Proverse Publishing

A Boutique Publisher in the Heart of Hong Kong

PROVERSE publishes entertaining, enlightening, and strikingly unorthodox novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel, non-fiction, YA and the occasional children’s book. We are also interested in academic books, biographies, memoirs and diaries, and essays in the humanities, social sciences, cultural studies, linguistics and education. 

Since its foundation in 2008, Proverse has established itself as an avant guard stalwart of the Hong Kong literary scene. Our annual Autumn and Spring Receptions typically sell out within hours or days and are regarded as highlights of the Hong Kong social calendar. We also publish quality audio books read by well-known character actors or the authors themselves.

We pride ourselves on providing unparalleled editorial input and assistance, research (including picture and archival research), proof-reading and indexing. We also consider co-publishing when appropriate and offer advice on international contracts.

All our books are available in the UK. Proverse books are entered into the Nielsen BookData data-base and we obtain British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data for our books. This ensures international awareness of our titles and our books are accessioned into major UK libraries, including the British Library; one of the strongest guarantees that the fact of authorship will be on permanent record.

Books are not just our business. They are our raison d’être. As well as being publishers, our founders have enjoyed long and successful careers as authors and understand the needs of writers. We offer expertise, mentorship and collaborative opportunities on joint writing projects with our authors. We assist authors seeking research support and constantly revisit and respond to changes in the international book industry.

We are happy to work with texts by non-native-speaker writers of English, as well as by native English-speaking writers. We also run creative writing workshops, which lead to publishable work.

The authors and writers that Proverse best suits are capable of long hours of disciplined work. They have a story to tell, a person or character they want to immortalise, a neglect they want to remedy, a record they want to correct, a passion that they want to share, unique perceptions that they want to offer, and a contribution to society that they want to make. 

We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts but are happy to receive enquiries directly from prospective authors with a brief outline of your book and why you are best placed to write it. Please mark your enquiry, ‘Initial Enquiry‘. We aim to respond within 6 weeks. However, this is not always possible due to the volume of enquiries we receive.

An article by Asian Cha charting Proverse‘s rise from humble beginnings to internationally recognised Hong Kong-based publisher can be found here.