Max Leonard of Isola Press: Mountain Style, self publishing, mass niche

In conversation with Max Leonard, Publisher and Creative director at Isola Press. Max creates award-winning photo books and stories of adventures that explore place, space, culture and history.

We discuss the publishing (and self-publishing) industry with reference to Max’s 2024 book with Henry Iddon, Mountain style: British Outdoor Clothing 1953-2000, and his new book, One Ride Away.. the memoir of legendary mountain bike pioneer, Tom Ritchey, out this spring 2026.

We talk about the on-going value of social media in community-building and project funding, championing British outdoor brands, and the current status of the non-fiction book market alongside podcasts and audiobooks.

Max explains how imposing limits on the scope of your own projects allows space for the story that sits behind them. Each of Max’s books documents an evolving outdoors culture, his own narrative always landing somewhere in the vastness of the mountains.

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