Oakleaf Press

Oakleaf Press Jane Buckley Author and Publisher at Oakleaf Press Hello everyone, Jane Buckley here in Derry. Your messages and support mean more than you know.

All four novels in my Stones Corner Series are published by Oakleaf Press, and it’s been quite a journey from the first book to the last. What began with Turmoil moved through Darkness, Light and Hope, each one following the lives of ordinary people caught up in the Troubles, doing what they could to get through days that were never simple. The stories took me across decades of history, through in

terviews, memories and plenty of late nights, and I’m grateful to have been able to bring them to the page. I’m now deep into Project Children, a book very close to my heart, gathering the stories of the children who crossed the Atlantic each summer for a break from the chaos at home. Their experiences had a profound impact on so many lives, and it’s a privilege to write about them. If you’ve been here from the start or you’re only discovering the books now, thank you. There’s lots more ahead, so stay with me. 🍀

One thing I've learned over the past few years is that being an independent author means wearing an alarming number of h...
09/06/2026

One thing I've learned over the past few years is that being an independent author means wearing an alarming number of hats.

You write the book.

Then you discover writing the book was the easy part.

After that comes the editing, cover design, formatting, distribution, marketing, events, social media, invoices, websites, metadata and approximately seventeen thousand other jobs nobody mentions when you decide to become an author.

Many indie authors are producing books every bit as professional as those coming from traditional publishers. They're hiring editors, designers and proofreaders, investing their own money and building readerships from scratch.

Yet when it comes to awards and recognition, the landscape hasn't always caught up with how much publishing has changed.

I had a really positive exchange this week with the An Post Irish Book Awards about the possibility of an independent author category.

Nothing has been agreed.

Nobody is making promises.

What encouraged me was that there was a willingness to listen.

Publishing isn't the same industry it was twenty years ago. Thousands of authors are building successful careers outside traditional publishing and readers generally couldn't care less how a good book reached their hands.

They just want a great story.

For me, this was never about indie authors versus traditional publishing.

A good book is a good book.

What I'd love to see is talented writers getting a fair opportunity to be recognised, regardless of which route they took to publication.

That doesn't feel revolutionary.

It just feels sensible.

What do you think?

Last week one of our lovely clients, who’ll soon be publishing her own poetry collection, turned around and said to me, ...
05/06/2026

Last week one of our lovely clients, who’ll soon be publishing her own poetry collection, turned around and said to me, ‘Working with you is like something out of a film. Your enthusiasm, watching it all come together, it’s a dream come true.’

I swear, I didn’t know whether to cry or tell her to wise up. 😂

Yet I got exactly what she meant, because I remember holding the first printed copy of Turmoil in my hands and nearly having a full out of body experience in my hallway.

There is genuinely no feeling like it.

You spend months, sometimes years, staring at a screen questioning your sanity, convinced nobody will ever want to read your words, then suddenly there it is. Your own book. IN PRINT. Looking all important and clever sitting on the sideboard while you walk past it every ten minutes pretending not to be thrilled to bits.

I know I go on about books all the time, but mine are like my children. I’m protective over every cover, line, page, every tiny detail.

That’s why Oakleaf Press means so much to me. Watching other people finally see their own words become real never gets old.

Also, for anyone in Derry thinking, ‘I could never afford to publish a book,’ I've been talking to Derry Credit Union and they're open to discussing loans to help local writers and poets bring their books to life.

Maybe this is your sign. ☘️

www.oakleafpress.co.uk

I saw someone washing their front door step today. It got me thinking about the women of Derry and beyond back in the da...
03/06/2026

I saw someone washing their front door step today.

It got me thinking about the women of Derry and beyond back in the day, the ones who came out with buckets, mops and brushes to scrub their streets clean after the British Army had passed through.

It was never just about soap and water. It wasn't pride, but saying, this is our place, and we’ll look after it ourselves.

Aprons on, sleeves rolled up, and heads held high, they stood their ground in their own quiet way. No fuss, just grit, dignity and community.

I’d like to think a bit of that spirit found its way into many of us.

We owe a lot to those women who cared deeply, not just for their streets, but for each other too. Don’t you think?

Delighted to share that one of our wonderful Oakleaf Press authors, Catherine Farren, will be launching her second book ...
01/06/2026

Delighted to share that one of our wonderful Oakleaf Press authors, Catherine Farren, will be launching her second book this July.

Retreat, Breathe and Rise Again is a beautiful and heartfelt collection, written for those moments when words are hard to find.

I’m proud to be working alongside Catherine and watching this book come to life. It takes courage to put your work out into the world and she’s done just that.

A brilliant job, Catherine Farren 💚

All welcome.

Pre order now and pick up on the night at:
oakleafpress.co.uk/shop

💚

I’ve decided this week’s Belfast Book Festival is dangerous for people like me.You head up the road thinking you’re goin...
01/06/2026

I’ve decided this week’s Belfast Book Festival is dangerous for people like me.

You head up the road thinking you’re going for a quiet, cultured afternoon, then suddenly it’s nearly dark outside, your handbag weighs as heavy as a paving stone because you’ve bought too many books again, and you’re sitting on the train listening to strangers discussing books like they’re debating world politics. 😂

One event I can’t wait for, though is Katriona O’Sullivan talking about her books, ‘Poor’ and ‘Hunger’.

‘Poor’ looks at class, education, belonging, and the invisible barriers people carry around long after they’ve escaped the circumstances they grew up in. There’s anger in it, warmth too, and the sort of honesty that comes from somebody refusing to soften hard truths just to make other people comfortable.

‘Hunger’ continues that conversation and, at times, it’s a a pretty tough read. Poverty, addiction, shame, survival, none of it is dressed up or romanticised. Yet somehow there’s humour in there too, appearing in places you least expect, which probably makes parts of the book hit even harder. Some chapters leave you needing a minute because the writing feels so raw and close to the bone.

That’s rare in books.

Nothing about Katriona O’Sullivan’s writing feels manufactured or carefully polished for effect. It’s vivid and descriptive. Sometimes too descriptive. Yet that’s exactly why people connect to it so deeply.

Hearing writers like Katriona speak live is completely different and, believe me, she’s different. What a personality. I can’t wait!

Book festivals are brilliant for that. Readers, writers, students, people sneaking out of work early, all wandering around carrying tote bags and pretending they absolutely do not need another book but buying more anyway. ☘️

Get the train. Go listen. Buy the books.



My bank account may never recover, but my bookshelves will look great!
www.oakleafpress.co.uk

www.belfastbookfestival.com

I was reading about writers in the papers this week and realised creative people are built differently from the rest of...
28/05/2026

I was reading about writers in the papers this week and realised creative people are built differently from the rest of society.

Jan Carson, an Irish writer, apparently nearly abandoned her novel while on a residency in France because the book ‘refused to write itself’, to the point she emailed her agent, basically convinced her writing career was over, only for the entire story to suddenly arrive after discovering an old politician’s completely mad plan to drain Lough Neagh and create another county.

Meanwhile Jonathan Swift, again Irish and chaotic even in death, spent years planning one final joke for after he died by placing his own humble memorial beside a rival he couldn’t stand inside St Patrick’s Cathedral. A researcher now believes Swift deliberately arranged it as one last act of satire from beyond the grave.

Makes sense to me!

Writers spend half their lives convinced they’re failures because the opening chapter has suddenly turned into a complete disaster, then a random sentence, overheard conversation, or completely ridiculous newspaper story unlocks everything again.

Normal people read the news and move on. Writers read the news or notice somebody in Tesco and immediately think:

‘There’s a book in that,’ or silly things like, ‘I need to write down what she’s wearing, it’s perfect for that character.’ Even worse, ‘I can’t stand that person, they’re definitely in my next book. I’ll make them suffer.’

This is probably why so many writers look permanently distracted in public. Their brains are basically twenty tabs open at all times while trying to remember where they left the car keys or which floor they parked the car on.

Creative people are wonderfully weird.

Thank God for that. ☘️

www.oakleafpress.co.uk

Writing books can do strange things to your head. Seriously, it can!One minute you’re convinced you’ve written something...
27/05/2026

Writing books can do strange things to your head. Seriously, it can!

One minute you’re convinced you’ve written something brilliant, you’re a genius, then ten minutes later you’re standing making the tea, convinced you should delete the entire manuscript and take up gardening instead.

People rarely speak honestly about the mental side of being an author, especially indie authors carrying everything themselves. Writing. Editing. Publishing. Marketing. The endless pressure to constantly post online while trying not to sound like you’re begging strangers to buy your book. Which we are really! 😊

A lot of writers quietly feel like failures. Not because their work isn’t good enough, but because publishing has become obsessed with numbers. Sales rankings. Followers. Reviews. Algorithms. Visibility. Somebody somewhere always seems to be selling more books than you while announcing another ‘dream come true’ online. After a while, it starts eating away at people.

Research has shown authors experience high levels of anxiety, burnout, depression, and imposter syndrome, particularly those working independently without large publishing teams behind them.

Success in writing doesn’t always arrive with flashing lights and champagne corks popping. Sometimes it’s a quiet message from a reader telling you your book carried them through grief when they needed it most.

Other times, it’s somebody staying awake until three in the morning because they couldn’t stop reading. Occasionally, it’s simply holding your own book in your hands after years of fear, procrastination, self-doubt, and talking yourself out of writing it in the first place.

It all counts.

Most books will never become international bestsellers, yet stories still affect people every single day. A sentence can comfort somebody. A character can make a person feel understood. A poem can remind somebody they’re not alone.

None of that shows up in algorithms. So if you’re a writer sitting discouraged today, please keep going. Don’t give up.

Finishing a book already puts you among a tiny percentage of people who actually followed through. How many times have you heard somebody say, ‘There’s a book in me,’ yet they never write it?

You did.

That’s not failure.

Not even close. ☘️

www.oakleafpress.co.uk

Today would have been my mammy's birthday. We lost her a few months ago, and on the morning of her funeral, I found a le...
26/05/2026

Today would have been my mammy's birthday. We lost her a few months ago, and on the morning of her funeral, I found a letter she’d written to me back in 2013.

Reading it felt like being wrapped up in her arms again.

Inside were all the things I needed to hear, even now. Comfort. Reassurance. Pride. Love. As I read through it, I could hear her voice as clearly as if she were standing beside me.

That one letter has kept me sane. It reminds me just how powerful words can be, because a few handwritten pages reached me more than all the ‘sorry for your loss’ messages in the world ever could.

Researchers have spoken for years about the effect writing has on grief, trauma, memory, and healing. Letters, diaries, memoirs, and even notes people never intended anybody else to read often become precious later on. Sometimes they help people make sense of loss. Remind us we were loved.

Books matter for the very same reason.

Words survive. They sit patiently waiting until somebody needs them.

Years can pass before a sentence helps heal. A line written on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon can become the very thing that steadies somebody during the hardest week of their life.

Maybe that’s why stories matter so much. They don’t have to be polished or perfect. People need connection far more than perfection, and sometimes all it takes is a few honest words to make somebody feel less alone in the world.

So do it, write things down.

Write the family stories.
Write the chaos.
Write the memories that make you laugh until your sides hurt.
Write the difficult days too.

Get them onto paper.

One day, your words may become the very thing that gives somebody else the virtual hug they desperately need. ☘️

I’ll be talking at the Letterkenny Literature Festival in October about AI and publishing, so I’ve been doing a bit of r...
25/05/2026

I’ll be talking at the Letterkenny Literature Festival in October about AI and publishing, so I’ve been doing a bit of research lately.

Honestly? The speed of it all is mad.

Before ChatGPT arrived, Amazon was seeing roughly 80,000 to 100,000 new ebooks uploaded every month.

Now?

Close to 300,000 a month. Sometimes more. Researchers reckon a huge percentage of those are AI generated or heavily AI assisted.

That means every single day thousands upon thousands of new books are landing onto Amazon.

Meanwhile, most genuine writers I know are sitting fighting with chapter three for six months while threatening to throw their laptop out the nearest window.

And look, I don’t even blame people for using AI tools. Publishing is expensive. Visibility is hard. Everybody wants to be noticed.

The worrying part for me is the flood of rushed books, fake reviews, fake author accounts, and low-quality nonsense clogging everything up for readers and writers alike. Amazon actually had to introduce upload limits because the volume became so ridiculous.

Maybe this sounds old-fashioned, yet I still believe readers can tell when a book has been written by a human being.

A proper story carries bits of the writer inside it. Grief. Humour. Family rows. Fear. Memory. All the strange little observations that only come from actually living a life.

AI can imitate structure. But Voice? Humanity? Heart? So far, I don’t think it can touch it.

Maybe that’s why I’m proud Oakleaf Press focusses on real people and their stories.

Books were never meant to feel factory-made. At least not to me.

As a reader, what do you think? Have you come across an AI-generated book yet? ☘️

www.oakleafpress.co.uk

Can we talk about book reviews for a minute? If you’re an author, reviews become a mild obsession. You tell yourself you...
22/05/2026

Can we talk about book reviews for a minute?

If you’re an author, reviews become a mild obsession. You tell yourself you’re not going to check Goodreads or Amazon every five minutes, then suddenly it’s 2.12 am and you’re refreshing the page like a lunatic because somebody gave you four stars and said your book 'destroyed their sleep, they couldn't put it down.'

Reviews genuinely matter. Readers rely on them before buying books, algorithms push books with engagement, and for indie authors especially, reviews can make a massive difference.

Yet here’s the thing nobody likes talking about…

There are people online guaranteeing reviews now. Hundreds of them. Sometimes thousands. Bloggers, promo accounts, random 'marketing experts' promising overnight success if you hand over enough money.

No judgement, publishing is hard and people get desperate.

Yet personally? I’d rather have fifty honest reviews than five thousand dodgy ones written by somebody who probably hasn’t even opened the book.

My Goodreads ratings may not be enormous compared to celebrity authors, but every single one came from genuine readers, and that means way more to me.

⭐ Turmoil currently sits at 4.45
⭐ Darkness at 4.60
⭐ Light at 4.59
⭐ Hope at 4.80

I’m ridiculously proud of that. Because behind every review is a person who gave up their time to read my words AND leave a review.

That never gets taken for granted.

So if you’ve ever reviewed a book, especially for an indie author, just know you probably made somebody’s entire week without even realising it. ☘️

www.oakleafpress.co.uk

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