A Sydney author – I’ll call her Rebecca – vowed never to write another book after the maddening experience of publishing her first book. She is using a pseudonym because one day she may change her mind; The notoriously small Australian publishing industry does not view complaining authors with favour.
When Rebecca was proofreading her first film – a work of nonfiction published by one of the Big Five – she discovered that a crucial chapter had been cut out. “I thought it was a mistake, that it had somehow been left out of the papers they sent,” she says. “Turns out they had deliberately exaggerated it and thought I wouldn’t notice it.”
The proposed cover art for the book, which was set in one country, featured an animal native to another country – and when the book went to a copy editor, the questions Rebecca received were “absolutely incomprehensible”. References to hunting were questioned on the grounds that they might offend vegetarians. Major mistakes were made in the first print run and needed to be corrected in the second, including a major character’s name suddenly changing midway through. “I assumed the publisher would take care of these things,” says Rebecca. “It felt like they were trying to push me out the door and get the book out.”
His story is worrying but not unusual in Australia’s publishing industry, which by and large seems bent on getting books to market as quickly as possible. Some writers, like Rebecca, get stuck in a production schedule that doesn’t make sense to them. “There was always the next deadline looming,” she says. “I felt like they were trying to pressure me to get on with it.”
Other books go out quickly to take advantage of Christmas sales or the news cycle – but not many books came to market faster than The Mushroom Tapes last year. Erin Patterson was found guilty of murder in July. It was announced the same month 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 is the case with many non-fiction books that follow the news cycle, the authors probably spent more time touring the book than writing it.
Media attention went to The Mushroom Tapes, which remained on prominent display in bookshops for months after its release – but most authors are not so lucky, struggling to get their books visible in the crowded market.
Alan Sheardown of Perth’s New Edition Books admits the problem of a crowded market is not new. “If anything, I’m being shown a little less books than I used to… but I’m always shown more books than I can stock. I have to make decisions about what I want to support, and what I feel can sell.”
Award lists, BookTok and reviews help her sort the boxes that arrive, and she and her staff read as much as they can but it’s impossible to remember them all. His belief is that it is difficult for “new and unusual voices” to break through because of the enormous economic pressures not only on Australian authors but on everyone working in the local book industry.
Those pressures are multidimensional. While the establishment of Writing Australia Overdue support offered to one chronically underfunded industry, Printing costs continue to rise Even though book prices remain largely the same; no surprise We have lost too many independent publishers. we lost Lots of independent bookshops tooWhich can’t compete with the prices of Amazon and big-box discount stores. Leading industry figures, including Richard Flanagan, are calling for government intervention in the form of price-fixing measures common in Europe.
In a stressed industry, product is given priority over process. I’ve been working as a critic and editor in Australia for over 20 years and the story I hear from people working in the industry is that they’re being asked to do more with less and do it more quickly.
NielsenIQ Bookdata provided to the Guardian in December recorded more than 9,400 Australian print books scheduled for publication in 2024 – that number includes spiral bound-books, self-published books, textbooks and foreign imports re-released with Australian ISBNs. This does not include self-published e-books, which is an area of huge growth. According to Nielsen, the 2024 numbers were actually down 7% on average over the past 10 years – but there is somewhat of a consensus in the industry that we are still publishing more books than we need, and putting them out so fast that the quality of Australian literature is deteriorating.
Talk to authors, talk to awards judges, talk to critics and editors and you’ll hear versions of the same story: amazing books are being written and published in Australia, but too many get hit the market too quickly. What could have been excellent books are spoiled by shoddy copy editing, glaring errors, cursory proofreading – and, in some cases, a clear lack of revision.
“I felt sorry for my editor,” says Rebecca. “She was clearly stressed and dealing with the expectations of her managers.”
Alice Grundy, managing editor of Australia Institute Press and a scholar of Australian publishing, says the experience of Rebecca and her editor is not unusual. He has noted complaints about publishing timelines over the past two decades and observed that the desire for a faster turnaround of books has resulted in “shortened timelines” for every aspect of production. Grundy’s Research also found Complaints about pressured schedules and poor production standards are perennial features of Australian publishing.
Publishers and low-paid editorial staff are under pressure to get books ready on a tight schedule – and publicists are often tasked with promoting several titles in a month. They can’t give each book the same amount of attention, which means many writers have the frustrating experience of spending years working on a book that almost immediately disappears from view once it’s published. Grundy says that “it makes no sense to limit book publishing to the same timeframes as other media”. She questions why publishers are rushing printing deadlines, when “the point of a book is of course that it takes time to create and read”.
Researchers Julien van Loon, Bronwyn Cote and Millicent Weber have tracked What he calls the “life cycle” of many Australian books, trying to figure out how new releases accrue different types of value. On his findings, Van Loon writes that new titles typically get three months on bookstore shelves: “If the title does not move within that window, it disappears – usually returned or left – in some cases never to be seen again.” And yet the research team found that nationally significant books, including Behruz Boochani’s No Friend But the Mountains (2018) and Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu (2014), took longer to gain popularity than the allotted three months. Culturally valuable books take time to connect with readers: “There are a lot of things we don’t yet know, and probably never will understand, about the complex and layered ways in which local books contribute to our cultural, social, educational, and personal vitality.”
Another local author – I’ll call him Lee – is still reeling from the experience of promoting his book, which was published by an independent press in 2025. He was sent the promotional copy while it was still in production and he vetoed it. “I thought it was written by AI,” he says. “It completely misrepresented my novel and made it sound like it was written for a children’s audience.” He rewrote the copy with the publisher but an early version was sent, defining the reception of his book. “It completely undermined my ability to talk about the book on my own terms. It was very embarrassing.”
Jennifer Mills is the author of the Miles Franklin-longlisted novels airways and its follow up, rescue. “For me, the writing process is an exploration of ideas and cannot be rushed,” she says.
Mills, who is also the future president of the Australian Society of Authors, takes three to six years to write a book; She considers it equivalent to a part-time job.
“Writers are never paid for our labor,” says Mills. “We are paid for the product, and the reality is that there are small publishing and promotional events for each book.”
She points to the important role of independent bookstores, including New Editions, in fostering a community of readers australian books. As the space for reviews of new books in particular is shrinking, “authors are really dependent on community, on word-of-mouth recommendation, and on the genuine enthusiasm of independent booksellers who sell books to readers”.
Research commissioned by Creative Australia in 2022 found that the average Australian writer earns just $18,200 per year From his writings. Advances and royalties are a significant component of that income – and yet royalties are out of reach for authors until they’ve earned their advance, and that’s only possible if the books sell. This results in an increasing expectation that authors participate in the promotion of their books, often without payment – which not all authors are comfortable doing.
While a few big publishers have flooded the market In the hope that at least one title will sell well enough to cover the costs of the rest, smaller publishers, motivated by different publishing values, are looking for alternatives.
Emily Riches is the publisher of Enico Press, one of many independent newcomers to the Australian scene. In 2025 it published its first book, slipA collection of short stories by Melbourne author Miriam Webster.
“You feel a little immersed,” Riches says, “and you want to identify with the book you’ve put so much time, effort and faith into.”
Riches worked with Webster on the collection for three years, collecting and editing the stories. “When I was doing it, I didn’t have any other books,” she says. “I did it all from scratch.”
Riches sees no value in rushing the next Aniko Press book to market. After all, she says, “we want to publish good books, and take care of the process. You want to see your book read widely, but really you want to see it read by people who will care about it.”
Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart are its founders Pink Shorts Press, a new small publisher Located in Adelaide. They take a similar approach to Aniko Press, asking readers to trust their instincts. She has republished two novels by leading Adelaide writer Barbara Hanrahan, as well as an extensive and abridged list of South Australian writers. “Publishing is not a data-rich industry,” says Lloyd. “You would think we would have clear ideas about which books connect with which readers, but we don’t.”
If column space, sold-out events, and bookstore displays are anything to go by, the authors and publishers of The Mushroom Tapes were richly rewarded for publishing a newsworthy book so quickly. But the future of Australian literature cannot lie in books being written and published so quickly; This is not sustainable for authors or publishers.
Getting books into the hands of readers who actually want to read them requires a more nuanced approach. If speed is the price of quality, the risk is that readers – overwhelmed by likes and promotion, frustrated by books rushed to market and distracted by other media – will simply stop caring.
