About us · Radical Books Coop

New ideas
Shared tools

We are Radical Books, a non-profit publishing and cultural cooperative. Publishing, thought and cooperation are our tools for transforming the world.

Get to know the cooperative

A working meeting and discussion at Read Barcelona

PublishingCultureCooperation

Why we are radical

We are a cultural cooperative born in the midst of a storm, after a global pandemic, with irrationalism taking root and intolerance growing everywhere, with war reaching Europe and a new global crisis on the horizon. That is why we are radical.

Our starting point

Following the political cycle of rapid action over the past decade, one reflection shared by all the currents that emerged from it is the need for tools for deep reflection. Although we have various media tools, we need systematisation, legitimacy, scalability and the ability to replicate our work. We also need a space to experiment with ideas and put different hypotheses into circulation.

We therefore need a tool made up of different parts that come together as the project develops. A method of political education that seeks a medium-term response to the gaps in training and analysis of the previous cycle, enabling us to understand the new one through the historical categories that anticipate and determine it. We need more lasting, established tools, better equipped for a permanent struggle, since the new cycle does not promise the speed of the previous one.

We want to offer ideas, hypotheses and strategic innovations to lay the foundations for the ideological struggle of the coming cycle. To host complex debates and carefully edit interventions intended for the public sphere, suggesting ideas, synthesising arguments and developing their different parts.

We will develop a platform to improve our capacity for reflection and provide intellectual support for other channels of communication, creating a public sphere richer in knowledge.

We will work closely with organic intellectuals to encourage healthier, more radical public debates, avoid losing frameworks of ideological struggle and create opportunities for younger intellectuals. We want the brightest voices of future generations to have a space that cares for their texts, allows ideas to mature and works with them to develop organic cadres.

We will bring in new cultural reference points that are young, feminised, diverse and multicultural, encouraging the emergence of new feminised and racialised voices. Creating new reference points empowers communities historically discriminated against on grounds of gender: women and LGBTIQ+ communities.

That is why
we are radical

Radical Books Coop ↗

Our purpose

Supporting high-quality critical thought

Read on

A better educated society is freer, more democratic and better equipped to understand the world. Critical reflection, manuals designed to provide the necessary analytical tools and resources that empower each person through the habit of reading are the best way forward. Our aim is to strengthen civil society and develop a citizenry better informed about public life, and therefore more open to political participation and democratic decision-making. We want to encourage creative thinking about social justice, publishing work that places particular emphasis on how problems connect with apparently unrelated issues and considers their potential unintended consequences in other areas.

Creating a social network

Read on

We support the production of thought, cultural activities and initiatives around local communities to encourage reading and learning that bring about social change in the places where we work. Our aim is to establish not simply a business, but a platform bringing together cultural initiatives that connect readers with our books, debates about their ideas and ongoing communication with audiences. The concept of a network also highlights the importance of community in achieving our goals. Intersectionality will take shape through collaboration across communities, sectors and fields, devoting equal time to other people's problems while considering their narrative goals and political agendas. This platform will therefore include activists, advocates, lawyers, artists, academics, cultural workers and people from technology, working alongside those affected. We believe these collaborations encourage innovative solutions, expand networks and promote transformative change. Discussions of problems often fail to recognise the multiple voices within a movement, the different ways people experience an issue and the need to consider diverse voices and perspectives to achieve real, lasting and equitable change.

Our values

Equity

We consider gender strategically when developing our catalogue, ensuring equity between authors. We also adopt a feminist perspective to help explain and understand the world through different viewpoints.

Solidarity

The project seeks to build connections with cultural organisations in our area, using exchange to strengthen the social economy and the different projects within it.

Sustainability

We follow good practice in employment and management, incorporate environmental and sustainable purchasing criteria, and ensure printing on FSC paper and the Bookdraper ecological footprint assessment.

Participation

We seek to move beyond the business-consumer relationship and strengthen the living community around our projects, alongside multilevel governance of the cooperative.

Inclusion

The cooperative exists to question the origins of today's inequalities and work towards collective empowerment. The publisher also commits to publishing racialised authors to create new cultural reference points.

Commitment to community and place

We will be fully integrated into the place and social environment in which we work. This requires participation in networks and cooperation with other organisations in the social and economic fabric.

Promoting social change

We understand our books as tools for popular empowerment that support the struggle for social transformation.

Universality

Freely circulating culture through open-access content across the cooperative's publishing projects is both a political commitment and a practical way to advance universal access to culture, thought and education.

Our strategy

Digital economyRadical Books is one of the first publishing projects to automate its different processes. It is a kind of publishing platform cooperative, integrating digital print production, a…

Radical Books is one of the first publishing projects to automate its different processes. It is a kind of publishing platform cooperative, integrating digital print production, a zero-stock policy and an automated dispatch and picking system with Koiki, an ecological, local delivery service committed to social inclusion, and Fundació Aproseat, which develops and manages services to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities.

Social economy with a socialist perspectiveRadical Books is a worker cooperative committed to equality in the workplace. We do not want to sell our labour power. We will develop practices that support…

Radical Books is a worker cooperative committed to equality in the workplace. We do not want to sell our labour power. We will develop practices that support the social emancipation of workers and the wider working classes in our country and internationally. We seek a classless society and will contribute to this goal through everything from our internal practices to our products.

Feminist economyWe will introduce measures supporting work-life balance, extended maternity, paternity and menstrual leave, remote work and care for dependants of workers and worker-members. Our membership policy will…

We will introduce measures supporting work-life balance, extended maternity, paternity and menstrual leave, remote work and care for dependants of workers and worker-members. Our membership policy will aim for a minimum of 40% women and non-binary people, seeking to exceed 50%. We will also introduce anonymous CVs to prevent discrimination in recruitment.

MigrationWe will work with Koiki, which brings racialised people and migrants into employment, and seek further cooperation with similar organisations. We will develop a strand of decolonial…

We will work with Koiki, which brings racialised people and migrants into employment, and seek further cooperation with similar organisations. We will develop a strand of decolonial memory in our books, bringing political anti-racism into our publications and other content. We will also incorporate the memory of migration into our everyday work through the history of neighbourhoods built by the migration waves of the 1960s and 1970s. Our headquarters are at La casa de les paraules, on Carrer del Mestre Serradesanferm, named after a teacher at the La Vanguardia Obrera cooperative. From this space, we keep alive the working-class and cooperative memory of the Horta neighbourhood.

Conscious consumptionBy creating a book club in which readers become members of the project, we create a circular economy that supports critical thought. Alongside the project's other criteria,…

By creating a book club in which readers become members of the project, we create a circular economy that supports critical thought. Alongside the project's other criteria, members will receive publications delivered by bicycle couriers and produced according to ecological principles that incorporate work-life balance and care.

EducationWe will be more than a publisher: a platform for popular education integrated into a digital social network, allowing an informal learning curriculum to develop around emerging…

We will be more than a publisher: a platform for popular education integrated into a digital social network, allowing an informal learning curriculum to develop around emerging social debates through three central themes: identities, economy and democracy. These will intersect with feminism, ecology, decolonisation and social conflict. The platform will provide an ongoing reading club, courses and lectures, incorporating the digital tools mentioned above and participating in the city's community-managed spaces and municipal library network.

InternationalisationWe believe social and solidarity economy projects must consider their international dimension and the opportunities offered by digitisation, digital printing and digital publishing. Automating management processes enables…

We believe social and solidarity economy projects must consider their international dimension and the opportunities offered by digitisation, digital printing and digital publishing. Automating management processes enables us to build a project spanning the Spanish-speaking world. We will also take part in publishing networks within the social and solidarity economy in Europe, alongside organisations such as Verso Books, La Fabrique and DeriveApprodi, and globally through the International Union of Left Publishers, where we hold a seat on the executive committee.

Energy and ecological transitionThe project will incorporate environmental and sustainable purchasing criteria: communicating its work and results through digital media, applying environmental criteria to printed materials, buying sustainable consumables and…

The project will incorporate environmental and sustainable purchasing criteria: communicating its work and results through digital media, applying environmental criteria to printed materials, buying sustainable consumables and raising the visibility of the social and solidarity economy connected to the project.

Impact

Bringing algorithmic methods into editorial workInnovation is the defining feature of this project. It will be the first to bring together algorithmic and human methods to rethink how books are produced and…

Innovation is the defining feature of this project. It will be the first to bring together algorithmic and human methods to rethink how books are produced and publishing services provided. Working closely with technical specialists — programmers, developers and data scientists — will allow us to index and collect academic studies published online each month, from articles and doctoral theses to books and journalism, as well as videos and podcasts. This vast pool of information will help us choose which books to translate and which authors to publish. It will considerably improve the quality of our publications by mapping knowledge as it appears, informing strategic commercial and production decisions and enabling us to intervene in publishing on that basis.

Digitisation and participation through free software and cooperative automationIn terms of organising knowledge and running a business, we see this as a radical improvement on other initiatives. We will also use free software for business…

In terms of organising knowledge and running a business, we see this as a radical improvement on other initiatives. We will also use free software for business activities, from video calls with workers and clients to text recognition and translation. We want to automate publishing as much as possible so that we can devote our cognitive energies to intellectually demanding work rather than repetitive or routine tasks, making the most productive and efficient use of our time. Advancing these workplace values can improve employment and encourage spaces where creativity, ingenuity and the talent present in every human activity prevail over the alienation or frustration associated with conventional office work.

Ecological, inclusive and local distributionKoiki will distribute our books. Their delivery journeys are free of CO₂ emissions. They deliver parcels on foot, by bicycle or by electric vehicle to prevent pollution…

Koiki will distribute our books. Their delivery journeys are free of CO₂ emissions.

They deliver parcels on foot, by bicycle or by electric vehicle to prevent pollution and make our cities calmer. They report the CO₂ saved with each delivery. They create sustainable employment: parcels are delivered by local residents through social inclusion projects involving trans people, migrants and prisoners undergoing reintegration. Deliveries stay in the neighbourhood, and recipients can track them live and choose the delivery time. This approach illustrates the sustainable relationships we will develop in the places where we establish ourselves.

International cooperationIn Latin America, we will work closely with social organisations that incorporate intersectional perspectives, commissioning some of our communications and illustration work from them.

In Latin America, we will work closely with social organisations that incorporate intersectional perspectives, commissioning some of our communications and illustration work from them.

Multilevel cooperative governanceGovernance within the cooperative will be horizontal. We will create participation and feedback processes to share information relevant to the project's work and design collective tools so…

Governance within the cooperative will be horizontal. We will create participation and feedback processes to share information relevant to the project's work and design collective tools so that everyone feels included and their needs are considered. Each person can contribute more knowledge when communication channels are open and participation and transparency shape internal operations. We will establish two advisory bodies:

Editorial committee
Thematic commissions

Ecological publishing and environmental thinkingWe will apply ecological publishing criteria based on Greening Books and BookDaper software. The bookDAPer tool's bDAP ecolabel is an official Type III Environmental Product Declaration, or…

We will apply ecological publishing criteria based on Greening Books and BookDaper software. The bookDAPer tool's bDAP ecolabel is an official Type III Environmental Product Declaration, or EPD, regulated by ISO 14025. We will use paper with Forest Stewardship Council certification. We are gathering information on paper sizes, printing plates and presses to adapt our book formats and minimise paper waste. We use paper offcuts from printing our books to create bookmarks for customers, and reuse packaging supplied by the printer for customer deliveries.

An intersectional perspectiveOur publications will adopt an intersectional perspective, reflecting the approach of our series. They contain substantial intellectual and political work identifying and challenging the ways interlocking systems…

Our publications will adopt an intersectional perspective, reflecting the approach of our series. They contain substantial intellectual and political work identifying and challenging the ways interlocking systems of gender, sexual, racial, colonial, class and disability oppression affect social life.

Communities

People and publishers sharing ideas at Read Barcelona

Building community

We address people interested in systemic discrimination, or who experience it, on the basis of sexual orientation and identity, gender and gender identity, race, economic status, migration status, national origin and ability, among other aspects of identity. This project is about more than distributing books. We consider it essential to participate in and engage with the communities our authors write about, learning from them when defining our publishing programme and remaining accountable to the communities we seek to represent. We believe systemic discrimination affects access to opportunity. Recognising these multiple systemic barriers and forms of prejudice, we will work closely with affected social groups when selecting intellectual proposals that seek to address their problems.

We must work to include everyone in our efforts to promote social justice. We are together in this struggle and must develop narratives that ensure no one is left behind. Building community, encouraging alliances and coalitions, and caring for each other will help us solve problems. With this in mind, we distinguish between our work in the following areas.

Academic groupsWe will work with academic communities in both directions, drawing on advanced social science research that seeks to address the social problems we face and encouraging it…

We will work with academic communities in both directions, drawing on advanced social science research that seeks to address the social problems we face and encouraging it to incorporate the perspectives of those affected, at least within the departments and research groups with which we collaborate on publications.

Activist groupsSocial movements, non-governmental organisations and activists are essential to building bridges between groups, coordinating them more effectively and helping address their realities, thanks to their exceptional experience…

Social movements, non-governmental organisations and activists are essential to building bridges between groups, coordinating them more effectively and helping address their realities, thanks to their exceptional experience and commitment. We will include them in discussions about which books to publish, in presentations and other events, and as active contributors to articles on our website.

Marginalised groupsAs well as involving these groups in our presentations, we will give them a voice through initiatives that bring the experiences of people usually underrepresented into approaches…

As well as involving these groups in our presentations, we will give them a voice through initiatives that bring the experiences of people usually underrepresented into approaches to knowledge. Our initiatives seek representation in the public sphere, while also creating a meeting place for different groups and a vehicle for their collective organisation.

Our projects Meet the team