Emerging Publishers of the Year 404 Ink were announced as recipients of a Young Edge grant, for Scotland’s most promising young entrepreneurs, the first publisher to receive the accolade. Laura Jones and Heather McDaid are publishing freelancers, currently running the award-winning publisher from their respective spare rooms.

The Scottish Edge Awards, which last night announced just under £1m of grants at the RBS Headquarters in Gogarburn, aims to identify and support the most promising entrepreneurs and start-up businesses in Scotland and support them on their growth journey. Winners include Cytochroma, which generates stem cell derived liver cells that model human physiology; Ceaban Ltd, who offer experiences swimming with basking sharks around the Inner Hebrides, and Tipsy Unicorn Sweets, who use natural ingredients to create sweets, including their Rock Rose Gin and Tonic Jelly range.

404 Ink began publishing their biannual literary magazine in December 2016, moving onto the crowdfunding sensation Nasty Women – their debut book on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century.

Their Kickstarter campaign for the title raised over £22,000, with the support of authors including Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), and has seen subsequent praise from people including Ali Smith (How to be both) and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

They have since gone on to publish rising star Chris McQueer, whose debut collection Hings has shown a real appetite for surreal, working class Scottish fiction, and worked with acclaimed rock band Creeper on The Last Days of James Scythe. Their debut graphic novel We Shall Fight Until We Win, co-published with BHP Comics, publishes this week, showcasing a century of pioneering political women.

The publisher has been awarded £10,000 towards growth areas in the company. Feedback from the judges praised the duo’s ‘impressive sales’ and noted that they ‘can see them achieving a lot more than they have forecast’, adding that 404 Ink had a fresh and enthusiastic team, and had good focus on disruption and trends of the book industry.

The announcement follows 404 Ink’s recent inclusion in FutureBook40, a list compiled of disruptors in the UK publishing industry, and their wins at the end of 2017 as The Saltire Society’s Emerging Publisher of the Year and being named #1 in The List Hot 100 for culture.

Laura Jones said: "We’re blown away to be a recipient of a Young Edge award – when applying, we knew it could be difficult to showcase publishing as a growth industry, particularly when we saw the other sorts of companies involved, but we took the leap as we felt we could take the company to the next level after the success of our first 18 months.

"We’re chuffed to be the first publisher to win an Edge Award and are excited to continue working on 404 Ink with the support of Scottish Edge."