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Driscoll, Beth; Mannion, Aaron
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112093pmid: N/A
This article introduces a collection of essays arising from the Small Press Network’s Independent Publishing Conference, an event that brings together publishing professionals from Australia and academics working in the nascent discipline of publishing studies. These essays address the role of small publishers within the globalized publishing industry. Australian small presses enjoy considerable success both culturally and financially, but also encounter structural disadvantages – such as geographical distance and competition from corporations based in larger nations – that are not necessarily dismantled by the digitization of book culture. Yet, as some of the essays highlight, independent Australian publishers have embraced the new digital, global context to overcome their limitations of size and reach, particularly in the area of marketing, interactive relationships, and design. Other essays suggest the resistance small publishers can present to new global orders, whether it be the stalwart resistance of little magazines to a homogeneous public discourse or the work of publishers who provide a platform for voices that are otherwise marginalized or silenced. The collection reveals an independent Australian publishing sector that is nimble, experimental, community minded, and merits the close attention of both scholars and the broader publishing industry.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112094pmid: N/A
How have book marketing, publicity, and retailing changed with the dominance of the internet? Clearly, e-commerce has altered who the major players are: battles between market-dominating Amazon and its various retail and publishing adversaries are well documented. But, more pervasively, how has the rise of the digital literary sphere changed the whole manner in which books are ‘sold’ to potential readers, not only in the sense of a commercial transaction, but in the broader sense of ‘selling’ readers on the idea of bookishness? Examining innovations in digital book marketing such as book trailers and blog tours, this article explores how the digital literary sphere is transforming notions of contemporary book community. It probes whether existing theories and methods for studying the contemporary literary ecosystem are adequate to account for these new realities.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112095pmid: N/A
This paper demonstrates how involving a designer from the start of a publishing project can shift the way books are conceived and produced. It references Gerard Genette’s paratextual theory to explain how designers might transition from generating the material paratext for a book (cover and internal design/typesetting) to collaborating with writers on the development of the primary text (the content of the book). Using the print-on-demand book Analogue Bodies as a case study, the article describes how emerging digital communication, design, and production tools allow designers to collaborate with writers in more experimental ways.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112096pmid: N/A
In the contemporary book-publishing industry, technological change has resulted in changes to the role of the author in book promotion, facilitating a shift in the author–reader relationship. Such developments are especially evident in genres with active online communities, such as the speculative fiction genres. This paper examines the results of an anonymous online survey of 396 speculative fiction readers and authors, composed of a total of 45 questions including both multiple choice and open-ended, long-answer questions. In a time of general uncertainty in the publishing industry, the results provide insight into the field, the author–reader interactions within it, and the influence of various aspects of author persona on readers’ reading and purchasing behaviour. The paper also explores conflict in the contemporary speculative fiction field, utilizing Pierre Bourdieu’s theories regarding hierarchized fields of cultural production and the struggles for various forms of capital inherent to them. Drawing on the results of this survey, this paper argues that, in the current publishing environment, factors such as an author’s persona, online behaviour, political or social views, and role in prominent genre controversies can have significant impacts on readers’ reception of their work, both explicitly and implicitly.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112097pmid: N/A
The future of the book has been the subject of contentious discussion and debate for decades. As concepts and definitions of ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ continue to evolve, the general concept of literacy in a participatory culture is undergoing a paradigm shift. The subsequent revolution in reading will require examination by authors—particularly those who write for the generations of young adults (YAs) born into, and consumed by, technology—of the increasing demand for multimodal textual experiences, so that they may diversify their writing skill set and remain relevant to the demographic for whom they write.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112098pmid: N/A
In this essay, I argue that Australian literary magazines are—and should be—primarily sites of dissent. But I also recognize that literary magazines sit on the fringes of the Australian national conversation and that relatively few Australian readers engage with them. I see dissent as a constructive and essential element of Australia’s imperfect capitalist liberal democracy and civil society and as a constructive and essential element of the way Australians seek to understand—or avoid seeking to understanding—the place of Australia in the world. Literary magazines rightly sit on fringes, and yet their minimal exposure to the mainstream is troubling and limiting.
doi: 10.1163/1878-4712-11112099pmid: N/A
Bibliodiversity is a complex self-sustaining system of storytelling, writing, publishing, and other kinds of production of orature and literature. Writers and producers are comparable to the inhabitants of an ecosystem. Bibliodiversity contributes to a thriving life of culture and a healthy ecosocial system. Global capitalism is destroying the planet and making it increasingly difficult to think differently. When the social habitat is overrun by monocultures of the mind, there is a loss of dynamic balance. Those who do have something new or different to say will be ignored, marginalized, or silenced.
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