1Shambhala Publications
The leading Western publisher of Buddhist and contemplative literature, which moved from Boston to Boulder in 2015 and has become the anchor of Colorados publishing scene.
The 7 Best Book Publishing Companies in Boulder
Boulder holds the most distinctive publishing cluster in Colorado and one of the more unusual in the country. Shambhala Publications, the leading Western publisher of Buddhist literature, moved here from Boston in 2015 and brought Snow Lion and Roost Books with it. Sounds True publishes books, audio and courses on contemplative practice from Louisville, a few miles east. Around them sit a gift book publisher, a natural history imprint and a small consciousness studies press, all in a city of about a hundred thousand people.
The reason is Naropa. When Chogyam Trungpa founded the institute in 1974, and Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman set up the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics inside it the same summer, Boulder acquired a permanent population of writers and practitioners that a publisher of Shambhala’s kind could draw on. Fifty years later that is still the shape of the town’s publishing.
7
Publishers listed
1996
Publishing since
Featured publisher
Western Reflections Publishing Company
For authors in Boulder and the surrounding area, Western Reflections offers something most of the houses on this page cannot: a direct read, a written response and a publisher who will say plainly when another Colorado press is the better home for your book. We have published regional history, biography and memoir from Colorado since 1996 and work with authors nationally by email and phone.
Services are quoted individually and never as a package, you retain copyright and all files, and books stay in print. A quote costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Contact
The listings
Book publishers working in Boulder
Contact details are the ones each publisher lists itself. Anything we could not confirm is left out rather than guessed.
2Sounds True
A multimedia publisher of spiritual and psychological teaching, built originally on recorded audio programmes and now publishing books, courses and audio from Boulder County.
3Roost Books
The lifestyle imprint of Shambhala Publications, publishing books on home, craft, food and mindful living. Shares an office and a submissions process with its parent.
4Johnson Books
A Boulder imprint with a long backlist in western regional books, natural history, archaeology and outdoor guides. Now published under the Bower House group.
5Blue Mountain Arts
A Boulder company publishing gift books, greeting cards and anthologies of poetry and inspirational prose. One of the few publishers in the state that reads unsolicited poetry as a matter of routine.
6Sentient Publications
A small Boulder independent publishing books on health, education, ecology and consciousness, with a list that reflects the towns long standing interest in those subjects.
7Paladin Press
A Boulder publisher of firearms, survival and military manuals that traded for forty seven years. Closed at the end of 2017 following the death of its co-founder, and no longer accepts orders or submissions.
Status update: Closed at the end of 2017 after forty seven years, following the death of co-founder Peder Lund.
Local context
Professional Book Publishers in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder’s literary history is stranger than its size suggests. John Fante grew up here in the 1910s and 1920s, and the Colorado of his Bandini novels, the fictional town of Rocklin in Wait Until Spring, Bandini, is Boulder with the name changed. Stephen King lived in the city for most of 1974, and The Stand, which he began writing there, makes Boulder the capital of the survivors after the plague. He also drove up to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park that autumn and came back with The Shining. A single year in Boulder produced two of the most widely read American novels of the decade.
The Jack Kerouac School gave the town its lasting literary identity. Ginsberg taught there every summer until his death, Waldman still runs its summer writing programme, and the list of poets who have passed through it as faculty or students amounts to a fair survey of American experimental poetry since 1975. The school’s archive of recorded readings and lectures is one of the more important sound collections in American letters. It is not an accident that a contemplative publisher looking for a new home in 2015 chose the town where that school was.
The rest of the cluster follows the same logic. Sounds True was founded in 1985 recording the teachers who came through Boulder, and grew into a multimedia publisher on the strength of that access. Blue Mountain Arts has published poetry and inspirational prose from the city since 1971. The Boulder Book Store, open since 1973 on Pearl Street, remains one of the stronger independent bookshops in the mountain west and a central venue for launches. Paladin Press, which published from Boulder for forty seven years on a very different list, closed in 2017 and is included below so that nobody sends a manuscript to a company that no longer exists.
Routes in
Getting Published in Boulder: Who Reads Directly, Prizes, and Where Books Launch
The Boulder Book Store on Pearl Street, open since 1973, is where books launch in this town, and it runs a full events calendar. Trident Booksellers and Cafe a few doors along has been a writers’ room for decades, and Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe is one of a handful of dedicated poetry shops in the country. The Jaipur Literature Festival has held a Boulder edition every autumn since 2015, bringing international writers to the city, and the Conference on World Affairs at the university each April has hosted authors since 1948.
Naropa is the institution that makes Boulder unusual. The Summer Writing Program has run every June and July since 1974 and is open to the public, the Jack Kerouac School offers an MFA, and its archive of recorded lectures and readings is one of the important sound collections in American letters. Shambhala, Roost and Sounds True all read proposals directly, which for a contemplative or psychology author means an acquiring editor within a few miles who understands the field. Sentient Publications reads directly too, and Blue Mountain Arts reads poetry from anyone. For a Boulder writer in those fields the town is, genuinely, one of the better places in the country to be.
What we do
Book Publishing Services We Offer in Boulder
Every service is quoted on its own, so you buy the stages your manuscript actually needs rather than a package built around the ones it does not.
Editing
Developmental, line and copy editing, plus proofreading, quoted by manuscript length and condition.
Learn more →Cover Design
Original cover artwork and typography, supplied as layered source files you keep.
Learn more →Formatting & Typesetting
Print ready interiors and reflowable ebook files built from one typeset source.
Learn more →Printing
Short runs, offset runs and print on demand, with paper and binding specified to the book.
Learn more →Marketing & Promotion
Launch planning, retailer metadata, review outreach and regional bookshop campaigns.
Learn more →Ghostwriting
Full manuscript writing from interviews, notes or a partial draft, published under your name.
Learn more →Why Boulder Authors Choose Western Reflections Publishing
We know which Boulder houses to send you to
If your book is Buddhist practice, psychology, somatics or contemplative teaching, Shambhala or Sounds True is very likely the right publisher and we will tell you so. We take the regional history, memoir and general non-fiction that those specialists do not.
Launch support on Pearl Street and beyond
The Boulder Book Store, Trident and the Naropa reading series are where books launch in this town. We list books on terms those buyers accept and help build an event around them.
Direct reading, fixed fees, rights retained
A person reads every submission and answers in writing. Services are priced individually, copyright and production files stay with you.
Our Book Publishing Process for Boulder Authors
Step 1
Read and direction
An honest assessment of the manuscript and, for contemplative and psychology books, a frank steer toward the Boulder specialist that publishes exactly that.
Step 2
Scope and quote
A written plan of only the stages the book needs, priced separately.
Step 3
Edit, design, produce
Structure first, then line and copy editing, then cover design and typesetting with proofs.
Step 4
Print, distribute, launch
Print on demand or a run, wholesale listings, and a launch built around Boulder’s bookshops and reading series.
Questions authors ask
Frequently Asked Questions: Book Publishing in Boulder
Why did Shambhala move to Boulder, and does it matter to authors?
Shambhala left Boston in 2015 after three decades there, and Boulder made sense because the town has been a centre of American Buddhist practice since Naropa opened in 1974. For authors it matters in two ways. The house now accepts proposals directly and evaluates them with an editorial staff who live inside the community the books serve, and a Boulder author working in that field can meet an editor across a table rather than across a time zone. Roost Books and Snow Lion moved with it and share the same submission route.
Can I submit directly to Sounds True?
Yes. Sounds True accepts proposals from authors without an agent, and because so much of what it publishes is audio and course based, a spoken presence and real teaching experience count for a great deal there. The house is in Louisville rather than Boulder proper, a short drive east, and it keeps published office hours, which is rare for a publisher of its size.
What does it cost to publish a book in Boulder?
Nothing at Shambhala, Sounds True or the other traditional houses, which carry production and pay royalties. Bought independently, Boulder is one of the more expensive freelance markets in the state, reflecting the town generally, and a full length book commonly runs four to eight thousand dollars for a structural edit, copyedit, cover and interior. Audio production, if the book suits it, is a separate and substantial cost.
Who holds the rights when a book comes from a teaching or a lineage?
This comes up in Boulder more than almost anywhere, because a great deal of contemplative writing draws on teachings that belong to a tradition rather than to the writer. The publisher will want to know that you have the standing and, where appropriate, the permission to present the material, and Shambhala in particular takes that seriously. Your own words remain your copyright. The question of whether the teaching is yours to publish is a separate one and worth resolving before you write the proposal.
Which formats work for Boulder books?
Paperback and audio, in that order. Contemplative and personal development readers buy audio at a rate few other categories match, which is why Sounds True built its business on it. Print books sell through the Boulder Book Store, Trident and the yoga and meditation centres that stock books alongside their programmes. Ebook is worth adding for the library market. Hardcover is rarely justified outside photographic work.
Is Paladin Press still publishing?
No. Paladin Press closed at the end of 2017, after forty seven years, following the death of its co-founder Peder Lund. It no longer accepts orders or submissions and its backlist has been dispersed. It appears in the directory with that status because a surprising number of listings still show it as an active Boulder publisher, and authors continue to send manuscripts to an address that no longer receives them.
Find Publishers All Across Colorado
City directories go deeper on the local scene; the state page carries every publisher in Colorado.