Getting Published
How do I get published?(ABC page)
Types of publishers
What is a published work?
What kind of funding is available?
Copyright
Contracts

Getting published
The free ASA paper Getting Published includes tips for approaching publishers, presenting your work, protecting copyright and taking the next step, whether your work is accepted or rejected. The ASA also sells a range of books and papers which include contact details of publishers. Many publishers and agents’ websites carry information on what kinds of submissions are accepted and how they should be presented. See the Australian Publishers Association for a list of publishers and Australian Literary Agents' Association for agents' contact details.

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How do I get published
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Types of publishers

The ASA defines book publishers in three broad categories: commercial publishers, self-publishers and vanity publishers.

For commercial publishers (eg HarperCollins, Penguin, Allen & Unwin, Brandl & Schlesinger, Text, Scribe or UNSW Press), the publisher is an entity (for example, a sole trader, individual, group, organization, private or public company, or partnership) that is responsible for originating the production of a book. The publisher also bears the cost or the financial risk in making a book available. The publisher is not normally the printer, who is usually paid by the publisher to produce an agreed quantity of the book. Commercial publishers take on the financial risk of publication in order (hopefully) to retrieve their costs from sales of the published book. Commercial publishers have both sales and marketing teams working for them. They organise publicity and promotion and call on bookshops and other outlets to drum up sales. These publishers also operate effective supply chains, able to move books from warehouse to retail outlets within hours or days of receiving an order.

Self-publishers are authors, organisations or others who have decided to take on the role of the commercial publisher themselves – examples might include a poet publishing their first collection, a family member bringing their grandparent’s novel back into print, or an organisation publishing its commissioned history. Self-publishers not only take on the costs of publication, they also take on all responsibility for marketing and distribution. Self-publishing can be very difficult and if you are contemplating going down this road you should seek advice. At the very least, read a book like Euan Mitchell’s Self Publishing Made Simple (available from the ASA: download order form).

A vanity publisher is one who takes money from someone else - usually the author – in order for a book to be published. This transfers the cost or financial risk from the publisher to the payee. Such publishers exist from the fees that they receive from the payees, not from proceeds from sales of the book. They therefore have no motivation to market and sell copies of the book. Vanity publishers offer limited or no marketing service and transfer responsibility for the sales of the published book to the payee. They are merely an expensive production facility. If you are contemplating using a vanity publisher you should first consider self-publishing, which is likely to be both less expensive and more fruitful. But don’t take our word – go into your local bookshop and ask if the shop has any stock on hand from the vanity publisher you’re contemplating using. You’ll quickly find these publishers have almost no exposure in the book trade. The ASA does not recommend the use of vanity publishers.

You should note that vanity publishers do not call themselves this. In fact they deny they are vanity publishers. They call themselves “partnership” or “subsidy” publishers and tout themselves as alternative means for aspiring authors to gain public attention. Unfortunately, this is extremely unlikely to happen because vanity publishers do not invest in any marketing or distribution, both of which are essential to successful publishing.

No matter what its size, a publisher should be able to market a published work to the public. By this, the ASA means a publisher must have the means to communicate the availability of a published work to the public, libraries and the book trade, to fulfil orders for the work promptly and efficiently, and to distribute the work to individuals, libraries and retail outlets promptly and efficiently.

Most books in Australia are still purchased from traditional outlets, not online. While online sales of books are increasing, these sales are usually through online bookshops, not from publishers.

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What is a published work?

Surprisingly, the definition of a published work can be quite contentious. The ASA defines a published work as one that has been previously produced in an edition of any kind (for example, in a magazine, book, collection, anthology, floppy disk, or CD-Rom) or has been previously displayed on a website and made available to the public. The number of copies available makes no difference to published status. The important criterion is availability to the public (whether free or at cost). An item on a limited access intranet, therefore, would not be regarded as published, but an item in a blog would.
 
A printed publication will ideally have been registered with an ISBN, ISSN, or Cataloguing-in-Publication (CIP) entry (in Australia, this service is provided by the National Library of Australia), but the ASA would also regard a work as published if it were advertised as available for sale or distribution in a  catalogue or on a website, including works that are self-published.

Under the Copyright Act 1968, publishers and self-publishing authors are required to deposit a copy of any work published in Australia with the National Library, and with their state or territory deposit libraries, within one month of publication. Legal Deposit ensures that Australian publications are preserved for use now and in the future.

A work that has been sent to a publisher but where no decision to publish has yet been made is not considered to be published.

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What kind of funding is available?

The ASA recently published the research paper "Cultural Funding in Australia, with an emphasis on Literature and Print Media". Download the PDF here.

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Copyright
In Australia, copyright protection does not depend upon registration, publication or any other procedure. Material is automatically protected by law from the time it is first written down or taped. Your ownership of copyright should be indicated by a copyright notice that is recognised internationally. The notice consists of the symbol © (or the word ‘copyright’), the name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication. The Federal Attorney-General’s Department publishes a regular e-news bulletin on copyright law in Australia - go to their website to read/download it. For  comprehensive information about copyright, contact the Australian Copyright Council.

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Contracts
See Contracts FAQs and Contract Advice.

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