WILDGuides - ethical publishing, supporting conservation

WHO ARE WILDGuides?

WILDGuides was created in 2000 as a not-for-profit publishing organisation with a commitment to supporting wildlife conservation. Over the years, in conjunction with Governmental and Non-Governmental conservation organisations, WILDGuides has produced a series of definitive yet simple-to-use photographic guides to Britain's wildlife. We have also published field guides and visitor's guides to a wide range of wildlife hotspots around the world. More recently, we have embarked upon a series of photographic guides to the bird families of the world in partnership with Princeton University Press in the USA. Profits from the sale of our publications go towards supporting a range of conservation charities worldwide.

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP AND SUPPORTING CONSERVATION

WILDGuides' first title, Birds, Mammals & Reptiles of the Galápagos Islands was published in August 2000 and won the Technical Innovation Book Award in the USA. This book is still a best-seller and WILDGuides has been pleased to support the Galápagos Conservation Trust through its sales. Our second title, Whales and Dolphins of the European Atlantic was published in June 2001 and WILDGuides has made donations from the sales income to both the Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) and Organisation Cetacea (ORCA). Our third title, Britain's Butterflies was published in July 2002, supported by Leica Camera Ltd., with Butterfly Conservation as the beneficiary.

In 2003, WILDGuides began to work in partnership with English Nature (now Natural England), producing the first title in a series of joint publications. Arable Plants - a field guide, was launched at Kew Botanical Gardens in July 2003 and has since received widespread acclaim as the only guide available covering the group of plants within the British flora which has shown the steepest decline over the last 25 years.

WILDGuides continued to expand in 2004, assisted greatly by the support of English Nature and motivated by the feedback received from the conservation charities we support, and from the readers of our books. In summer 2004 we published a further two titles in partnership with English Nature: Britain's Dragonflies, which supports the work of the British Dragonfly Society; and Britain's Orchids, which supports The Wildlife Trusts. Finally, that autumn we published Red Kite Country - a celebration of the wildlife and landscape of Mid Wales, and the first book in our WILDeARTh series.

During 2005 and 2006, WILDGuides continued to publish books on overseas locations, with A Visitor's Guide to South Georgia being the first of its kind for that region. We also produced a second edition of A Visitor's Guide to the Falkland Islands on behalf of Falklands Conservation, a book which had already proved to be a valuable aid to travellers to this remote outpost. Continuing our support for Falkland Island conservation, WILDGuides also published the field guide Birds and Mammals of the Falkland Islands. Subsequently, we published Wildlife of Seychelles, which quickly became essential reading for visitors to these islands - the beneficiaries being the Island Conservation Society and Nature Protection Trust. In 2006, WILDGuides published a 'first' for the book world - Below Freezing, a dive guide to Antarctica - which proved to be unexpectedly popular!

But WILDGuides has always been keen to continue producing books for the 'home' market and in the autumn of 2006 produced a beautiful guide book to the top butterfly sites in UK - Discover Butterflies. This book quickly became a best-seller having been included on the list of the 'Top 10 "Must-have" Books for Christmas' published by two of the well-known Sunday broadsheets. Hot on its heels in 2006 was a book that examines the changes in bird populations in a typical British rural setting over the last one hundred years: Birds in a Village - A Century On.

During 2007 and 2008, WILDGuides published four more books: the highly acclaimed Whales and Dolphins of the North American Pacific, the stunningly illustrated Endemic Plants of the Altai Mountain Country, a completely revised second edition of our best-selling Whales and Dolphins of the European Atlantic and a remarkable book on Arable Bryophytes. We have been delighted that these books have all proved to be very popular and received excellent reviews. Also during this period, WILDGuides designed and produced Plants of the Falkland Islands on behalf of Falklands Conservation. In 2008, WILDGuides began another exciting phase of development when we formed a partnership with the Dutch-based Crossbill Guides Foundation, whose ethos in supporing conservation is very similar to our own. This resulted in the production of new titles in the Crossbill Guides series of nature guides: Hortobágy and Tisza River Floodplain - Hungary and Cévennes and Grands Causses - France, both of which have proved to be very popular.

The first part of 2009 saw considerable progress made in the preparation of the next raft of WILDGuides titles. The first of these, Britain's Reptiles and Amphibians, was published in July, received excellent reviews and rapidly became a best-seller. In November, we published Flowers of the Forest - People and plants in the New Forest National Park, which has also proved to be very popular.

During 2010, WILDGuides maintained the momentum and published the long-awaited Nightjars of the World - the first in our new series of photographic Bird Family Guides - which has been receiving exceptional reviews. We also published fully revised second editions of our highly popular best-selling titles Britain's Dragonflies and Britain's Butterflies. We were also excited to see further titles in the Crossbill Guides European Nature Guides series coming to fruition – with Finnish Lapland and the Kuusamo Area being pubished in the spring. An unexpected title to come across our desk was the fascinating and humorous account of Chris Gooddie’s personal mission to see all the world’s pittas in a single year. Entitled The Jewel Hunter, we managed to complete the book and publish it in time for the British Birdwatching Fair, where it was one of the most popular new books and has since received widespread critical acclaim. During 2010 we made new arrangements for the distribution of our books - and have been working closely since then with Vine House Distribution, who have been managing our trade orders and handling our distribution.

2011 was yet another very busy year, with a further seven new books published. The first new WILDGuides title to be published during the year was Antarctic Wildlife - a visitor’s guide to the wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage and Beagle Channel, which, together with Flora of South Georgia produced by WILDGuides on behalf of our friends at the South Georgia Heritage Trust, have proved to be a highly popular additions to our series of books covering Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic islands. During the year we also published the next in our Britain's Wildlife series - Britain's Plant Galls, and the first in a new series covering Tanzanian Wildlife - Orchids and Wildflowers of Kitulo Plateau, both of which have been extremely well received. In addition, we also published three new titles in the Crossbill Guides European Nature Guides series in conjunction with our colleagues at the Crossbill Guides Foundation - Loire Valley (Loire, Brenne and Sologne), a fully revised second edition of the best-selling Extremadura and Spanish Pyrenees - and steppes of Huesca.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

During 2012, WILDGuides will be publishing many new titles including the much awaited The World's Rarest Birds. Keep visiting this website for regular updates!

At WILDGuides we are proud of our dual achievements of producing field guides which appeal to the widest possible section of the general public, while also providing financial support to worthy causes linked to the species or habitats described in our publications. To date, we have contributed very considerable sums to conservation charities in Britain and around the world. In the coming years we intend to better our achievements by producing many more field guides to wildlife in Britain and abroad, raising awareness and supporting conservation initiatives in the process. We would like to thank all of our partners, sponsors and, most importantly, the people who buy our books, for helping us to achieve these objectives.

WILDGuides SERVICES

We are always pleased to hear from prospective authors with ideas for new titles. Whilst WILDGuides is principally a publishing house, we do offer both in-house and, through our associates, a graphic and website design service. We also hold an extensive photographic library of wildlife images which are available for publication. Examples of our work and further details of our services can be provided on request.