Tag: Self publishing

Please tell us a bit about yourself. 

I’m a secondary school biology teacher who escapes from a busy job and family life by escaping into my small office and writing about fantastical worlds and characters! I’ve been writing seriously for about 13 years or so, and have now published 3 books under my own imprint, Penobi Press. I have two kids, E and X, who are 8 and 3, and quite honestly, way too much for me to handle!

Astra FireStar and the Ripples of Time is your third book. Can you tell us what it’s about?  

Yes! It’s perfect for fans of Dr Who and I pitch it like this:

When new girl and time-fugitive Astra crashes a space-octopus into twelve-year-old Sam’s school, he swaps his unhappy home life for a timeless adventure to the stars. On the run from the time-police, they travel to far-off planets, in space and time, meeting new and unexpected friends, as well as many enemies, and growing a closer friendship than Sam could possibly ever have imagined. But when given a chance to resurrect his dead brother in exchange for Astra’s freedom, he must decide – change his past or forge a new future.  

But at its heart, it’s about loss and grief, and accepting the past and learning to move forward with your life.  

So, you’re a writer and teacher, AND you co-run the Write Mentor Hub and community. Surely you’re using your own time machine to achieve all that?! 

The key to me doing all this is simple: I am not very good at any of it! Seriously, I’m lucky to enjoy and be reasonably competent at a number of things, which I also love, so that Venn diagram intersects nicely across teaching/writing/community building, so I use many of the same skills across each, which make it easier to manage.

In all honesty, I might not still be writing if I hadn’t met lots of like-minded writers back in the early 2010s on Twitter, and so much of what I do is to help others see there’s hope and a wide community of writers there, all in it together, trying to achieve the same goal, and there’s a lot of strength and joy that comes from being a small part of that.

Self-publishing has become much more accessible in recent years, and you’ve been very generous in sharing your experiences. Can you give us your top tips? 

Honestly, I could write a book on this (maybe one day I will!) but the secret is keeping it simple. There’s SO MUCH information out there and so many ways to do it, that it’s best to try, initially, to drown out the noise and do the basics well.

Get a great editor and cover illustrator/designer, talk lots about it (remember you’re just as deserving, if not more so, of shouting about your book than someone who is traditionally published – after all, you’re doing about 3 or 4 times the work they are, so don’t be shy!), and focus on connecting with readers and the gatekeepers to those readers (i.e. school teachers, librarians, parents, grandparents, etc.) to get your books noticed by them. Everything else, and there’s a LOT of everything else, can be worked on later. 

What do you hope your readers will learn or take away from Astra? 

I hope readers have fun and enjoy the adventure. Escapism is something that saved me from the harsh realities of my life when I was younger, and I hope this book can provide that for young people who are finding life hard or don’t have the perfect home situation. I don’t like to bang readers over the head with the theme, but there’s also an important lesson on letting go of your past and forging a new, exciting future for yourself. So many children from underprivileged backgrounds don’t think they can change their stars, and they have to follow the path of those around them and before them. I want Sam and Astra to show them they can do, and go, wherever they want.

Looking to the future (without a time machine), what’s next for WriteMentor? And what new books can we look forward to from you? 

We’ve just announced a partnership with Bonnier Books UK for our awards, and they’re keen to be involved in other things we do, too. They share a similar vision that we do, in that we want to provide opportunities for new voices to share their stories and give children a chance to read those great new voices. But we really do have a lot of pots in the fire, gently warming, and we’ll be continuing to put writers first, and organise things which will best help them to achieve their publishing goals, whatever they are. 

For me personally, I’ve got a Kickstarter coming next year for the next 3 Eva Knight books in the series, with Jen Jamieson, my brilliant cover illustrator, already agreeing to draw those. I’m also working on the sequel to The Nameless, my YA debut, and have an MG diabetic superhero story and YA serial killer thriller set on the moon that I think I will submit to agents in 2024. I’ve also outlined a Scottish Mythology MG which I want to write, but I might not get to that until 2025 (or maybe it will be a secret project that I can work on late at night when no-one is looking!). 

If you had a time machine, where and when would you visit? 

Great question! I always dreamed of being an explorer as a kid, but so much of Earth was already explored and discovered. So I’d maybe go back 200 years or so and set on a mission to one of the poles, or to climb one of the big mountains. Or go the other way, and fast forward into the future and be an astronaut who explores new worlds both within and outwith our Solar System. That would be fun! 

Stuart White

Stuart is an award-winning author and secondary school teacher. He has a Masters Degree in Creative Writing and founded, and now runs, WriteMentor. In 2020 and 2022 he was placed on the SCWBI Undiscovered Voices longlist and named as an Hononary Mention for his novels Ghosts of Mars and Astra FireStar and the Ripples of Time.

In 2023, he won the WriteBlend award for his middle grade debut, Ghosts of Mars. Stuart was included in The Bookseller’s 2021 list of Rising Stars in the publishing industry. He can be found at @StuartWhiteWM on most social media platforms.