Book Publishing

Studying books in the same ways that we study other media is important to understanding the fundamental role that books play in developing and sustaining our culture and our communicative processes. Yet there is a tradition within academia of asking very different questions about – and using very different methods to understand – books and other media. Books have been (and are still) most commonly studied, in a university context, in the discipline of literary studies, which concerns itself overwhelmingly with the content of particular kinds of books. It is with an awareness of this background that we situate book publishing as one of the industries of the media and communications in Australia. This chapter offers a short history of book publishing in Australia, followed by overviews of the structure of contemporary Australian book publishing, the economics of the industry, the other forms of value that shape books’ role in society and the reading and reception of books. This offers a stepping stone for students to move beyond discussions of instrumentalism versus aestheticism and to take a broad, open-minded approach to understanding what book publishing is, why it’s important and how it relates to Australian society and other media institutions.