Martin Hughes is co-owner and Publishing Director at Melbourne-based independent publisher Affirm Press. Martin has previously worked as editor of The Big Issue magazine, as a writer, editor and photographer with Lonely Planet Publications, and in journalism and public relations in Ireland and Britain.

What was your pathway to publishing?

I’ve always been around journalism and publishing.

When I left as editor of The Big Issue magazine, I had an idea for a book combining my experiences, passions, and lack of pragmatism: a DIY job called The Slow Guide to Melbourne, which I wrote, publicised, and sold myself. That book went so well that another publisher proposed co-publishing a Slow Guides series. The series didn’t go so well, but by then I had set up the infrastructure of a publishing company. I worked on this part-time for several years, with some great people, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. In 2013, I teamed up with Keiran Rogers, who knew what he was doing.