Heather McDaid and Laura Jones are the founders of indie publisher 404 Ink, which they launched in 2016.

Heather and Laura worked together on the Saltire Society’s virtual literary festival Scot Lit Fest, and during that time discussed how they’d both like to set up their own publisher. One week after the festival finished, they took the leap.

They felt there was a gap in publishing for using social media properly – loudly and proudly, building communities by using crowdfunding, and publishing less but publishing louder. They run from a spare room in Edinburgh, together with their office dog Luna.

Their first publication, Nasty Women, came about after the election of Donald Trump. The day after his election as President of the United States, there was a feeling of deflation that someone could run on such hateful, misogynistic, racist rhetoric, and actually win. The idea of taking his phrase ‘Nasty Women’ and giving it to a range of women to imprint their own meaning on it felt perfect, and Heather and Laura knew they had to do it. It had the potential to be an important, timely and powerful book.

In December it was commissioned, in January it was put on Kickstarter (raised £22,000+, 369% funded, supported by Margaret Atwood), in February it was sent to print, and in March (International Women’s Day) 2017 it was published.

It was a whirlwind, but Heather and Laura are incredibly proud of the book and were so enamoured with their Nasty Women that they trusted them with their own stories about racism, contraception, bereavement, sexuality, religion, and many more. Together they created what has been called ‘the intersectional feminist anthology that everyone must read’.