What comes first — the writing or the publishing? A really bad play on chicken and egg jokes, and a question clearly inspired by the fact that right now in my alternate life as a crofter I’m surrounded by the frantic hatchings of goose and poultry eggs ... (see the Two Ravens Press blog for more details.) But I’m asked surprisingly often what it’s like to be both a writer and a publisher, and whether the one process ever interferes with the other.
I suppose it must – but in many more positive ways than negative. I was a writer before I was a publisher, and wanting to be a publisher stemmed from a frustration with what I perceived to be the conservatism of the UK book market regarding the kind of writing that is deemed to be acceptable and worthy of publication. Not that there’s anything specific wrong with many of the books that are being published – especially in the field in which we operate, literary fiction – but more that there seems to be little room for work that doesn’t fit cosily into a particular genre or category, and that is different from whatever else is out there. This wasn’t a personal frustration as a writer – my own first novel, The Long Delirious Burning Blue, may be literary and complex in its structure, but it’s not especially innovative in form or language.
I do think that being a writer informs my approach to publishing – and, specifically, to working with other authors on their own works of fiction. For example, I understand their concerns about the process of being edited – having a horror myself of anyone insisting that I take out a character, simplify the structure or change an ending ‘for the market’, I’m certainly not going to do it to anyone else! – unless, of course, I believe there’s a serious flaw in the novel from a critical rather than a market-driven perspective. And I don’t mess with an author’s language unless I feel I really have to – to me, the style and language of a novel is an expression of who the author is, not who the editor is. I’m not suggesting that’s the only or the correct approach – there may be authors who are looking for much heavier editorial involvement in their writing – but it’s the way I prefer to work. Interestingly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I choose work that’s like my own in style – and I’ve probably learned more as a writer from work we’ve published that’s actually very different.
So I suppose that having become a publisher does in some ways inform my own writing. Working very closely with manuscripts and talking in some detail to the authors about how and why they create the kind of work they do, watching masters of the art craft a manuscript into submission – all of that is a very fine learning process for a writer. The process of working with a couple of specific authors has encouraged me to experiment with my own voice and with different kinds of writing, and I see that as a process of enrichment rather than interference. I don’t usually find that working with someone else – either with a very different or similar style – on a manuscript bothers me while I’m in the process of writing my own or messes up my own style. It’s a very different compartment of my life, and I find there’s very little that really impinges on the process of writing. Which is like entering into another world (on the good days – if I’m doing it well!) and so relatively free of interference from this world.
Perhaps we’re unusual at Two Ravens Press because we’re writers as well as owners of the business which means that, because it’s a small business, we are kind of jacks-of-all-trades! There are historical examples of such a thing – the Woolfs, for example – but the world of publishing was very very different in those days so it’s hardly the best comparison. But the publishing world is full of editors who are themselves writers, from T.S. Eliot in the good old days at Faber right down to the present day and, for example, the poet Don Paterson who is poetry editor at Picador, and the poet and writer of literary criticism Michael Schmidt, who is editor of Carcanet. I read a comment recently from someone at another independent press – can’t remember who – who suggested that what a writer really wanted from a publisher wasn’t a soul-mate or another writer – they wanted a business person, someone who was going to sell their books and market their books and leave the business of writing to them. And that certainly may be true, for some authors – and I have to say I don’t find the two occupations mutually exclusive – but I think that for writers of poetry and more literary fiction, to whom maintaining the integrity of their work during both the publishing and the marketing process can often be the most important thing, the possibility of working with a publisher who understands their concerns and shares them can be a very comfortable process.
What comes first — the writing or the publishing?
Sharon Blackie
Sharon Blackie’s roots are in the north-east of England and in Edinburgh, though she has travelled all over the world and lived in France, Ireland and America. She is now firmly attached to a lochside croft in the north-west Highlands of Scotland, where she lives with her husband and a growing collection of livestock, and from where they run Two Ravens Press. Originally trained as a neuroscientist, she has worked in a variety of corporate consultancy roles and practiced as a therapist. Once upon a time in the great American south-west she struggled to obtain a pilot’s licence to overcome a fear of flying, which led to the writing of her first novel, The Long Delirious Burning Blue. Sharon is co-editor of Riptide: New Writing from the Highlands and Islands and editor of Cleave: New Writing by Women in Scotland. She is also editor of Corvaceous.