Name: Skyware
Based: Shipley, West Yorkshire
Website: www.skyware.co.uk
We are Skyware Press and we publish guide books on long-distance trails in the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria.
The business grew out of our love of walking and the decision to create a long-distance footpath ourselves. Publishing the guide A Dales High Way led to what has now become a well-respected niche business. While our products are books, what our customer is actually buying is an experience – the opportunity to walk one of the great Yorkshire trails.
We will never be able to match the sales volume of larger publishers but we have established the ethics which run right through our business – quality not quantity; we have small print runs and resurvey the paths for each new edition, we use local printers with sound environmental credentials (most other books are printed in China) and we maintain websites which offer our readers up-to-date information on route changes and accommodation.
We take the skills we use in our business and use them voluntarily to support the thousands of holidaymakers who come to walk the Dales. We support the Dales Way Association and Friends of A Dales High Way, and we sponsor walking festival, Ride2Stride.
These activities take time, energy and resources but we believe having created a small business doing something we love, that we and the business can only benefit from making decisions which are not always based on money.
Chris Grogan is the director of Skyware
