[Libre Arts] PVH Editions: A Libre Publisher on the Fediverse!

PVH Editions, a publishing house for books under a free license

Walid : Today, it’s a bit of a special episode, we record it at the Winter Free software Meetings in Saint-Cergue (see the episode on the RHL 2026), in Switzerland, and I have with me Lionel from PVH Éditions, a publishing house under a free license. Yesterday, we talked for quite a long time about the publishing house, and I thought it was very interesting to discuss with him, in particular their use of the Fediverse, as artists have them. So Lionel, welcome to the Project Libres podcast. It’s great to be chatting with you today and getting to know you.

Lionel : with great pleasure.

Presentation of Lionel and PVH Editions

Walid : The first thing is, could you start by presenting for the listeners of the podcast Projets Libres?

Lionel : So, I’m Lionel Jeannerat, I’m the founder of the publishing house PVH Éditions, based in Switzerland and also in Franche-Comté (France). It’s a brand that actually represents two publishing houses. The business is together, but it’s convenient to be in two countries, especially to be able to send when there are orders on the Internet.

The publishing house was founded between 2013 and 2014. Three years ago, I decided that our entire catalog should be under a free license, but also to assume and promote our approach of publishing novels under a free license. The publishing house’s editorial line, first of all, is to publish literature of the imagination, i.e. science fiction, fantasy, fantasy, possibly tales and legends.

Lionel Jeannerat

That’s the first point. The second point is that we prefer quality to quantity. It’s not a value judgment, it’s two different ways of publishing books. That is to say, we also work on them over time. It’s nothing new for three months, then afterwards, the book has lived its life: we think that there is long-term support, which is important. And the last one is our values, both in software, but also in free art.

And we currently have 30 and 40 titles of novels that are under a free license. We were lucky enough to have an award-winning track which is Place d’âme. And then there you have it, we live our little life as a small independent publishing house.

Walid : you, what past did you have before doing…

Lionel: Basically, I’m a historian, I’ve also been a teacher, I’ve worked a little bit around. And then next to the publishing house, I also publish free software, a small free software called Be-Bop, which allows monetization. In fact, we first developed it for our PVH Editions website in order to be able to do crowdfunding, to be able to sell ebooks as well… finally the features we needed. So I also have a bit of a technical side without being the team’s technician myself, but I came… This accompaniment, for example, we have an author at PVH Éditions called Ploum, a Belgian well known to free software artists, and especially his blog. And I think that a good part of my education on books comes from my reading of Ploum. And when we published this first novel, there was something that came together culturally between convictions that were also a little political around the book.

Walid: I discovered PVH through Ploum, whose blog I read regularly. Were you the one who contacted him to explain the process?

Lionel: So, in fact, when he published the first books, we weren’t yet under a free license. That’s what’s funny. It is because for the history of Printeurs, because it’s the first novel, we had done a crowdfunding on a platform I remember and then there was this idea, as the subject of the book talks about a form of printing in fact everything can be created with ridiculous costs but and what does it upset we said to ourselves well arrived at a certain level of funding well in fact the book maybe… That’s when we invented a format that was the print at home to print at home so you could print your printers at home we hadn’t done it right away under a free license there was the NC it was the sharing, it was the non-commercial clause and then it’s there, it’s by experimenting on little things like that and after a while I said to Ploum… There is even his first collection of short stories, that I don’t remember exactly, anyway, there was a whole process or reflection in relation to what involvement, etc.

And then, it’s also a little bit at this time — I’m going to make the transition — that is to say in this period when we were thinking, what does it also imply to publish in the free sense? Is it an application on our way of working or communicating? So we are gradually trying to do without proprietary software in the operation of the publishing house. It’s ongoing, it’s something, it’s delicate, it’s about changing habits, it’s also about finding good tools that can replace the proprietary tools that we could have used before. And in terms of communication, I had started to communicate personally with a private account on Mastodon because I didn’t want to mess up on Twitter anymore a long time ago, when it was bought by Elon Musk. And I said to myself, it’s obvious that the publishing house must also communicate on common, free networks.

PVH editions’ communication (in particular on the Fediverse)

Walid: Because communication at the moment is done on… Finally, historically, what networks do you communicate on?

Lionel: So, historically, there was a lot of word of mouth. That is to say, I’ve never been too much of a social networker. So I don’t have a Facebook account, I don’t have a LinkedIn account anymore, well I’ve never had a Facebook thing, but there was a reality on the ground, especially on Instagram, where there are a lot of booksellers, that’s where there are also literary critics.

So, as soon as we had a little human resources in the publishing house to be able to communicate on Instagram, we had to do it. I, for my part, was on Mastodon, I said to myself, we’re starting to communicate on Mastodon. The huge luck we had was that in fact, we had Ploum as the author, he was resharing, he invited people to subscribe to our PVH Éditions account on Mastodon, which, quite quickly, meant that we had more people following us on Mastodon than on Instagram. So that made it relevant.

Lionel Jeannerat

Then afterwards, I also saw the success we had a little bit by communicating on Mastodon, where I realized that there was interaction, etc. And then also sometimes when we were making publications all of a sudden there is a volley of sales on our site.

Walid: what can you correlate

Lionel: There is a correlation that can be quite obvious, whereas when we made posts on Instagram there was not necessarily the same respondent. There were maybe more people listening to things like that because if there are more people, but it was worth it, in fact, to communicate on Mastodon, I told the authors, but come to Mastodon and there too, because in fact, often what can be discouraging on Mastodon is that you start

Walid: There’s no one…

Lionel:

that is to say yes… You’re going to follow people so you’re going to have a thread and then the thing is why are you posting if there’s no one following you. Because in fact, if no one follows you, there is no one to read you and to share you. Yes you’ll be on the local thread of your instance, but in fact, in fact, when I talk about it a little with people, it’s not necessarily the thread… So maybe the local feed, it’s still fine, if you’re on a small instance, but the global feed, no one consults it, so it’s actually important to have people who follow you, just to motivate you not created in a vacuum.

Lionel Jeannerat

Once again, there was a great welcome from Mastodon, PVH Éditions, when they created their account, immediately invited people and Ploum too, again, which, with its large audience, has built up over the years, we now have a number of authors who willingly communicate on Mastodon. I’m thinking of Allius, Sara Schneider, who is very active on Instagram, who certainly has a good part of her audience on Instagram, but who also communicates on Mastodon. And then, Stéphane Paccaud, Aquilegia Nox, we introduced them to Mastodon.

Walid: ok, and so, actually… What I understand is that maybe you have more engagement, or you have more respondents on Mastodon ?

Lionel: It’s not the same audience.

Walid: what audience will you find on Mastodon?

Lionel: There are two things. Above all, a free software audience, I think. But in the librists, there are many readers of the type of literature we do. But we went a little further in the news item. We made our posts on Instagram. well, why not do them on PixelFed , so we also have a PixelFed account that actually takes up the publications we have on Instagram , there we have fewer subscribers, it’s less, there are fewer respondents. But as far as I think would interest free software artists or people who think critically about publishing, things like that we reshare them with Count Mastodon who is a bit central, we also have a small Peertube channel, for the moment we don’t have a lot of content, the one when we organized the French-speaking conference of free art , there was a debate that was filmed with people who were actually defending proprietary art and it’s a beautiful debate.

I asked because it was the Neuchâtel International Fantastique Film Festival that had actually recorded it. I told them “is it under a free license?“. They told me “ok it’s under a free license“, so we got it we took it on our channel to share it on Peertube. In my memory, it is possible that when we held the Francophone conference of the Libre, we used Mobilizon. But it was a one-off event.

Walid: Haven’t you tried Bookwyrm to do book reviews?

Lionel: I still have to… It’s not our role to criticize.

Walid: or encourage people to go on it to make criticisms.

Lionel: yes, so I still have to analyse a little bit how it works. For the moment, no, but it makes sense, but it’s not so much ours, actually.

Walid: It’s for the community, actually.

Lionel: Yes, we have to see how it crystallizes. We, clearly, if there are Bookwyrm reviews, I think there are already one or two that we have reshared, but there is no point for us to have a Bookwyrm account, is there? It’s more reader. So, if these reviews are shared on Bookwyrm, we will relay them, especially if they are positive (laughs). No, but it’s interesting because it would allow us to have an equivalent of what there could be on Instagram, people are waiting for feedback to know, to make up their minds and make their choice of buying the island, it’s different.

Then also it’s the formats That is to say that Instagram is very much about the image, etc. Whereas Mastodon is micro-blogging, so it’s closer to what Twitter was at one time, if you will, without the algorithm.

But that’s kind of what I can say and I still have an observation overall, I find that the Fediverse, especially Mastodon, is very active in fact, things are happening we don’t get bored and it’s just that indeed, the public is often a little more committed because taking the step of joining a federated social network changes habits so in fact there is a small work or effort to do in addition to access it and in fact we find ourselves with people who were ready to make this effort so necessarily the communication we do… we, for example, on an Instagram post, will highlight the aspect of the text, to try to make people dream a little, while on a post on Mastodon, we will also do it, but we will also highlight the militant side that underlies the editorial and creative approach under a free license.

Lionel Jeannerat

Walid: In the end, it’s quite complementary.

Lionel: yes, yes, absolutely.

Walid: It allows us to reach audiences who are…

Lionel: yes, yes, but what would be ideal is the whole problem of the owner, which is that in fact, it communicates poorly. I’m also going to start communicating on another free network called Nostr. Then I just noticed that in fact, there are bridges where all our publications on Mastodon are published on Nostr, I’m so much to say to myself…

Walid: There’s nothing to do.

Lionel: yes, that’s the advantage of free software, that is to say that we have two networks that work with different protocols and that communicate very well with each other, which we can’t do with proprietary networks, you can’t automate it so simply.

There are also all these issues of copyright on platforms. I was watching YouTube because once I said to myself, but it’s that people, they share this, they put it under what license, and then they put it all under a license called YouTube license, which is…

Walid: owner

Lionel: yes then they could put it under a free license.

Walid: even on YouTube yes

Lionel: or even if they put a NC if they want to, which is not a guarantee or anything. Anyway, there you have it, and well, in fact, if you post on Facebook, do you still own the intellectual property of your own cat, in fact? It’s weird to say but PVH Éditions ‘ editorial adventure in general is a live experience and the experience on social networks of communicating on social networks, especially in free, even if it’s still proprietary, because in fact, we also have the approach of talking about it a little bit on Instagram.

Our non-freebook audience has heard that we’re a little weird (laughs). No, not weird, but that we publish under a free license, it’s special. More and more booksellers are also telling us this. It’s something that has a real identity differentiation, it’s in the identity of the publishing house now. And booksellers, they are curious, they sometimes ask questions, they are not all at the same level of curiosity, but there is also in the very functioning since PVH Editions, there is a form of horizontality that has always been there from the beginning, that is to say that we take a text and then the author will see it at the end that it is

Happy or not, we don’t care, but with an interaction between the publisher and the author, his opinion for the cover, his desires. We are also very transparent with them to talk to them about our figures, sales or impact. So, let’s say it didn’t come out anywhere. There was a philosophy behind it.

The PVH Editions team

Walid: How many of you are in the publishing house? To work?

Lionel: So, while working, there is me who devotes 50% of my professional time to the publishing house, but without being paid. We have an employee in Switzerland, in the Swiss structure, at 80%, I think. I no longer have the exact figures in mind. In the French structure, we also have a publisher, David, who must be at 80%. 80 or 100, I don’t know. For the time being, he is the one who manages the structure in France. In addition, I don’t have much visibility here… Finally, I could have it, but I trust. And then, in Switzerland, we always have a bit of a part-time intern. The goal is to have trainees in training.

In Switzerland, there is no training to become a publisher. There is no sector. So, in fact, you learn on the job. I learned completely on the job. And then, here, it’s giving someone the opportunity. So we do long-term internships, but part-time, because as the editorial time is a long time, it may allow him to follow a book from the moment we select it to the moment we finalize it and release it.

Walid: It also allows you to train in free art and licenses and to get instabilized….

Lionel: yes, so the current intern, we were already there…

Walid: Was he already convinced before?

Lionel: He was already using free software, and it was the approach that interested him too, so we teach him… Maybe that’s also why we chose it, because in fact, we said to ourselves, especially on an internship, if the work also makes sense, it’s all the better for the person. There you go. And besides that, we have a person who is very slightly part-time, Natalia, who, on the Swiss side, takes care of a little bit of everything administrative, from assistant accountant to preparation, the calculation of royalties, things like that.

The use of free software in the publishing house

Walid: At the beginning of the interview, you mentioned the fact that you are in the process of migrating, as far as possible, to free software.

Lionel: Yes.

Walid: What kind of free software can you use or are you already using?

Lionel: So, basically, the publishing house’s computers, they’re on Linux, that’s what I was using. And then, in fact, we use LibreOffice. Internally, we have Nextcloud, well that’s it. What’s the most complicated, in fact, is the layout software. Especially since in fact, because here, I’m talking about people who work, who are, let’s say, regular. But besides that, we have a graphic designer, Dimitri, who is a great book professional, who has a number of awards, who has designed a good part of our books, but he works under Adobe. And there you have it, a graphic designer who masters it perfectly.

Walid: You’re going to ask yourself to learn it another time.

Lionel: But we have this desire to repatriate the interior layout of the books because before in fact he was the one who laid out the inside of the books and then we worked on it again and now we had to have InCopy so it’s a limited license from Adobe that just allows you to do proofreading so it’s a priori that is cheaper than a license. But the problem is that at Adobe it works even from a copy, it doesn’t work on Linux. We were forced to have at least one computer that boots under Windows, it’s less and less possible. So we did an internal training at Scribus.

So David and Lorraine are now trained in Scribus, but the formatting templates that were under Adobe, we will have to redo them in Scribus and then that’s time, that is to say that we don’t necessarily have but that we will take the time to maybe in 2026 to set up. And if you can do without Adobe, in fact you can really be 100% Linux and then see a little bit of software.

The thing is that many of our employees have also worked on their personal computers so in fact there are a few Macs, Windows I don’t think but anyway… IT infrastructure is not the core of our business, so we do it in small steps. In fact, you have to imagine a small independent publishing house, as I said, I don’t get paid.

I am fortunate, moreover, through other activities, to be able to make a living from it. But there are still salaries to be paid. There is an issue at stake in this. And in fact, we don’t have extra resources that would allow us to hire someone, for example, to have the infrastructure, also the security. All hackers, don’t attack us.

No, but what I mean is that there is still a bit of a DIY side. Often, people, in their imagination, a publishing house, there is turnover, but there are a lot of costs. So, in fact, the entire independent publishing sector, whether it’s free or not, in fact, it survives more than it lives. And in fact, each purchase of books from independent houses actually concretely reinforces the diversity of the editorial choice to which the public can have access.

Lionel Jeannerat

So there you go, but I think there’s a real desire. The employees of PVH Éditions were not necessarily free software artists at the beginning, and in fact there is also time for him to appropriate philosophy, and this is really the case, just like the authors too.

Winter free software meetings (RHL 2026)

Walid: Before we leave, I’d like you to say a word about the Winter Free Software Meetings (RHL 2026). It’s the first time I’ve been here, and I really like it, I find it very friendly. You, how long have you been supporting the event then?

Lionel: I think it’s what the third fourth time I’ve been here is here. But I think I came when I was in the process… so it’s a bit in this period when I had the idea of freeing the publishing house next to that also it’s starting to mature in my head Be-Bop then I also came to see the local people, because I’m Swiss too, it’s not very far away, who make free software and then that too that I presented the approach behind this liberation of the collection of the This is a conference that is indeed friendly but like most of the free software events I have that I have done. I haven’t been to FOSDEM at the moment, which I thought is very different.

Walid: That’s not friendly.

Lionel: That’s it, but I don’t know, the free software days (JDLL) in Lyon, France, are a comparable atmosphere, a little more people, but here there is this side, it’s also the place that creates the fact that it’s in winter…

Walid: You can’t see but everything around us is snowy so it’s very beautiful. It fell again last night, it’s very beautiful, it gives a special atmosphere.

Lionel: And then, there’s this side a bit, we’re in this big building, between us, there’s space, everything happens in the same place, we sleep in the atomic shelters, for those who sleep there. And it really creates a little behind closed doors for a weekend. It was the first time I slept here, here. Usually, I only came on Saturdays, as they extended the program a little bit. There you go. And yes, it’s nice, free price, good food. You don’t know it yet, but there’s the traditional cheese fondue (laughs).

Walid: We’ll taste that in a few minutes.

Lionel: That’s it. Perfect.

Final Words

Walid: We’re going to say goodbye. I wanted to leave you with a final word. Do you want to pass on a word to the listeners of the Projets Libres podcast?

Lionel: Well yes, we’ve just launched a competition. A PVH Editions creation competition.

Until now, in fact, we have made the first stage of PVH Éditions’ free software rocket, which means that our works are under a free license. But the free license, it really takes on its full meaning and reveals its potential from the moment there is collaboration, when the works respond to each other, where they reinterpret each other, where they share each other. It’s all the same. And that’s something that’s still missing and then we released a novel last November called Le Bastion des Dégradés which is already a collective work, there are 5 authors who wrote this novel together, but it’s not different short stories, it’s really a coherent novel that was made in a collaborative way so also always in coherence with the free software approach.

And then, we got a little more funding than usual for the release of a book. And we’d really like to extend the free license experience related to this novel. And a week ago, we launched two things. There is a wiki of the universe where anyone can come and enrich it, possibly even invent parts of this universe of its history, in short, it’s a tool that is there and that invites collaboration if you want.

And the other is that we launched a creation competition, when we talk about creation it can be writing, it can be music, it can be anything, which takes its inspiration and respects the lore, that is to say the universe posed in the novel in question, The Bastion of Gradients, to help, constraints help creativity. There are five illustrations in the novel that we colored, which you can find on our website. And then, from one of these illustrations, imagine a piece of music, a text, a short story, a comic book, anything. Have fun! And then the price takes place until the beginning of July, I don’t have the exact date in mind anymore but so we give people time to do things. If you make a creation under a free license that takes over, respect that, we’ll make a jury and then there’s a prize of 1500 Swiss francs. The idea is also to be able to reward the people who have contributed, and then we will decide anyway, the “canon” of the universe will be discussed with the authors, and then the works that we like or that fit in, or simply that fit well into the universe, in fact, we will add them to the lore, And we’ll actively work on the promotion, next, it’s music, maybe find a label, I don’t know, we’ll see. The idea is really to launch something that is a universe of contributory fantasy under a free license.

Lionel Jeannerat

If you have ideas, if you have desires, whatever the quality of the works, if you have never written and it makes you want to, go ahead, send it to us, we will read it and then we will be happy to have contributions. As it’s under a free license, so we don’t prevent people from publishing them, so even if it’s creations that we got him before the fateful date, since he has already shared, well, in fact, we’re going to help him be visible, then maybe it will inspire others, well, that’s a little bit of an experiment, we’ll see if it works or not, I’m very excited about this idea.

Walid: great well thank you very much Lionel, good luck and who knows we may talk again on the podcast on another occasion to get the conclusions of this competition.

Lionel: yes there’s that and then I’m also happy to talk to you about Be-Bop

Walid ;: with great pleasure quite

Lionel: And then there will be other opportunities.

Walid: it works, thank you very much, bye bye.

Episode production

• Face-to-face recording at the Rencontres Hivernales du libre in Saint-Cergue (VD) in Switzerland on January 25, 2026
• Editing: Walid Nouh
• Transcript: Walid Nouh

This interview has been automatically translated from the original language into English.

License

This podcast is released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license or later