(Original blog date: 11/11/09)

I am first and foremost a writer. An artist. I stay up nights working and don’t get up until well past noon. Those who inspire me are those who lost everything in their desire to live intense, authentic lives. Lives not lived with a masochistic need for pity, quite the opposite. Lives lived with a hunger for the kind of respect and independence the artist has never had in modern utilitarian Western societies. Business-people don’t inspire me. Nor do writers and publishers who talk of money.

Kerouac, Henry Miller, Rimbaud, Baudelaire. These are the ones that make me dream. Publishing is a battle that I have thrust upon myself only because I don’t do it as a business. I run it as well as I can. And it is tough work. But I don’t think of it as a ‘business’ the way most business courses demand that you think of a money-making enterprise. Everything I do is done the same way: with an inspired do-or-die rashness, never a calmly reflected ‘let’s-sit-back-and-churn-the-numbers’ kind of poise.

I created Revenge Ink with my brother Gopal because I didn’t find the kind of publisher out there that I liked. CS Lewis said famously that he wrote the Narnia books because he couldn’t find the kind of children’s books that he would have liked to read. Well what’s good for CS is good for me.

But I miss writing now that I’ve taken on publishing. It doesn’t flow as freely as Bukowski would say, because emails flood in and business needs must be met. Who knew things would take off for us as they have? But fantastic writers send in material everyday and samples must be read, writers contacted, covers designed, printers paid.

It is a tough but thrilling business. Why? Because I never think of it as a ‘business.’ I think of Revenge Ink as a boat out into the unknown. The kind King Arthur or the pharaohs of Egypt were buried in, to take their souls into the afterlife.

Publishing is a kind of afterlife for me. As a writer. And when I was only a writer, I had a certain kind of passive awareness of the world of publishing. It was this passivity that allowed publishers to take control and dictate terms to writers like me. Like you. The view that we all need to be governed, taught, led and told what to do all the time (for our own good) is what keeps us down like bored sheep. But I believe every one of us has untold capacities. Which never express themselves unless we are forced to use them. When I was a child and forced to do PE, I hated running. As I got older, I have developed a passion for running. But only because I do it myself. Without any coach telling me what I should or shouldn’t do.

Guides, yes. Helpers, by all means. Leaders, sure. Bosses? No.

A spirit of rebellious initiative is what we all need. From and for our own selves. I don’t believe in monopolies. I don’t believe in a few stars eclipsing the many. There’s plenty to go around. We can all be fulfilled, well-fed and happy.

Well that should suffice by way of an introduction. I hope you like our books, not only mine but all the others we have on sale here and will continue to publish in the future. We have some exciting authors coming up next season. We put every single blood vessel of faith and belief into every single one of our books. I make no difference between my books and those of others. It’s what makes us different. And difference is what makes for a happier society.

Let’s drink to that!