Books in the Monash Publishing Series series

The Australian publishing industry has transformed itself from a colonial outpost of British publishing to a central node in a truly global publishing industry. Despite challenges, including reduced government support for home-grown authors and the arts, small presses thrive and Australian consumers have access to an unprecedented range of foreign and domestic titles. Social media, big data, print on demand, subscription and new compensation models are subtly reshaping an industry that now also relies on more freelance labour than ever before. Publishing Means Business examines the current state of this exciting and unpredictable industry, while also asking questions about the broader role of publishing within our culture.

The post-digital publishing paradigm offers authors, readers, publishers, and scholars the opportunity to engage with the production and circulation of the book (in all its forms) beyond the conventional boundaries and binaries of the pre-digital and digital eras. Post-Digital Book Cultures: Australian Perspectives is a collection of scholarly writing that examines these opportunities, from a range of disciplinary and methodological approaches, with the aim of engaging with the questions that define post-digital book cultures beyond the role of e-books. Examinations of digital publishing in the literary field can often be characterised as either narratives of decline or narratives of revolution. As we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century, what has become clear is that neither of these approaches accurately encapsulate the role of 'the digital' on contemporary publishing practice. Rather than upending book publishing culture, the emergence of digital technologies and platforms in the field has complicated and recontextualised the production, circulation, and consumption of books.