Australia

Australia

January 12, 2026

2–3 minutes

Australia has an odd history among local writers and local publishers. I’m less familiar with it than I should be, but it’s pretty much history, and much of it predates my moving to this country.

It was a good little market once – very much British UK sphere-of-influence, and a lot of readers for its population (big distances, not a lot of competing entertainment besides beer, relative affluence).

There was some kind of government tariff protection to foster the local industry. The result was $25 paperbacks (when they were $5 in the US), and new entertainment eating their lunch. I think the number of readers has dropped off steeply. E-books help – but it’s not the walled garden it was. A country that had its own crop of competing authors… now has many taking jobs in academia. It seems to have suffered too with the same urban left capture as the US, and follows the same fads – but about 2 years behind.

We have a more urbanized population than the US, but a lot in common — certainly in rural Australia. I’ve had any number of people say that the characters and character of rural/small towns I’ve written about in CHANGELING’S ISLAND and JOY COMETH WITH THE MOURNING felt just like places and people they knew in rural/small town US. So: to that part of the population of Australia, much of the current output feels like it was written for NYC not Didjerbringthebeeralongaroo.

Looking at the backswing – politically – that’s going to either change or destroy what’s left of legacy publishing here. We’ve just had a ‘Writer’s Festival’ fly apart because they attempted to remove a ‘Palestinian’ (Born in Sydney, but apparently being that is eternal) who celebrated October 7, and has actively campaigned against a Jewish author being there. The bulk of the guests – top-heavy with Prof. and Dr. — have cancelled in sympathy. The name-recognition experience looking through the list… was that these were not people I’d ever heard of or read anything by. Perhaps it is my ignorance showing, and my loss. Apparently quite a lot of government money is involved in Arts festivals and grants to various academics etc. I suspect, as Australia tends to follow the US… a drought may be coming.

It will be interesting times — and I hope a place where indies and e-books can finally get their legs. I’d love to see a real Australian flavor develop.

4 responses to “Australia”

TXRed

January 12, 2026 at 10:45 am

The role of government sounds more like Canada than the US, at least for fiction. The nonfiction market is so … odd … everywhere that once you get past pop-non-fiction in the US, I’m not sure what role the academic-government pipeline plays. There used to be a pretty clear line between general history published by Trad Pub imprints, and academic monographs and paper collections (often subsidized by grants). A few regional history and culture books crossed the lines from acadame to popular, but very few.

Fiction is so Byzantine that Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora would both boggle at the complexity and minutia.

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Pam Uphoff

January 12, 2026 at 4:52 pm

Good thing we can all sell Globally . . . and keep in touch with the sane portions of our various populations, and fellow writers.

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overgrownhobbit

January 13, 2026 at 11:11 pm

There was a time in the 2000 – 2010s when Australia was sending so much cool SF & YA to the U.S. Loads of cool kids books, too. Still remember Taylor’s Agnes the Sheep, and An Edge if the Forest”, Monsters Blood Tattoo, Tomorrow, When the War Began.

Tor Books, before the Toads got a hold of it, brought over great stuff.

Then it all sort of … fizzled.

The whole “gut your culture and sell it off for parts” thing seems to have hit harder and run through Oz faster once it did.

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The Phantom

January 14, 2026 at 11:36 am

“A country that had its own crop of competing authors… now has many taking jobs in academia.””

Same as Canada. You literally can’t get a publisher to talk to you unless you already have a Canada Arts Council grant. Because the publisher won’t get any money from selling the books, they get paid by the author’s grant. You can’t get a grant unless your academic benefactor pushes your application with the Canada Council weenies.

In Canadian Content books, 5K copies is a huge best-seller. 1K is considered pretty good.

Canada has one (1) bookstore chain. It’s a de-facto monopoly. They mostly sell merch and coffee, going by the square footage they devote to each thing.

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