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***Australia huh..? I've got a writer friend down that way was complaining that there really doesn't seem to be any local publishers indigenous to the county, kinda like kangaroos***
And she's got a point, Jaxx. Australia has had a raw deal and things appear to have been getting worse rather than better lately. Funny, though, that as far as ebooks are concerned (only this year have the Bruces and Sheilas really been catching on to the concept), they were once ahead of the field.
Back around 2000 when I first thought of turning from a non-commercial developing-authors' website I was running to acual publishing, my first plan was to go ebook-only. When I shopped around, I found that the only house I could find already working on a similar plan was Jacobyte Books in Australia. They'd kicked off back in the nineties with an expert team.
We eventually started to publish -- then UK registered -- in print and ebook, but when Jacobyte tried to do the same thing and support low ebook sales with print editions, they met a brick wall when it came to print, distribution and getting into the high-roller online stores. Eventually they faced closure because of this and apathy Down Under.
To save their excellent titles and authors from almost certain overnight obscurity, my own BeWrite Bools took them over and adopted around forty titles and a stable of around twenty-five authors.
We've remained good buddies over the years and a month or two ago, we got our heads together with the original Jacobyte Editor, technician, admin lady and a new local printer in Adelaide, and we're now in the midst of arranging to put the old Jacobyte team back together and registering them as the Australian end of the (now Canadian) BeWrite Books operation.
But, Oz is still tough on publishers -- and by extension on local authors -- so it's going to be an uphill catch-up struggle.
Give it until about mid-October, Jaxx, and get your friend to drop me a line and I'll make the introducions for her to her new local indie publisher. She might like to try her luck closer to home for a change.
Cheers. Neil
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