Introduction A publishing house is a cultural site. It is producing beacons for the culture. If they’re all pale flickering little candles they will just go out. They have to shine a light strongly and impress people with a kind of lead that they are taking. […] Independence of mind is vital for publishing and is something that is not a sure thing, in a sense is different from what is going on and will change it. It’s like putting the mutant gene out there for the evolution (Yowell int. 1998). This study largely explores local independent book commissioning and acquisitions culture in Australia from 1970 to 2000. Given the centuries-old history of the book and book production, the last three decades would seem insignificant, if it weren’t for fundamental shifts that have taken place in the book publishing industry over the past 30 years. Individual and collective identities, within public and publishing cultures, have shifted to reflect social, political, economic and technological change. These changes have occurred partly in response to rapid growth within a global market economy operating within a consummate acquisitions environment. Over time, powerful multinational publishers and other non-publishing corporations have systematically acquired many viable local independent publishing companies and absorbed their lists. A deregulated industry that fluctuates according to the ups and downs of global market economies, now defines the unstable environment in which all commissioning editors and publishers function. While trends in publishing have always been predominantly organised around commercial incentives and cultural principles, particular areas, such as sales and marketing, have become the driving force. The resilience and adaptability of smaller companies operating within particular economies of scale has consequently become more difficult to maintain. In a world where economic rationalism has taken hold and authors and content are commodified for a mass market, the role of editors and publishers in making ideas and issues accessible to Australians as cultural filters and agents for social change has never been more important, or more vulnerable. The overarching aim of the research is to identify and underpin the role of those individuals who commission and acquire content. The editors and publishers who participated in my research spoke of their cultural role in various ways: to ‘fight for the place of the book and to keep it central to how the company operates, maintaining quality rather than quantity’ (Cunningham int. 1998); to ‘make a commitment to what you do and to contribute to a certain tolerance, opening up the range of debate’ (Hale int. 1998); to ‘maintain the spark and to keep the cutting edge alive in defining – 1 – the culture and recording history’ (Coffey int. 1998); to ‘focus on the future of Indigenous people’ (Bin Salleh int. 1998); to ‘promote good Australian authors and to see their work travel, always working within a social context’ (Weiss int. 1998); ‘being out there and amongst it in whatever way you want to be’ (Milner int. 1999); ‘being open to new work and identifying the gaps’ (Abbey int. 1999); to ‘be proactive in getting the books you want and to make every book count’ (Munro int. 1998). Thus my research focuses on an exploration of the ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs that editors and publishers bring to the ways in which knowledge and power are represented within the cultural field that constitutes Australian book publishing. This study also investigates the publishing house as an institution, and editors and publishers as institutionalised bearers of culture; examines issues that relate to identity, representation and institutionalisation in Australian book publishing; assesses the contribution that independent publishers make to Australian cultural content; explores the career paths of women in publishing and the critical role of the feminist project; and investigates the social and cultural responsibilities of Indigenous editors and publishers in the production of Australian Indigenous literature. The empirical underpinnings of this industry-based study emerge from interviews with editors and publishers about their commissioning and publishing practice. Publishing culture, per se, mirrors specific power struggles that take place within the wider culture over time and across race, class, gender and generation. Whether it is small independent or large multinational, publishing is a mostly white male, middle- class business and those represented in the upper and middle echelons, come from English speaking, Anglo backgrounds. While women hold a majority of editorial positions and a few younger women have joined the ranks of senior publishing executives in Australia, they are not the tradition makers — although some are tradition breakers (Cunningham int. 1998). Women remain under-represented in upper-management male publishing culture.1 This trend is unlikely to change and is particularly prevalent in larger publishing companies where traditional, male-based executive management structures are more likely to exist.2 Nevertheless, the women’s movement and feminism have significantly influenced Australian society, and the politics of feminism continues to challenge local and global publishing culture. Similarly, the social and political struggle for self-determination by Indigenous Australians has led to the emergence of Aboriginal publishing houses and the publication of a growing body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature. While there is a more general awareness of and interest in Indigenous content across a wider readership, the under-representation of Indigenous people employed in Australian publishing is problematic. Until there are more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people centrally involved in the cultural production of Indigenous Australian work, this issue will not go away. – 2 – Contents of the Study This thesis presents an historical and cultural overview of Australian book publishing and book commissioning over the last 30 years. In so doing, it analyses the organisational structure of particular publishing cultures; examines the variables in book commissioning and/or acquisitions, including the respective roles of the editor and the publisher in generating content; and explores cultural production within feminist and Indigenous publishing communities. In Chapter One, I discuss the relevance of Publishing Studies, and I include a selective review of literature on book publishing and book commissioning studies, as well as other related book and journal publications. I identify gaps in the literature and areas for future research and detail my methodological approach. This includes a discussion of how my experiential grounding in editing and publishing informs my perceptions of identity and representation within Australian publishing culture, and how this has assisted me in identifying appropriate participants and institutions for my study. I address the cross-cultural issues raised in this study by looking at how Indigenous peoples are represented by western researchers, and by exploring culturally appropriate research methodology for the study of Indigenous people, in particular, the importance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous self-identification, thus contextualising the discussion within appropriate cultural frameworks. I then discuss the value of qualitative interviewing and its relevance to my research and detail the rationale for framing interview questions and the methods for collecting interview data and data analysis. I define the research sample in relation to the size of the Australian book market, the geographic location of book publishers in Australia and consider the mobility of editors and publishers who were interviewed for this study. Chapter Two contextualises book publishing and commissioning history in Australia by describing the effects of colonisation on a local book publishing industry in Australia by world market economies, in particular, Britain and the USA, and the resistance and resilience of independent publishing culture in promoting and defending local publishing territories. Within the dynamic field that constitutes Australian book publishing, editors and publishers ‘with independent minds’ continue to take a proactive role in commissioning ideas, authors and texts. Chapter Three introduces a selective sample of individuals and the publishing companies they represent, by examining organisational structure and publishing culture. As one participant has commented, ‘The business of commissioning depends very much on the structure of the publishing company and the people who are involved’ (Sims int. 1998). Three general models and seven specific publishing models are also presented in Chapter Three. While the general models serve as a useful guide to organisational publishing structure overall, specific publishing models – 3 – show how particular companies are organised and the spatial and functional relations of individuals to established and emerging areas within the publishing house. The narratives that accompany these visual representations offer insights into a range of diverse publishing experiences. Taken together, these models offer a ‘snapshot’ of Australian publishing in the late 1990s. Chapter Four, the main commissioning chapter, introduces editors and publishers as the creators and shapers of ideas, authors and books. The key roles of the editor and the publisher are examined as they underpin book commissioning