We are a small but mighty start-up changing the face of publishing with the help of brilliant creators, editors, designers and marketeers.
Storymix, headed up by award-winning author and entrepreneur, Jasmine Richards, celebrated its fifth anniversary since its launch in 2019, with a party in Shoreditch. Here is a round up of the special event and a bit about the path to get here.
The inclusive fiction studio was named winner of a FutureBook award in 2022, and Jasmine was awarded a special commendation in the Editor of the Year category at the 2023 British Books Awards, she was also a finalist in the PublisHER Excellence prize and Storymix won the MEWe360 Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Entrepreneurs in 2024.
Richards, who founded Storymix to help racially minoritized writers take up more space on bookshelves, commented: "Storymix is a fiction studio dedicated to making compelling and commercial stories that bring children and teens of colour to the centre of the narrative and create publishing opportunities for writers and illustrators from minoritized ethnic communities. I realised at the beginning of all this that instead of writing one book a year as an author, I could collaborate with writers, illustrators and publishers to produce multiple books annually, creating tangible career paths for creators and making a real, impactful change to the publishing industry, ultimately transforming what we see on our bookshelves."
Editors, agents, authors and illustrators turned up in style to celebrate at Dream Factory, a content creation studio for startups, in East London. There was music, panels and great food provided by Fuss and Fig. Many took part in the Storymix Book Basket Raffle that raised hundreds of pounds for the purchase of books for local schools.
Storymix has sold 17 series to publishers to date. 48 books will be published by the end of 2025 across chapters books, middle grade and YA. 250,000 copies of their books have been sold in the UK and USA.
Several of Storymix titles have been nominated for prestigious children’s book awards or won them, marking significant achievements leading up to their fifth anniversary. The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries written by JT Williams was shortlisted for the 2023 Waterstones Children's Book Prize, was the winner of the diverse books awards and winner of the Week Junior Children's Book of the Year: Breakthrough award and Longlisted for the Little Rebels Award and won the Crime Fest Award for Best Crime Novel for Children.
Fabelhouse, written by E.L Norry, was nominated for a Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the Historical Association Young Quills Award this year and is on the 2024 Read for Empathy book collection.
Heroes of the Pirate Ship: Magic Faces #1, written by Esi Merleh and illustrated by Abeeha Tariq is part of the Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge, an annual campaign to encourage primary school aged children to keep up their reading skills over the summer holidays.
Earlier this year, Storymix also launched StoryInk an incubator of illustration-led board books, picture books, chapter books and graphic novels for readers aged between 0-18 and StoryRebel, a YA fiction list that disrupts the status quo, working with new writers, and established writers seeking to redefine or explore their writing identity.
Storymix has worked with over 50 authors and illustrators from across the Global Majority and has 11 new projects in the development pipeline.
Storymix employs three full time staff members and works with a host of talented creative freelance editors and designers from an extensive range of backgrounds to deliver projects direct to publishers, both independent publishers and bigger publishing houses.
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