Monday, June 01, 2009

The differences

The differences between Australian and US publishing sneak up on me, and startle me. I have a hard time getting my head around the Spring/Fall system of seasonal publishing. US publishers are surprised that we don't publish in season but by month - continuously. The seasonal system does iron out some monthly ups and downs, and makes catalogue production a whole lot easier. 

There's also a love of imprints over here. They proliferate. Some branded with an editor's name. I guess its a response to having a much bigger market. 

And there's the distinction between hardback and paperback imprints. And comes across as quite a gap. Upstairs, downstairs.

And there's no half-way house of the trade paperback.

2 comments:

Fiona Leonard said...

what would be very exciting is to see small markets like Australia leverage an online presence to challenge international industry control.

Perhaps it is time for organisations like the Australia Council to put money into moving the Australian publishing industry ahead of the game through funding innovative technology.

Andrew's red dog blog said...

I thought that online presence would favor small market. Now I'm beginning to wonder. It's easier to trace territorial copyright by tracking IP addresses in the digital world, and therefore claim territorial copyright but authors and publishers need legislation to protect and support them. But the legislative trend (for example the Productivity Commission review of the Australian legislation defending territorial copyright - http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/study/books) is to open small markets in the name of the efficiency (though the bigger markets maintain and reinforce their fences). I would like to see the legislation reinforced by online booksellers being required to sell the Australian edition as first choice. It would be good to see the Australia Council explore what legislative and other means would support the industry.