Punk Rock Publishing February 2026

Obviously it all started as a bit of ego trip. I mean, obviously.

You write one short story, you stumble across another and then another idea pops into your head and pretty soon you’re off to the races and start to tell yourself that maybe you’re writing a book now. And why not? I mean, hasn’t new technology and print-on-demand made all of this super easy, barely an inconvenience?

But all that still feels a little… ick.

Truth is, most of the time it’s hard to get people to read things even when they’ve paid you to write them. Asking or expecting people to read things you’ve written just to prove you can, seems especially fraught. Worse still, if this so called book you’re writing spits out of a printer in a warehouse in Slough, with all the tactile quality of a sales conference hand-out, is that really even a book at all?

Frankly, if that’s really what you’re aspiring to, instead of a world class bad pun you might as well embrace the suck and call it my little ego trip.

But then, you remember Rush and Ray Daniels and Moon Records and you're reminded of the original Apple and find yourself contemplating and considering all those other do-it-yourself punk-rock record publishers that allowed bands to step past the bouncers who guarded the industry rope-line, become their own gate-keepers and kick those damn doors down.

‘He’s coming through the door! He didn’t even open it!’

Okay, so that’s just a little over-egged, but you get the idea.

Chrisna didn’t start as my editor and publisher. When I first started talking to her she was simply the grown-up in the room. She works in publishing, she understands the business and I needed some help to work out what I could and could not do with my self-published self-aggrandizement.

My aim was initially clear and obvious. But then, during our early conversations, I asked Chrisna about her own aspirations and ambitions and I’ll confess, I was a little surprised. I come from a world where every commissioning editor secretly wants to be the film-maker, every producer thinks they could and would do a better job of the writing if they weren’t so gosh darn busy ruling the world and everything in it, and every Director assumes the words on the page are just placeholders, holding-space until they get on set and apply their genius to the story. I sort of just assumed someone working in publishing must actually want to be the writer.

Not Chrisna. She loves the business and the process of publishing, she wants to BE a publisher. I mean, I know right? Weird. But also, the fire that lights itself.

My pitch to Chrisna was maybe a little insane, but also kinda simple.

Back in ’73 Rush couldn’t find a record company willing to take a punt on three geeky suburban Canadian kids and the pushy long-haired fella who claimed to be their manager, so they started their own publishing company and released their debut album themselves. Over the years the same has been done by countless ‘punk rock’ outfits, even the ones making jazz, disco and jazz-disco.

So why don’t we set up a publishing house and have Chrisna publish the book? Who knows, maybe from this small seed a mighty Apple tree will grow. And yes, I am kinda positioning myself as The Beatles in that analogy and that sorta makes The Sub[bed]version Anthology my Magical Mystery Tour. And, you know what? I’m alright with that.

Thus, after a long supper and creative name-storm/brain-storm, RogueReads was born.

So now, along with taking on the surprisingly complex and seemingly endless task of over-seeing the sub-editing of my shockingly poor prose and borderline psychotic spelling, Chrisna also assumed the role of editor and overseer to the whole process.

The subbing is its own story and I suspect Tanya Gardiner still wakes up sweating and hyper-ventilating. The book cover design was another journey of discovery, with Chrisna as the adult in the room while Reon Viljoen got on with the finger-painting and I smeared food on the wall-paper.

Then, as this rough beast (slowly) slouched its way to Bethlehem to be born, Chrisna quietly and diligently set about turning the whole thing into something that very much resembled a book. Our book. The first book of what I hope will be many.

And no, that’s not me threatening a terrified world with more of my own fevered scribblings, it’s me very much hoping Chrisna’s faith, hard work and actual passion for publishing is rewarded with more hard work, more belligerent baby writers and more opportunities to be and remain pure punk.