The Publishing Landscape is Always Changing - an opinion piece by Sherryl Clark

 The Publishing Landscape Is Always Changing

An opinion piece

For those of you keeping a finger on the pulse of publishing, you may have heard the most recent news about Text Publishing being bought by Penguin RandomHouse in Australia. Although the news was released officially, most authors would have found out via social media, but I imagine those published by Text would have been told earlier in an email (that’s what usually happens).

As several people commented, this possibly explains why the Text Prize for YA and MG books was cancelled. For NZ authors, you may think this news isn’t really relevant, but it’s the kind of thing that does reverberate across the ‘ditch’, not least because Text had a specifically NZ prize, too.

But it doesn’t stop there. In the past six months, two other significant independent publishers have also been sold. Affirm Press (who are highly regarded for their picture book publishing, among other things) were bought by Simon & Schuster, and Pantera Press were sold to Hardie-Grant. Pantera were originally known for adult fiction and gradually expanded until they had quite a big program of books that included MG and YA.

I doubt any of these publishers would have turned down a really great NZ manuscript, unless it was so clearly ‘Kiwi’ that it would have been deemed unmarketable to Aussies. Fantasy in particular tends to be universal and not country-tied. However, that tended to be the only way NZ writers would see their books in Australian bookstores – when published in Australia – exports of NZ books are very limited, even across the ditch, which always astonished me.

Unless a book became a bestselling, award-winning book such as Pet or Hairy MacLary. Then everybody wants it.

All three small publishers are insisting they’ll remain independent in terms of what they publish. The crucial point is distribution. As one article said, Text will be able to use PRH warehousing and distribution instead of having to fund it themselves. I imagine the same will apply to the other two. The cost of distribution has risen – a lot. Freight, postage, warehouse space, the technology to run it all, staff. And the competition from Amazon.

Plus if you want to sell your books on Amazon, you have to do a deal with them, and it can be difficult. Which brings us to the most recent news (as I write today on 24/1) – in the UK, Amazon and Bloomsbury Books have failed to reach an agreement, and Amazon will no longer sell any Bloomsbury ebooks or print books on its site in the UK or Australia. The only territory not currently affected is the US.

This is such a tricky situation – as much for authors as the publisher. My book, Dying to Tell Me, an upper MG mystery, was caught up in something similar when it was published by Kane Miller Books in the US back in 2011. KMB couldn’t reach an agreement with Amazon and pulled all of their books from it. However, KMB had their own distribution network of hands-on sellers that operated in schools and communities all over the country, and eventually that took up the gap and off they went (plus there are other online sellers they still use). However, my book came out a couple of weeks after this happened, and it sank out of sight. In the same way, many authors whose books came out during the worst of Covid suffered the same outcome. That’s the hard part of publishing, and I really feel for any Bloomsbury authors with new or debut books coming out in the next three months.

Sure, people will support Bloomsbury initially (plenty of Amazon haters around, and don’t get me started on this - https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/jeff-bezos-deletes-lgbtq-rights-34533955). But what will happen in twelve months when all this stuff has faded from people’s minds and they’re looking for a good book to read on Amazon and …

So what does this mean for NZ children’s authors and illustrators, other than possibly fewer places to submit? NZ already has a relatively tiny publishing industry. After all the rah-rah about Creative NZ revamping its grants and making things better for NZ artists and authors, the result (predictably) has been less money and fewer grants. Some small tinkering has made PLR slightly easier to use. It hasn’t changed anything substantial, like adding ELR and ebooks, or lowering the stupidly high threshold, things that NZSA have been campaigning about for ages.

One thing I discovered when I moved back here three years ago was how active and enthusiastic writers here are about self-publishing. It’s a viable alternative when traditional publishing can’t possibly use all the great stories we write. But you have to meet the market. You have to produce books that are of a high enough quality to compete with the publishing companies, otherwise you won’t get distribution and/or sales, beyond family and friends. (This is a whole other topic!)

But nobody ever wants to give up the dream of being traditionally published. I’ve self-published several of my out-of-print books, as well as Dying to Tell Me in Australia/NZ, having kept those rights. I’ve recently published it as an ebook for the first time. It’s a steep learning curve, and always the marketing and distribution are the mountains to climb, whoever you are.

Will any NZ children’s publishers sell to a bigger company? Or more possibly, will any of them close down? Every time a large publisher closes its NZ imprint, we all shudder. We’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Not enough publishing openings for our manuscripts, and the biggest marketplace at our disposal (Amazon) can be difficult to deal with unless you know what you’re doing. I belong to several FB groups of self-publishers and their experiences and problems are real eye-openers, good and bad.

Plus NZ now has a government that, like the LNP in Australia, are known for hating the arts and doing as little as possible to assist development and growth. Am I waiting with bated breath for the wonderful policy changes coming after they look at the responses to the Amplify document? Ha, not likely.

I don’t have any answers, other than forge your own path and don’t give up if publishing your books is what you are really determined to do, one way or another. I think there is a lot more coming, we should all be ready for anything. Let’s keep talking about it to each other and supporting each other with information, advice, skills development and skills sharing.

Sherryl Clark