Mensch Publishing
Mensch has no mission statement and no stated editorial strategy. Its aim is simply to help authors reach readers with minimal intervention and maximum impact and to reward them proportionately.
The corporate logo was drawn by Spitting Image founder, Roger Law.
Richard Charkin says: ‘I don’t have a grand strategy for Mensch publishing – success will be driven entirely by the books we publish not the statements I make. But I trust Mensch will live up to its name’.
Setting the Scene
In the middle of 2018 I stepped down from the Board of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and thus put an end to a full-time career in corporate publishing of books and journals. But I was too young to stop altogether and I loved the industry too much simply to disappear. I determined to continue as energetically as possible. In addition to working for Bloomsbury on matters Chinese and cricket, for Liverpool University Press and Institute of Physics Publishing, plus a number of other publishing-related activities I thought it would be fun to start my own business from scratch, Mensch Publishing. After 47 years largely dedicated to managing others to publish successfully would I be able to manage myself? Would my ideas about how to publish general books without losing money stand up to reality? Could the advantages of being small compensate for the scale advantages of larger publishers? I announced Mensch’s genesis in October 2018 and we published the first book in February 2019.
