About Us
Silverfish Books is no more
After 23 years we have called it a day, no longer able to take the 12-hour days, 7-day weeks with no holidays. Covid-19 made it not worth fighting for.
We now work 5-day weeks, 10.00am to 7.00pm, take public holidays off and open on Saturdays only with appointments.
Pakka is focussed on publishing. Our mission remains the same, to develop Malaysian writing, but we no longer offer traditional publishing, only cost-effective (bespoke, custom or boutique, DIY -- call it what you want) self publishing.
There are too many sharks out there to ripoff newbies with second-rate products and give self-publishing a bad name. Pakka is here to give you advice on transparent, quality and cost effective publishing solutions and marketing advice. It's in our interest to advice writers on how to recover their cost and not let them drown in their pipe dreams. (We prefer customers to return!).
Having said that, we have encountered authors not at all interested in the marketing aspect; they prefer to give away their books.
Besides design and publishing, we also offer comprehensive editing services: structural, content, copy, style and proofing for those who want to make their books look professional and of international standard. Ghost writing is another thing we'd like to do in future
Another role we hope to resume soon is the Pakka Writing Workshop. We hate the word "creative writing" because we believe there's no such thing; it's only a marketing gimmick used by universities and colleges to sell their MFA degrees. Writing is hard work for the well disciplined. Sorry, there's no snake oil involved.
There's good storytelling and there's skilful writing; put them together and there's dynamite. (One can help someone with poor language skills, but no one can fix a bad story.)
We also plan to organise book events, literary festivals, and exhibitions.