published a poetry collection called Pink Witch, a follow-up from the 12 that responded jointly to the Witches of Scotland campaign and the 2023 Barbie movie. We publish widely: from debuts by new authors to reprinting established names like George MacDonald. It has been an adventure and a privilege to create books with Jennie, and we are learning new lessons with every title. Our next project is perhaps the most ambitious title we have attempted, a book exploring blue-sky solutions to the housing crisis. Books are inherently political: they foster empathy, generate ideas, connect humanity and speak truth to existence – it is in their nature. As the state of global politics continues to deteriorate, as more often creativity is outsourced to machinery and algorithms continue to divide, I have hope in books to help lift us out, imagine a better future. We have to at least try.
Jennie and I will continue to publish together for as long as we can, I know that much. We are committed to the same principles, the same ideals and the same hopes for the world. For the last eight years I have had a mentor, a publishing partner and a close friend. Main Point Books is a second-hand bookshop with a publishing house that will keep sharing stories that matter and reaching for a better world, one page at a time.
