Publishing

‘is this book worth reading? A book review—while it can be many things—is not really a review unless it offers some form of explicit or implicit evaluation in a way that meaningfully answers this question.’

If you are a writer, or know one, there is no doubt you would have heard the statement ‘My book could have done better but the marketing was crap.’ The romance of publishing a book is alive and well and regularly clouds the reality of having achieved significantly with one’s labour and imagination (and a supportive publisher). Publishing a book rarely changes one’s life – but it can break your heart if you expect it will.

‘Australia’s critical culture is a living culture, constituted moment-to-moment by many interdependent parts, the decline of which has been exaggerated.’

The invention of electronic mailing lists made it possible for Australian poets to talk to poets from everywhere, and to talk to each other.

The Two Cultures debate has no right or wrong conclusion. That is, while there are right and wrong things in it, the scope, shape and intensity of the exchange permits no final verdict. It is about beliefs, outlooks, potential, promise, what my father used to call in an admonishing way ‘character’.

Oppression and control of writers and literature has been a standard measure of social and cultural life in Cambodia for a thousand years at least, but since the last elections in 2013 there has been the appearance of change.

Personally I can’t imagine anyone writing about New Zealand literature without mentioning that New Zealand is defined by its biculturalism.

‘Anyone in the publishing department, or indeed the whole company, could put forward a publishing idea. Brian would always ask, “How many and how much?”. While Penguin always had very efficient marketing and sales departments, an essential for a successful publishing machine, Brian through his vast network of contacts could not only tap into potential authors but also do his own very personal brand of marketing by “talking his books up” in influential places.’ Bruce Sims on Brian Johns.

There is at least a forty-year history of reports into the Australian book industry, starting with that of the Australian Book Trade Working Party in 1975. Has everything gone to pot since then? Not quite. New research from Macquarie University shows that local publishers are adapting to a rapidly changing marketplace for books, writes, Craig Munro.

‘It’s been my experience that the Australian literary world and the journalists who cover it overlook the more complex perspectives and needs of those who are marginalised in our literary communities.’ Michelle Cahill on the myopia of the current arts funding debate.