Most publishers in this country are in a continuous state of economic stress. Right now the whole industry is in another of its cyclical crises. There is nothing new about this, except that the public image of Australian writing and publishing is one of vigorous good health.

Literature Board subsidies which make the small print runs just feasible are becoming scarcer as more projects chase funds which have not grown at all in real terms. Approximately two out of three publisher applications to the Literature Board are rejected because of lack of funds. Many of them very worthy projects.

Laurie Muller was critical of booksellers’ lack of support for Australian books in general and for creative writing in particular. ‘During the l 970s, bookshop groups such as Angus & Robertson, Collins, Queensland Book Depot and the like grew dramatically. With the advent of centralised buying controls, and computer-driven gross profit management objectives, lots of them became like department store book sections. In short, bookselling was trivialised,’ Muller said.

He cited one instance where a national department store chain decided not to stock UQP’s novel by Peter Carey, Illywhacker, because it was not suitable for their range. In his talk, he was most critical of the 5,000 or so publicly funded libraries in Australia for their serious lack of interest in and commitment to Australian books and writing. This lack of commitment is also evident in the educational use of Australian literature; ‘There is no consistent conscious attempt by teachers, lecturers or librarians to seek quality Australian titles, set them for study or provide them to the impressionable young Australians in their care. This cultural deprivation should be of great concern,’ he said. It is in this market – the 5000 or so public funded libraries that Laurie Muller sees a hope of putting Australian publishing on a sound and profitable base.

If these libraries were required, as a condition of their funding, to buy just one copy of every Australian book published, Australian publishers could anticipate sales two and three times what they are now. It would revolutionise Australian publishing and writing overnight and the impact on Australian intellectual and cultural life would be immense.

Late November, Muller convened a meeting of publishers in Melbourne to discuss the poor support for Australian writing in the library and secondary school market. The response was overwhelming, with almost every Australian publishing house attending or sending messages of support. At this meeting, Laurie and Penguin’s sales and marketing director Peter Field gave examples of the apparently appalling support for Australian books from this sector. Illywhacker, for example, is a national bestseller, it has received worldwide critical acclaim and over 8,000 copies have been sold in Australia so far. Yet, school and library suppliers have purchased barely four hundred copies for the 5,000 Australian libraries! Field, told the meeting that in September Penguin sent a lavish package containing a complete list of Penguin’s Australian titles and jackets of their major forthcoming hardbacks to the four hundred largest public libraries. The package featured such important titles as Gough Whitlam’s history of his government and previously unpublished stories by Christina Stead. At the time of the meeting, Penguin had received orders for eleven copies of the Whitlam book and fifteen for the Christina Stead collection!

Personally, I can see enormous practical and even philosophical difficulties in putting in place mandatory purchase requirements such as Muller proposed, but the obvious poor support for Australian books and writing in the public and secondary school libraries is cause for great concern. Publishers Hilary McPhee and Robert Sessions suggested that what the industry should push for are either voluntary or mandatory guidelines for all acquisitions librarians on the purchase of Australian books; just as television broadcasters are required to show a certain percentage of Australian material. I don’t think Australian writing is suffering from a conscious discrimination; librarians purchase books by English and American writers because they have got into the habit of doing so and because they perceive them as being safe. By persisting in these habits, they are certainly doing a disservice to the community they serve. ‘If things don’t improve, we’ll wake up one day and we won’t have any Australian publishers,’ unemployed publisher Robert Sessions remarked.

Laurie Muller is determined to follow the issue through and most of the publishers at the Melbourne meeting felt just as strongly regardless of the kinds of books they published. The first stage is an educative one – whether the publishers at the Melbourne meeting can mobilise their fellow publishers in a concerted campaign remains to be seen. I hope they can.

In spite of Laurie Muller’s pessimism, the output of Australia’s publishers this year reaches an unprecedented level of quality and diversity. Even the traditional coffee table book publishers seem to have departed from their usual formula. Although these publishers would probably deny it, there does seem to have been a discernible change in direction towards publishing illustrated books which have an intrinsic value. The so-called upmarket publishers, too, have had a busy year and the overall result is that there is a feast of good Australian books for Christmas. The weakness of the Australian dollar also means that Australian books are positioned to do especially well this season.

For what it’s worth, my Christmas dozen would be:

Fiction
Illywhacker – Peter Carey, UQP, $22.95
Lilian’s Story – Kate Grenville, Allen & Unwin, $14.95
Postcards From Surfers – Helen Garner, McPhee Gribble, $5.95
Bush Soldiers – John Hooker, Fontana, $6.95

Non-Fiction
Evil Angels – John Bryson; Viking $24.95
Off The Record (New Australian Poets) – edited by PiO, Penguin, $14.95
Reading the Country – Paddy Roe, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, $29.50
Fabric of the Mind – Richard Bergland, Penguin, $8.95

Illustrated Books
The May Gibbs Collection– Angus & Robertson, $59.95
White Limbo – Lincoln Hall, Kevin Weldon, $29.95
Daintree – Rupert Russell, Kevin Weldon, $24.95
The Beach – Geoffrey Dutton, OUP. A steal at its reduced price of $25.00

You couldn’t go wrong if you bought any of these books, but my list could go on and on.