Our Mission

Handcar Press is an independent and nonprofit publisher located in the United States with temporary offices in Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia.

In our books we promote widespread awareness and celebration of the many cultures, landscapes, and innovative ideas developed by people around the world. Through our beautifully designed books we are building a vibrant community of readers, writers, and thinkers.

We follow the leadership of George Orwell, Randolph Hearst, and Oscar Wilde. Either one of the first two may have said this:

News Is What Somebody Does Not Want You To Print. All the Rest Is Advertising.

And Oscar Wilde definitely wrote this about literature, poetry, and shame:

The best work in literature is always done by those who do not depend on it for their daily bread and the highest form of literature, Poetry, brings no wealth to the singer.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Our goal at Handcar Press is to work with cultural institutions, nonprofits, and individuals who are interested in sharing their knowledge and ideas with a global audience, following the original meaning of the word ‘publish’ which derives from Middle English—in the sense of ‘make generally known’. The word’s origins go back to the Old French puplier, from Latin publicare, to  ‘make public’.

About Handcar Press

Handcar Press was founded in 2023 as a non-profit and independent off-shoot of Culicidae Press (which has been publishing peer-reviewed books on a wide range of topics worldwide since 2005). Handcar Press draws the same geographical arc across the globe but publishes instead non-peer-reviewed books whose readers participate in a wider range of aesthetic and cultural tastes than those of Culicidae Press stock. Our first book, available on the Publications page, is testimony to this approach: M. Sukoot’s The Scream: Poems from the Outside and from Within, 2013-2023, a collection of poems by a human being struggling with life in an authoritarian country.

Logistics

Even though we are non-profit and independent, our authors still earn royalties for any books they sell. Based on our understanding of the relationship between publisher and author as a partnership, we share any net profits 50/50. We pay royalties quarterly, preferably through PayPal, Zelle, or Venmo. If the author does not want to use a digital money-transfer service, and the quarterly royalty amount exceeds $20.00, we will send a check.

Rather than use the incoming money from the 50/50 split between author and Handcar Press for ourselves, we give back the Handcar Press share to the community through donations to causes we consider worthy.