Holland Park Press Ltd publishes literary fiction and poetry and places special emphasis on finding new authors young and not so young, as well as bringing the work of Dutch authors to the English language market.

We work in partnership with our authors. We use the latest technology and the internet to power our innovative publishing process and to encourage the interaction between authors and readers.

After moving from her native The Netherlands to the UK in January 1983, Bernadette Jansen op de Haar, has lived here ever since, apart from a two-year spell in Berkeley California.

After a successful career ending up as contents director for an online publisher career, she founded Holland Park Press Ltd April 2009 and, up to this day it, has been funded by her private money.

After acting for over ten years as first reader and advisor to her brother the acclaimed Dutch poet, novelist and columnist Arnold in her spare time, Bernadette realized that a gap had opened up in the publishing market.

These days’ major publishers are concentrating on marketing bestsellers and in general scaling down the number of new authors they publish. It has therefore become very difficult for new and even published authors to find new publishing deals.

The emergence of new print technologies and the interactive web environment enables the publishing process to be streamlined and bring books to the readers rather than relying on readers finding books.

Moreover, geographical boundaries do not exist in the web world so we are taking full advantage and we market our books around the world.

We love to interact with our readers and writers so we’re very active on all the major social networks, just to give you a start why not engage with us on facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and goodreads.

Make a suggestion if you cannot find us on your favourite social network.

You can all of our books from all good bookshops around the globe. We would like to have a greater presence on bookshop shelves and this is something we continue to promote.

Bookshops please note that our books are distributed by: Central Books in the UK, SPD in the USA, CB in the Netherlands and Belgium and Xavier Nagel Agencies in South Africa.

Our books are also available from online retailers including the Holland Park Press website.

If you like the human touch, you can also phone us on +44(0)7792611929 to buy your book. We’re looking forward to talking to you.

Books are usually dispatched within 24 hours of ordering and if you need multiple copies, contact us for a discount.

Last but certainly not least there is our roving bookstall. You can find it regularly in the Corn Hall in Cirencester but please check this post which lists all the dates.

Holland Park Press doesn’t receive any public funding and the best way to support us, and acquire a wonderful read, is to buy books directly from our website or bookstall.

Message from the publisher

In March 2009 I founded Holland Park Press and who would have thought that I would have to steer the company through a pandemic.

Before the pandemic hit, I was on an amazing literary journey and I met many lovely people along the way: authors, translators, editors, the team at Reactive Web Design who design our covers, book layouts, and also developed and maintain our website. 

The other people who deserve a big thank you are the people who have reviewed our books, given us support and you members of the general public who have taken the plunge and bought one of our books.

But with two lockdowns during 2020 and another in 2021, which meant closure of indoor markets and bookshops, we ware hit especially hard, and so we’ve needed to develop some new initiatives such as crowdfunding and vlogging.

Most recently, in our first round of crowdfunding among our Dutch contacts, several of our long-standing friends were very generous with their donations. This meant we could keep going and we’re extremely grateful to these wonderful people. 

Readers often ask me: ‘Which book do you love most?’ They are all unique but I love every one of them otherwise I wouldn’t have used up all my own money to publish them.

Particular highlights on our journey so far include:

100 Dutch-Language Poems – From the Medieval Period to the Present Day which is a poetry bestseller and has won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize

Finding Soutbek, a debut novel set in South Africa by Keren Jennings, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature and which has been translated into French: Les oubliés du Cap.

Live Show, Drink Included, collected stories by Vicky Grut was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.

Under challenging circumstances in 2020, we managed to publish a gem: A Sense of Tiptoe, poems about faith using quite a bit of rhyme, quite aptly somewhat against the current tide.

In 2021 I will continue to champion and maximise sales of all our titles. I don’t accept the backlist concept. Good books are here to stay independent of when they were published. But to make this work for our authors and us, I need your help. I explain it more in this article: buy – promote – donate.

We are making a good start with collecting pre-orders for Arnold Jansen op de Haar’s new Dutch novel Schurft, and more good books are waiting in the wings.

I look forward to 2021 and you can help us to keep going and continue to make a difference!

Bernadette Jansen op de Haar
13 February 2021