PROFILE OF SMH BOOKS

Sandra Saer founded the company in 1987 with publication of her own book: COLDWALTHAM: A Story of Three Hamlets.

(Sandra is looking to buy back copies of her Coldwaltham book - rather like J R Hartley/'Fly Fishing' in the Yellow Pages ad! Does anyone have one to sell?)

She was trained as a journalist, and worked as editor, and book publicist and marketer, on her own behalf and for the BBC. Setting up and running SMH BOOKS was the culmination of all her professional experience.

The company operates from home - her beloved Pear Tree Cottage, in Watersfield, West Sussex, which is part of Coldwaltham Civil Parish.

SMH’s list has been dedicated to Sussex memoirs, anthologies of prose and poetry, and regional and local books. Details are to be found elsewhere on this website.

AN EXALTATION OF SKYLARKS (2,300 years of Skylark prose and poetry compiled by Stewart Beer, with a Preface by Richard Mabey), is a triple-award-winner. It was one of three SMH titles selected for display this year at the Frankfurt International Book Fair (attendance: 387,000!). The others were THE RHYTHM OF THE TIDE: Tales through the ages of Chichester Harbour, by Jeremy Thomas, which received worldwide acclaim – not just from sailors…and Sandra’s children’s book, THE GIANT AND THE MOUSE, written for her four children when little (30 years before publication, in 2003), and the recipient of a major 2004 Award by the David St John Thomas CharitableTrust.

COUNTRY PEOPLE: An Endangered Species, an anthology collected by Tony Hodgson, made publishing history for SMH by going OUT OF PRINT! First published in hardback, the book has just been reprinted (June, 2007) in softcover - for the second time!

Two last titles, published on 27 October, 2006 , are EACH DAY’S A DIAMOND: Facets of Life through Poetry - a lovely miscellany by Robert Melliard, and MORE FROM PEAR TREE COTTAGE, Sandra’s second book of prose and poetry, the writing of which,she says, owes much to her cottage, in whose tranquillity her work is mainly done.