SANCHO PRESS is a small independent publisher based in Edinburgh that exists solely to produce books authored by Sian Mackay and to retain control of all aspects of production from typesetting to cover design, in collaboration with freelance creatives. The latest publication by SANCHO PRESS is the fictive biography Allan Ramsay: Makar of Edinburgh (2024) in advance of the 300th anniversary of the poet’s masterwork, The Gentle Shepherd (1725).
Allan Ramsay: Makar of Edinburgh is available to order through Blackwell’s or via Amazon.
SANCHO PRESS was founded in 1997 by Sian Mackay and the artist Geoff MacEwan, initially to publish a memoir of Mallorca where they were living at the time. Some years previously, Sian had founded Moubray House Press in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to publish books and pamphlets of Scottish interest written by outstanding authors and journalists. Several of Moubray House’s titles were endorsed by institutions such as Historic Scotland and the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh.
When she returned to Scotland from Spain, in 2013 Sian published the fictive biography Robert Louis Stevenson at Skerryvore under Sancho Press, the rights to which were subsequently taken over by Thistle Press London, and later by Lume Publishing. Thistle Press also published Sian Mackay’s biography Von Ripper’s Odyssey in 2016 but she took back the rights to her work and republished it in 2017 under Sancho Press.
