It’s been one hell of a year for Australia.
(Horror) publishing in Australia has been slow and steady, and seems to be focused on Australian authors for an Australian market.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this. We need Aussie authors to be published in Australia, and we need them distributed and read in Australia. People like Ticonderoga and Dark Prints Press, people like Twelfth Planet Press, and all the other publishers mentioned in an earlier column are doing a great job. Read Publishing in Australia here.
In the last six months, two new publishers have sprung up in the wasteland of Aussie publishing. With the emergence of Black Beacon Books and Satalyte Publishing, there is a renewed energy in the Aussie publishing field.
Although these two new presses would seem, at first glance, to be in competition with one another, that is surely not the case.
Let’s look at the business models for both.
This section is purely from my point of view, and based on what I have seen over the course of each press’ life so far.
Black Beacon Books is run by Australian author and AHWA vice-president Cameron Trost. It seems to me to be looking to take authors and promote them around the world. To grow Aussie publishing by putting out the best of world writers and making a name for their Aussie press. According to their site:
Black Beacon Books aims to publish and promote short fiction and novellas. We have nothing against novels here at BBB and plan to publish novels eventually, but we absolutely love the shorter forms, particularly anthologies.
The first release by the company is 809 Jacob Street by Marty Young, the founding president of the Australian Horror Writers Association.
It’s a crazy sideshow of a town in the middle of god-damn nowhere, and he’s stranded there. To make matters worse, his two new friends – his only friends – turn out to be class rejects with an unhealthy interest in monsters. They want to discover the truth to the infamous monster house at number 809 Jacob Street.
Joey Blue is an old bluesman who fell into his songs and couldn’t find his way out again. Now he’s a Gutterbreed, one of the slinking shifting shadows haunting the town’s alleys. When an old dead friend comes begging for help, Joey’s world is torn apart. He is forced to stare down the man he has become in order to rescue the man he once was – and there is only one place he can do that.
The house on Jacob Street calls to everyone, but what will they find when they open its door?
BBB wants to make the short form more popular. They have an anthology in the works at this point, a collection of crime fiction based and set around Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, the state they are based in.
The approach they are taking will certainly get Aussies out there in the world of readers, but it is not the only approach that is a viable option.
Satalyte Publishing has taken a different tack. They are looking at publishing Aussies. To take Aussie authors and promote them worldwide, not just in Australia. To quote their website, they intend to,
… put Australian authors back on the world map of reading. Their first release is Tales of Australia: Great Southern Land, a collection of Aussie tales by Aussie writers.
The novelettes of this series will take you along arcane paths into fantastic Australias of the imagination.
Disciple of the Torrent by Lee Battersby
This Corner of the Earth by Dean Mayes
Acts of Chivalry by Sean McMullen
Bobby, Be Good by H.M.C
Dreams Didgeridoo by Salwa Samra
After the Red Dust by Charmaine Clancy
Jaylin by A. Finlay
Set Your Face Toward the Darkness by David McDonald
* Featuring Aurealis and Ditmar Award winning authors, along with some surprisingly fresh new writing.”
The idea of focusing on Aussie writers for the world market will surely win Satalyte some support from the Australian literary scene.
With these two new publishers pushing out into the world of horror literature, Aussie writers are sure to become more well-known on the world stage, and this is what we want… to show the world that Aussies can write as well or better than the more published countries such as the US and the UK.
Good luck to all, I say.
GEOFF BROWN
PHOTO: YEWENYI
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