The Company
Rivers Publishing is a small specialist publisher of International kayaking and rafting books. It is a trading name for Mallard Foster Ltd, registered in England number 1460974. Managing Director is Peter Knowles.
How we Started
We wrote and published our first book ‘White Water Nepal in 1992′ I had explored and paddled many of the rivers of Nepal, loved the country and felt that it really needed a guidebook so, although everyone else said I was crazy, I set out in 1990 to research and write it. I had a background in business consultancy and so it was natural to publish it ourselves.
White Water Nepal was very successful and got rave reviews and so we changed from business consultancy to publishing. In the last 9 years we have built up a great deal of expertise in this area.
Our philosophy on guide books
We believe that a good guidebook should be like a friend telling you about a river and area.
It should be as clear and simple as possible, and (like your friend’s description) it should inspire you and make you want to go there!
You will find I hope that our guide books are easy to use and inspiring - we believe in lots of good maps, summary tables, clear page headings, a logical consistent layout, inspiring photos, and entertaining cartoons. Knowing our readers, and knowing the subject means that one of the most satisfying part of our job is to design the book to try and maximise these objectives!
It’s always difficult with a guidebook knowing what to include, and what to leave out, and how much detail to go into. Our philosophy on this is to try to make it as useful as possible for the majority of readers (Cynics will say that this is so we can sell plenty!). We cover the most popular rivers in reasonable detail, but some grade 5+ creek that only has water for say 6 days a year will only get a paragraph. What we will try and do though is to ‘open doors’ to tell you where to get more information.
We write and publish river guidebooks, but like that good friend’s description we try and lift your eyes a little from the rivers and we will help you with a bit about the local country, culture, and the practicalities on where to stay and eat - again we try and give you the essential information and then steer you to other sources for further details if you need them.
To take a book through all the stages from conception, to research, writing, design, and publishing is interesting and very satisfying but of course we don’t do everything. We seek and usually follow the best specialist advice we can obtain and we will contract out work to others who are better qualified than ourselves - for example our North Alps book was mainly researched and written by Peter Bandtock who knew the rivers well, was bilingual, and experienced writer.
We’ve been delighted by the support from our readers, and the help we receive from paddlers with the anecdotes and contributions that make our books more than just river guides.
We are always keen to hear suggestions for improvements, updates Any significant contributor receives a credit and a free copy.
How to Contact us
Please note: We are sorry but we do not have the time or resources to answer general enquires from paddlers or members of the public.
Emails to us should be short and in simple text only - we have a rigid security policy to delete any unknown email that requires a file to be opened.
Info@riverspublishing.demon.co.uk
Mail:
Rivers Publishing
‘Gower’
Blencathra street,
Keswick
CA12 4HW
UK