‘Freight is the silent killer’: Local publishers react to wave of indie takeovers
As a wave of high-profile acquisitions stokes uncertainty about the future of Australian books, South Australian indie publishers respond to the current challenges and opportunities.
From ‘cosy crime’ to ‘romantasy’, the publishing industry is often driven by trends. The news last week that Penguin Random House would acquire long-running independent publisher Text Publishing, however, has prompted fresh concerns about a troubling new pattern: corporate takeovers.
On January 22, Text’s publisher and co-owner Michael Heyward announced a deal to sell to the multinational — itself the product of a 2013 merger between Penguin and Random House — for an undisclosed sum. It was just the latest Australian indie to sell out to one of publishing’s biggest fishes in the last six months.
In August 2024, Simon & Schuster announced its acquisition of Affirm Press — which scored a global hit with Adelaide author Pip Williams’ bestselling The Dictionary of Lost Words, and last month published Verity Laughton’s successful stage adaptation. In September, family-owned Sydney publisher Pantera Press was also acquired by Hardie Grant.
Overseas, the question of industry consolidation saw an American judge reject a proposed merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster worth US$2.2 billion as anti-competitive.
While Heyward has said the Text deal includes a charter of independence, the news has raised fresh concerns about the health of Australia’s publishing industry, and the local literary talent it puts into print.
Michael Bollen, director of Adelaide-based Wakefield Press, tells InReview that he wasn’t surprised by the news. Like many industries, Bollen says the consecutive toll of the global pandemic followed by inflation, high interest rates, and a “cost-of-living crisis” has impacted both publishers and the book-buying public.
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“That can be seen in the spectacular rise and fall of the mighty Australian e-tailer Booktopia, which had become masterly in the complex business of sourcing and supplying books ‘on demand’ from every Australian publisher and distributor, big and small.
“While everyone in the trade was left out of pocket, including retail customers, a less-mentioned disruption was the lack of regular sales, and hence income, in months before and during the administration. Fortunately, signs are showing promise of revival under Booktopia’s new owners.”
Bollen says that publishing remains a risky industry with high input costs, from the vast unseen labour and time that goes into every book, to the cost of getting them to bookshops and readers. “Freight is the silent killer,” Bollen says.
Wakefield Press director Michael Bollen. Photo: Tony Lewis
“[There’s] a lot of financial capital that goes into creating something that might create enormous cultural capital, and if you’re lucky it might sell 25,000 copies… but it could also be 500. It needs people taking risks, people investing.”
Bollen echoes Monash University lecturer and cultural commentator Ben Eltham, who told The Guardian that, “Publishing isn’t a great money maker – like a lot of other cultural businesses, they’re not that great surviving in the ruthless private sector.”
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Bollen says that publishers whose focus lies outside the national markets on the East Coast are, for better or worse, immune to such takeovers. But it does pose challenges for South Australian stories, particularly in a state that lacks an established university press or publicly funded publisher.
“Strange for a place that trumpets its status as the nation’s cultural capital,” he adds.
While some owners are eyeing the exit, there are still new indie publishers stepping in to the market. Pink Shorts Press is a new Adelaide-based publisher launched last year by co-founders Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart, with distribution by Simon & Schuster. The pair met while working at Wakefield Press over a decade ago, and have since worked with publishers including Text and Hardie Grant. Lloyd tells InReview that these latest buyouts speaks to the value of independent publishing.
“From our point of view, we’re not surprised that the value of Pantera, Affirm and Text has been acknowledged by bigger companies looking to acquire their stellar lists, but the flow-on effects of these acquisitions will be considerable for the industry as a whole.” she says.
“Independent publishers are normally more likely to publish genre-bending or non-traditional work and support unknown writers. With three major independents now swallowed into much larger companies, there will be a smaller pool for new and unconventional writers to publish in.”
Pink Shorts Press co-founders Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart. Photo: Bri Hammond / Supplied
The pair’s first title, a reissue of Barbara Hanrahan’s 1974 novel Sea Green, will launch in March with more releases planned for August. As they embark on this new chapter, the pair say the current landscape also brings opportunities for publishers willing to take the risk.
“As a new publishing house, we’re finding there’s no shortage of incredible writing coming out of Australia (and South Australia specifically!), and we’re sure more of this interesting work will be coming our way,” Lloyd says.
“But we’re also very aware of the importance of collectivisation in our industry, and the whole ecosystem relies on there being enough small publishers that we can advocate for ourselves as a group.”
With new publishers like Pink Shorts Press taking the leap, Bollen doesn’t see these latest acquisitions as a “death knell” for the industry — but it’s still not easy.
“Every couple of years, the rumour goes out that books are about to die, if not dead already. But books are a beast that always bites back.”