When author Barbara Taylor Bradford earned a colossal income of $42m. in Britain, an Australian publishing house, led by an Englishman, decided to go after some of that action.
The only difficulty, however, in trying to sell Australian books to Britain, says publisher Patrick Gallagher, is that the British "either despise Australian culture or they expect Les Patterson or Crocodile Dundee."
Nevertheless, Gallagher who has taken over the Australian outpost of 82-year-old British publishing house Allen & Unwin, is intent on invading his old country and has appointed a London manager to spearhead the thrust.
Six years ago, sitting in his Sydney office, publisher Gallagher had been immersed in balance sheets, monthly reports, global aims, stocks of unsold books - and doubt.
Working with a loyal staff of 50 trying to keep the venerable old publisher’s "Australian end" afloat, he was becoming increasingly frustrated. He had been in charge of the outpost since 1976 and was now concerned by the "whims". ‘The parent company wasn’t doing very well in England. Their financial problems were uppermost and there wasn’t a great deal of emphasis on what was happening in Australia.’
In its struggle to survive, Allen & Unwin in the UK had merged with another publisher, the ramifications occupying those at "head office" so heavily that it made getting decisions from London difficult.
So Patrick, with the collaboration of three other directors, made secret trips to the UK to see Hambros Bank and members of the Unwin family. Keeping the moves from their staff until the coup had taken place, they bought the Australian shop. Gallagher believed it would cost possibly $25,000 in legal fees; he ended up with a bill of $100,000.
In the final years, while he was handling the red tape and taking instructions from London, turnover stood at $11m. Though the company lost 20% of turnover overnight when it cut the apron-strings, today it stands at $23m. With a target of $26m., having doubled the output of titles to 200 a year, the staff has grown to 95. One book – ‘The Hand That Signed the Paper’, by Helen Darville (Demidenko) - became a best-seller last year amid sensational accusations of plagiarism and anti-Semitism by the author, and though it made Allen & Unwin a lot of money, its director prefers not to talk about it. Suffice to say that even the publication of the book itself has spawned four other books and left the judgement of the prestigious Miles Franklin literary award under a cloud.
Gallagher rather prefers to talk with some pride of successful Australian authors he has published, (Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, Brian Castro, Gillian Mears and Andrew McGahan) and two of his big sellers ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘The Glass Lake’, both books, however, published under licence from the UK. His publicity department has turned on champagne to launch ‘The Sunken Road’, by Garry Disher, which he claims will be an Australian classic and has been on-sold to a London publisher.
And he likes to outline the niches he has moved into now he’s in charge. ‘Australia itself,’ he admits, ‘is a small market. ‘About five percent of Australian full-time authors make a living from books. We are already publishing in areas the UK company did not publish in to a great extent, like childrens’ books and fiction. Both these areas have expanded and become successful. Increasingly we look to the export market. We now have healthy agency arrangements throughout the world and we are particularly targeting Asia. We have 25 books a year specifically produced for the Asian market - general interest, Asian history, politics and economics. We also have our eyes on the United States.’
One of Allen & Unwin Australia’s books on Indonesia, ‘A Nation in Waiting’, sold 20,000 copies, mainly in Asia. An expose on Japanese wartime ‘comfort women’ was also spectacularly successful.
Gallagher’s gradual penetration of the UK market will involve adapting existing titles to suit the British reader, some of them with introductions by well-known British authors. They will not, however, have Australian bush themes or perpetuate the image of the "Ocker" larrikin. ‘Sadly, the books that do best in England are the least Australian. It is something we have become resigned to. The Australian High Commission is - at last - taking some interest in promoting Australian culture over there, but there are a very small number of Britons interested. Australian books that do best are health, lifestyle and how-to publications.’
Allen & Unwin was founded in Britain in 1914 and its lifeblood has been classics like Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, and the outpourings of authors like Bertrand Russell, taken on by Stanley Unwin after being rejected by 17 other publishers as too dangerous. Books by great Indian thinkers, and adventure by Thor Heyerdahl and Bengt Danielsson of Kon Tiki fame have always studded their list. ‘Nevertheless,’ muses Gallagher, who started in publishing straight from his English university, ‘Publishing is still a cottage industry in many ways. And it is very important for it to retain that ethos. It cannot afford to maintain it in marketing, commissioning and promotion. But as it takes a book right up through the editorial stages to actual production, it is good to have that outlook; to have a face-to-face, cosy relationship with its authors, to give them advice and keep the personal touch. No technological advance can do that.’
