The significance of place in book publishing: Insights from community publishing in regional Australia

This article argues for the importance of place in the study of contemporary publishing activity. We offer insights from a research project into the production of books by community groups and individuals in regional Australia, with a focus on four sites: Alice Springs/Mparntwe, Broken Hill/Willyama, Winton (on the lands of the Koa people) and Ayr (on the lands of the Bindal people). Our design is informed by place- and relationality-centred Indigenous research epistemologies, and also makes use of Western methods including interviews. Our research findings confirm that place is highly significant for some kinds of publishing activity, as writers and publishers are motivated to tell local stories, draw on local print businesses as well as digital technology, and share the resulting books with family, friends and close networks. These findings demonstrate alternative power relations to those that structure the mainstream publishing industry, where power is supposed to concentrate in global literary centres such as New York and London and writers from the margins struggle for recognition. Our research demonstrates that a focus on local places and community publishing can tell a new story of the future of the book by recognising divergent and locally specific practices.