Independent Book Publishers
Independent Sport Publishers
About Floodlit Dreams
Floodlit Dreams is an independent publishing house specialising in sports literature. Founded in 2013 by journalist Ian Ridley, it provides an agile solution to publication that gives authors ownership over their books.
After launching with Mark Halsey’s Added Time, Floodlit Dreams then focused on helping young authors get a break in their career, a philosophy that continues to drive the company to date. The result was Seth Burkett’s The Boy in Brazil. Seth subsequently joined as a director.
Since then, Floodlit Dreams has published a range of diverse books that have been nominated for a number of major literary awards, both in the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and the British Sports Book Awards.
Since 2018 it has partnered with Women in Football before linking with Pitch Publishing in 2023 to publish the innovative Football Shorts series, which it has now taken on solely. The addition to the team in 2025 of Jane Purdon, author of The Homecoming, has provided a new impetus that the company is looking to build on.
Short books
Football Shorts
Football Shorts is an exciting and innovative collection of new books.
Each is around 30,000 words and penned by high quality writers telling personal stories about aspects of football and its characters, and the effect of the game on their own lives. The series is curated by Floodlit Dreams founder Ian Ridley.
Meet the Team
Ian Ridley
Ian, who founded Floodlit Dreams in 2013, is a writer and sports journalist
who spent 40 years on national newspapers, including 18 onThe Guardian andThe Observer. He became Sports Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards in 2007 while withThe Mail on Sunday,and was shortlisted on two other occasions.
Ian has written 15 non-fiction books, including two shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award…
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Addicted, the autobiography of former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams, was a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller while The Breath of Sadness: On love, grief and cricket is a poignant account of coping with the death of his wife Vikki Orvice, a trailblazing sports journalist, in February of 2019 at the age of 56.
In addition, Ian has written three novels – two crime thrillers, OUTER CIRCLE and DON’T TALK, in the ‘Jan Mason investigative journalist’ series as well as moving into literary fiction with DARK CLOUDS BRING WATERS.
His other credits include a children’s book, Where’s Grandad’s Hat?, and more than 20 episodes of the Sky drama series Dream Team.
Seth Burkett
Writer and publisher
Seth Burkett grew up in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Aged 18 he moved to Brazil to play professional football. His first book,The Boy in Brazil, documents a remarkable season in Sorriso. It was published by Floodlit Dreams and shortlisted for the 2015 British Sport Book Awards.
Since then, Seth has worked on numerous projects for Floodlit Dreams, written 15 books for adults and children under his own name, and has also co-written multiple books with athletes, influencers and personalities.
Alongside writing and publishing, Seth travels the country to give talks in schools and other settings on the power of literacy.
Jane Purdon
Jane Purdon has a unique story to tell. A fan and a player, she has worked for more than 20 years at the highest levels of football. Nobody is better placed to tell the in-depth story of how football came home in the summer of 2022.
An activist and thought leader, Jane is often called on to comment on football. She was recently awarded a distinction for her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and her writing has achieved competition success.
