A message from our publisher

The Ethos Books family, past and present, at the Media Preview for 2024's titles

Dear reader,

You are part of the Ethos family, and I would like to provide more context to the departures, as well as my publishing plans for the new year, which I had shared with our authors in earlier correspondence.

The six wonderful colleagues who have left Ethos Books for other shores at the end of last month are Ariane, Arin, Ben, Glen, Jen and Wei Lin. I paid tribute to them at the opening of our Festive Sale on 1 December, at the close of our Media Preview Night.

Some of them left because we were not earning at a level that allows them to continue. The closure of bookshops and demand shifts due to COVID have caused a dip in the sales of our titles. Our social media and outreach programmes, including the Ethos Dreams campaign in August to launch Kirsten’s The Singapore I Recognise, are well-loved by supporters, but the type of content and community-building work we do have less financial impact than sales-oriented algorithms. To continue bringing out and circulating necessary voices, to continue training and retaining talent, Ethos Books will continue to evolve our strategies. These include working with collaborators who wish to do programming and community outreach with our authors and titles.

 Mok Zining (The Orchid Folios, 2020) has joined us as editor. Zining is dedicated to the art of storytelling as author and editor, and with her onboard, our team will be maintaining our focus on fresh, different and enduring content. Ethos Books has also started a Southeast Asia programme, focusing on translation and collaboration with agents and publishers to circulate Southeast Asia stories. This will have the effect of catalysing even better writing and publicity for Singapore literature.

At the close of 2023, the fogs of war and fire are spreading across different parts of the world. In troubled times, hope and light become even more necessary—I am thankful for your support as we work with our authors and editors to bring forth songs of hope and light.

With our best,
Bee Yan, Cass, Kah Gay, Nic, Zining
The Ethos Books and Pagesetters team