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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dramatis Personae
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Company that Loved Australian Books
- Chapter 2 The Overseas Books in Australian Publishing History
- Chapter 3 Triangles of Publishing and Other Stories
- Chapter 4 The World is Made of Paper Restrictions
- Chapter 5 The First Salesman in London
- Chapter 6 The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom
- Chapter 7 Preparing for ‘Operation London’
- Chapter 8 The Shiralee in the North
- Chapter 9 A Commercial and Cultural Relationship
- Chapter 10 Tomorrow, When London Publishing Ended
- Chapter 11 A House is Rebuilt
- Chapter 12 The Hidden Parts of Publishing Fortune
- Chapter 13 Learning from a Distance
- Figures and Tables
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 13 - Learning from a Distance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dramatis Personae
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Company that Loved Australian Books
- Chapter 2 The Overseas Books in Australian Publishing History
- Chapter 3 Triangles of Publishing and Other Stories
- Chapter 4 The World is Made of Paper Restrictions
- Chapter 5 The First Salesman in London
- Chapter 6 The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom
- Chapter 7 Preparing for ‘Operation London’
- Chapter 8 The Shiralee in the North
- Chapter 9 A Commercial and Cultural Relationship
- Chapter 10 Tomorrow, When London Publishing Ended
- Chapter 11 A House is Rebuilt
- Chapter 12 The Hidden Parts of Publishing Fortune
- Chapter 13 Learning from a Distance
- Figures and Tables
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As an export commodity, any cultural text must overcome the obstacle of entering an established market in which consumers have a strong understanding of their own cultural products, but a limited contextual base with which to understand the foreign commodity.
Distance is the problem … [N]o-one overseas who establishes a London publishing office readily parts with authority over the publishing policy of that office; and, books being what they are, that policy basically depends upon the decision to publish or not to publish individual manuscripts.
British publisher George G. Harrap once said about the Australasian Publishing Company he helped set up in Sydney that ‘it is not easy to command success for ventures of the sort in another country where much has to be learned of local customs and conditions’. It can be, he concluded, an ‘uphill task’.
With evidence of the many uphill tasks that an Australian publisher had to overcome in order to show profit in domestic and export markets, this book has traced the material conditions of Angus & Robertson's London office when selecting works for publication, distribution and sale to British audiences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 1930–1970The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom, pp. 163 - 168Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012