About Baranka Books

Baranka Books began the way a lot of independent presses do, out of frustration. I set out to publish my own writing and ran straight into the traditional way in: agents, magazines, submission forms, and a great deal of rejection. Rather than keep waiting for someone else’s door to open, I built the house myself.

It’s a small, independent press, Curaçao-rooted and made in the Netherlands. The name does the holding: the rock stays constant while very different stories stand on it. Each world is its own imprint, with its own voice, look, and colour, so you step fully into one at a time. What they share is the rock beneath: books made deliberately, with care.

The worlds

Two are open now, with more on the way:

• Godiva the Witch — bespoke books of self-knowledge, written for one reader at a time. The Celestial Codex (astrology, computed from your birth chart) is open now; The Ninefold (your Enneagram) is on the way. One of one; a mirror, not a fortune.
• Brasa di Alma — dark literary fiction: the What the Dark Keeps horror trilogy, the standalone novelette Things I Tell Myself, and the novel What Stayed Bright to come.

Browse them from the home page, or see everything in the catalogue.

For libraries

Every book we don’t write to order is available to libraries through Draft2Digital, at a library price I’ve set below what’s recommended, on purpose. Public services run on tight budgets, and I’d rather a book reached readers than held out for full margin. I loved books as a child and still do; my partner does, and now my kids do too. If your library buys through Draft2Digital, ask them to add it; if it doesn’t, get in touch and we’ll work something out.

A share for the planet

Our shop is digital and made to order, so there’s no stock and almost nothing to ship. Making anything still has a cost, so we put a little back: 1% of our revenue goes to permanent carbon removal through Stripe Climate — the newer technology built to store carbon for a thousand years and more.