Let’s not choose sides by Aliya Whiteley

This week, my guest blogger at Muskets and Monsters is Aliya Whiteley, author of Witchcraft in the Harem (out now from Dog Horn publishing)

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I should be writing something here about how great small publishers are, but that’s not what I want to write.

Although I should start by admitting that my publisher, Dog Horn, is doing a brilliant job. My collection of short stories, Witchcraft in the Harem, was properly edited, and there’s been a big effort made towards marketing, both online and in the real world. I suggested an idea for the cover and Dog Horn made it happen, and I love it. There’s even going to be a launch event at Victoria Library, London, on Monday May 13. At six pm I’ll read a story from the collection and thank everyone who got the book out there, particularly my publisher. It’ll be a fun night, made possible by people who are passionate about getting good books to a wider audience.

But the truth is, I’ve had a similar experience with a large publisher. My first two novels, Three Things About Me and Light Reading, were published by Macmillan, and there were launch parties and input on the cover and brilliant editors. I enjoyed feeling cherished by such a prestigious organisation, for the short time when I was a more commercial writer. But then I realised I didn’t want to be a crime novelist, and I discovered that literary fantasy doesn’t really fit with the big boys, so we went our separate ways. And I’m glad. But I found the editors, cover designers and marketers to be equally as passionate as the small press people.

And, to round off the trilogy, I’ve had the same experience with self-publishing. I’ve released some of my work, in particular my first novella Mean Mode Median, as an e-book. I’ve been edited by good friends, and I’ve proofread my own work. It was great to get the work out there, and own it in a way I hadn’t before. My friends and I are passionate about writing too. And I think that’s the key ingredient to modern publishing – believing in what you’re doing, no matter where you fit in the big picture.

I’m not sure why I’m meant to advocate one of these methods over another. Doesn’t that belong to another age of publishing, when we were meant to think of big publishers as the pinnacle, and everything else as dross? That wasn’t even true fifty years ago, and it’s certainly not true now. My publishing career isn’t set in stone. I’m not one type of writer, so one type of publishing is not going to fit me.

I don’t think we’re entering a new age of publishing so much as giving up the fixed ideas we had about what writing is, and what an author is. It suits the commercial aspect to claim that writers write only in one genre, so you know when you pick up a book by them that you’ll be getting crime, or romance, or the same plot recycled over and over again. This idea is so powerful that writers end up taking pseudonyms for each aspect of their writing.

I’ve never wanted to do that. I don’t believe people need to be signposted and corralled to that extent. They can read the first page rather than make a decision based on the name and the colour of the cover. Big publishing traditionally gets the book out to as many people as possible, but small press and self-publishing allows for less straitjacketed prose. They free the writer to create in whatever direction they wish, and that’s better for creative ability. It’s also good for the reader. Make your buying choices based on what you like, not on what you’re told you like by a marketing department.

So I don’t choose a side. I want to write in the direction that calls to me, and right now it’s fantasy. Dog Horn sees something good in that, and are applying their passion to getting it out there. Publishing is more about choice than ever before.

You, as a reader, don’t have to choose a side either. You don’t have to buy the new crime novel with a black cover or the new historical romance with the woman in a pretty dress on the cover. You can if you want to. Those books can a really good read. I hope you try the first page before you buy, though. Put faith in the prose.

My stories are really good reads too. Maybe just not what you were expecting. Choices can lead you to surprising places sometimes. That’s the best thing about them.

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Aliya blogs extensively on Still Writing in Longhand; Witchcraft in the Harem is available from all good bookstores now. 

Lavie Tidhar, author of the award winning Osama, described reading the book as ‘being waterboarded by an angel. Shocking, heartbreaking and laugh-out-loud funny, this is some of the best writing I’ve ever seen. If you like Aimee Bender or Etgar Keret, you will love Witchcraft in the Harem.'

Paper Planes to the Moon

"Can you read this?
Then paper planes is for you ..."

So says the back cover for Sandcastles on the Moon.

And what an amazingly simple idea Paper Planes is. The mission statement from its creator is found on the inside of each book:

"Paper Planes is for anyone who wants to read a good story.

Our objective is to offer a new style of book: modern English Literature for an international audience.

When you read this story, it is not important that you understand every word. Relax, continue reading, and let the author take you on a voyage.

We hope you enjoy the flight.

- Rupert Morgan"


Last year, Rupert approached me to write a science fiction novella for Paper Planes, part of Editions Didier (which is part of Hachette Livre). No arm twisting was required to accept the commission. The money was good, sure. Hell, any money is good when you're a fledgling writer, but that wasn't it at all.

It's this, I guess, summed up by my own experiences:

When I was about ten years old, I picked up my parents' copy of Frank Herbert's Dune, a doorstop of a book that would be intimidating to adult readers let alone a child. What drew me to the book in the first place was the elegant cover by Bruce Pennington, but also the blurb, a story about battles and adventures on a far away planet. The perfect adventure story for a boy fed on a diet of Star Wars and Star Trek, and Flash Gordon. I turned the first page and started out on what was an incredible adventure, perhaps the first adult adventure of my young life.

It took me months to read it. Much longer than it took my friends to read the Hobbit, but then this wasn't a race, or even a marathon. It was an adventure. And the best adventures tend to be like wines, they take time to mature, and then to savour. In my case, I had to concentrate on every word, because there was much I did not understand. For a nine year old there is much about Dune that feels like it is written in a foreign language. The names for example (Muad'Dib, Thufir Hawat, the Bene Gesserit), were completely alien and unlike anything else I had read or heard of. The religions, philosophies, reference to other worlds and the language spoken, was confusing; but far from bewildering me, I was awed, believing I was somehow learning something important, albeit fictional. For the year or so I read Dune, I was being educated again, but lovingly so.

From Dune, I read Brian Stableford, Michael Moorcock, Stephen King and on and on. I graduated with Frank Herbert's book and never did I let those fancy words (pretentious or author-created) stop me from enjoying a book or even intimidating me. The language of story-telling is universal, and that's why Paper Planes appeals to me. Yes, being able to read English is required, but having a fluent grasp of the written word is not a pre-requisite to enjoying the books Editions Didier publishes. You can get by with not knowing every word. In fact, you might even enjoy it more, revelling in the exotic sentences, the nuance of alien words, even looking up those that are not familiar but somehow appeal so that you might use them yourself someday. It all comes down to the story though, and that's what Paper Planes is: the story stripped down to story-telling.

Even though this is aimed at an international audience, I realised recently that it isn't just about a French student learning English, or a German student or Spanish student. Its about anyone learning about stories regardless of how they come upon them or how they are written. Like me, reading Dune, or even the pages of Metal Hurlant (French original version of Heavy Metal), the words are there to be looked up, absorbed, even by English students.

My own novella, Sandcastles on the Moon, is written for people who like stories. It is written for people who will at nine years old or even thirty years old or sixty, will pick up a copy of Dune for the first time, because they like the blurb, they like the cover and they believe they will have an adventure, and it doesn't matter who they are or where the come from.

And if you still want persuading, here's the blurb to the Sandcastles on the Moon:
"The moon of Prollyx is lifeless, but rich in mineral deposits. Hemmingway Goode and his family join a group of pioneers, hoping to make their fortune there. But the moon is no place for humans.
The prospectors have made a terrible mistake.The question now is how many will survive?

From the imagination of science-fiction author Matt Curran comes a story rich in tension, poetry and horror..."

And there are plenty of other books to choose from too, if science fiction is not your bag. So then, what do you have to lose?

"Can you read this?
Then Paper Planes is for you ...!"

Damn right.

(Sandcastles on the Moon is released through Paper Planes, Didier Editions in paperback+MP3 audio download, 22nd May).