Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides is a micropress that specializes in commercially printed children's literature of exceptional quality. The press began as a publisher of letterpress-printed chapbooks and broadsides; this pursuit continues as our secondary publication line. While our handmade publications are intended for older readers, their aesthetic and philosophy infuse our work for children: we bring the careful attention to detail, craftsmanship, playfulness, and beauty of our handmade books to our children’s books.

Our initial focus on writing and writers from, or based in, Newfoundland and Labrador has expanded to include writers from across Canada. We emphasize the stories, folklore, language, history, and diverse traditions of Eastern Canada, but also create beautiful books that engage the richness of wider Canadian culture.

For the most part, the press publishes highly illustrated books. Many of our illustrators come from diverse cultural traditions that inform their work. One of the press's great strengths is its frequent pairing of local tales with artists whose styles reflect an entirely different cultural tradition; this fusion emphasizes the richness of local stories, and underlines their universal/international appeal. Both image and word are richer as a result of these interconnections.

We celebrate the flexibility and beauty of regional dialects and languages to honour the oral traditions central to many of our publications—folktales, fairy lore, recitations, ghost stories.

Our aim is to create beautiful, engaging, playful, quirky, and thoughtful books for children, which also appeal to adults. We believe a good children’s book is a good book, and that the best children’s books are inter-generational, appealing to different ages on different levels. As well, we believe that children’s books are vitally important to the health of our culture and democracy; children are the cultural practitioners of the future—as a children’s publishing company, we present work that helps feed and nurture, challenge, engage, educate, entertain, and delight children as they grow into engaged, informed, and active members of a democratic society.  This is a very serious pursuit, even when expressed through very playful literature.

Running the Goat is a member of the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Atlantic Publishers' Marketing Association, and the Literary Press Group of Canada.