About
The Foundations
Victorina Press was created by Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes. She is a Chilean-British writer and academic. Victorina Press is, therefore, rooted strongly in Chilean and British cultures.
Consuelo’s Latin American roots play a huge role in our publishing today, with many of our books being translated into Spanish as stand alone or bilingual publications.
This has also opened the door for us to explore publishing in other languages as well, which is not traditionally the role of a single publisher.
The company was originally based in Market Drayton, a small market town found in Shropshire. This is very important, as there are many publishing companies in London, but far fewer in the rest of the UK. In 2019 Consuelo moved house and with her the company moved, we are now based in Uttoxeter, Kingstone.
The name Victorina Press was chosen in honour of Consuelo’s mother who passed her love for reading and literature on to all her children. To find out more about Consuelo and the roots of Victorina Press, check out our blog post In the Beginning…
Victorina Press is an independent publisher. Our books are available in Nielsen, and through them, in most major commercial bookshops online, for example, Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, and other independent bookshops. We are also with Gardners.
We are NOT a vanity press. This means that we do NOT ask our authors to pay for any of the production costs, such as illustrators, copyeditors, proofreaders, typesetters, printers, or for the ISBN of their books. We are NOT a platform for self-publishing either.
Our Ethos
Our mission is to publish inspirational and great books. To do this we follow principles of bibliodiversity, a concept developed by a group of Chilean independent publishers — Editores independientes de Chile —in the late 1990s and now part of the ethos of many worldwide independent publishers. Diversity is beautiful.
The Team
Director and CEO, Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes
Consuelo is a the heart and soul of Victorina Press Ltd, a Chilean-British writer and academic, Consuelo came to live in England in 1992. Before moving to England Consuelo had been a political activist in Chile against the regime of Augusto Pinochet.
Consuelo has two sons, one who lives in Chile with his own family, and the other Jorge who works for the company and lives in England with his girlfriend. Consuelo lives with her partner Lynda in Uttoxeter.
Personal Assistant & Dogsbody, Sophie Lloyd-Owen
Sophie joined the team as a personal assistant, in 2017 as a helping hand to Consuelo. Shortly after, she decided that she really enjoyed the publishing world and decided to stay on permanently. Knowing little about the publishing world Sophie quickly had to learn about all aspects of the business and now easily feels at home having been an avid reader in her teenage years. Although it definitely keeps her on her toes, with plenty still to learn.
Media Man & Heavy Lifter, Jorge Vasquez
Jorge joined the team in 2018 to help the ever-growing work that Victorina Press had set for the future. He got his degree in Photography and Video from De Montford University and has brought that to the business, as well as becoming the in-house typesetter. Being a big Monty Python fan he tries to bring some comedy (with varying success) to some aspects of life in the office.
Sales and marketing newbie
Pagen is a student at the University of Derby studying Writing and Publishing and is due to graduate this year (2021). She’s always had a fascination with social media when a lot of her time growing up was spent on Twitter and watching YouTubers whilst also attending social media conventions. It was when she went to uni where she learnt more about marketing and that her fascination of social media could actually becomepart of a job! She was absolutely thrilled and wanted to learn more. She found our about Victorina Press and immediately fell in love with the team (4 legged friends included) and was absolutely thrilled when she found out she’d got the job to work with them all. Pagen also has a bookstagram where all she does is gush about her love of literature. You can find her here (@fablereads).
