OUR STORY
TOFNA PRESS did not begin with the idea of starting a publishing company.
It began with a life spent moving between languages, cultures, professions, and worlds—and with a growing awareness of the power of books to carry stories, ideas, knowledge, and memory from one world to another.
The idea of creating a publishing house had been with us for years. But it remained an idea until experience began to give it shape.
Over time, our work with languages, education, culture, translation, and publishing brought us into contact with people and works from very different backgrounds. It also revealed how much talent, experience, and knowledge exists beyond the boundaries of the familiar.
The possibility of creating a publishing house that could help some of those works find a wider path to readers gradually became more than an idea.
And so TOFNA PRESS began to take shape.
THE PUBLISHING EXPERIENCE
In 2009, The Ambit Technique became our first experience of publishing.
The journey began with an independent publisher that presented itself as an opportunity to bring the book to readers, but ultimately proved to be a vanity operation. It was an early lesson in how difficult—and sometimes unpredictable—the journey from manuscript to reader can be.
There were other lessons to follow.
Over the years, we continued to write, translate, and work with books in different languages and cultural settings. These experiences brought us closer to the realities of publishing and gradually changed the way we thought about it.
We began to see publishing not simply as the process of producing a book, but as a series of decisions about which voices are heard, which ideas are given a platform, and which works are given the opportunity to find their readers.
That realization would eventually lead to a deeper question—and to the turning point in the story of TOFNA PRESS.
THE TURNING POINT
As our experience with publishing grew, a question began to take shape.
What happens when a worthwhile work falls outside the expectations of the people deciding whether it should be published?
Every editor, agent, and publisher brings professional judgment, experience, and knowledge to the process. Those judgments are necessary. No publishing house can publish everything it encounters.
But we began to wonder whether a work's potential could sometimes be obscured simply because it did not fit a particular perspective, category, or expectation.
That possibility stayed with us.
It suggested that there might be value in a publishing approach that looks at a work from more than one angle—one that considers its merit and what it has to offer, while also recognizing the practical realities of bringing it to readers.
Sometimes, a work simply needs a different lens.
That idea became one of the foundations on which TOFNA PRESS was built.
A DIFFERENT LENS
TOFNA Press seeks to look beyond familiar categories, prevailing tastes, and established expectations.
We believe a worthwhile work should be considered for its merit, originality, substance, and what it has to offer, even when it does not fit an expected mold.
We are selective, but personal taste alone should not determine what deserves a place in our catalogue.
A different lens does not mean a lower standard.
It means seeing possibilities others may not see.
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLISHING
Not every work that matters will become a bestseller. Not every good book will find a large market. TOFNA recognizes this challenge from the beginning.
Established publishers have resources and networks that give them enormous reach. A new independent press does not. Publishing a book is one thing; helping readers discover it is another.
That challenge cannot be wished away.
Our task is not simply to publish books we believe in, but to help them be seen, discovered, and read.
Technology has made this more possible through print-on-demand, ebooks, audiobooks, and international distribution.
But distribution alone is not enough. A book needs a reason to be noticed.
TOFNA intends to build that reason through thoughtful selection, careful presentation, translation, editorial attention, and a growing community of readers.
WHAT WE HOPE TO BUILD
At its heart, TOFNA seeks to create a culture of mutual understanding through literature and ideas.
We believe books can open minds, cross cultural boundaries, and allow us to see the world through different eyes.
Our ambition is to publish works of genuine merit, regardless of where they originate or which language they speak.
A story can cross cultures.
An idea can cross languages.
A forgotten voice can still matter.
We want TOFNA to help such works find readers, cross borders, and travel beyond the page.
For now, the work begins one book at a time.
The Press is new.
The journey behind it is not.
And the journey ahead is only beginning.
TOFNA PRESS
Books that matter.
Words in motion.