<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/22/australia-publishing-industry-releasing-books-too-quickly>
"A Sydney author – I’ll call her Rebecca – vowed never to write another book
after the deranging experience of publishing her first. She’s using a pseudonym
because one day she might change her mind; the notoriously small Australian
publishing industry does not tend to look with favour on authors who complain.
When Rebecca was proofing her debut – a work of nonfiction published by one of
the big five – she discovered that a pivotal chapter had been cut. “I thought
it was a mistake, that it had somehow been left out of the papers they’d sent,”
she says. “Turns out they’d deliberately excised it and thought I wouldn’t
notice.”
The proposed cover art for the book, which was set in one country, featured an
animal native to another – and when the book went to a copy editor, the
questions Rebecca got back were “absolutely out of touch”. References to
hunting were queried on the basis they might offend vegetarians. Big mistakes
slipped through the first print run and needed to be corrected in the second,
including the name of a major character, which changed suddenly halfway
through. “I’d assumed the publisher would take care of these things,” Rebecca
says. “It felt like they were trying to shove me out the door and get the book
out.”
Her story is alarming but not uncommon in Australia’s publishing industry,
which on the whole seems hellbent on getting books to market as quickly as
possible. Some authors, like Rebecca, get stuck in a production schedule that
makes no sense to them. “There was always the next deadline looming,” she says.
“I felt like they were trying to pressure me to just roll with it.”
Other books get on the fast track to take advantage of Christmas sales or the
news cycle – but not many go to market faster than
The Mushroom Tapes did
last year. Erin Patterson was found guilty of murder in July – the same month
it was announced that Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein were
working on a book about the trial. Just four months later,
The Mushroom Tapes
was published. As with many nonfiction books that are chasing a news cycle, the
authors probably spent more time touring the book than they did writing it.
Media attention was lavished on
The Mushroom Tapes, which remained on
prominent display in bookshops months after release – but most authors aren’t
so lucky, struggling to make their books visible in a crowded market."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
