‘It will be dire for readers’: the disappearing voices of Australia’s independent publishers

The ‘big five’ – Penguin Random House, Hachette, Allen & Unwin, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan – now own more than 70% of the Australian book publishing industry. Illustration: Getty Images/Guardian Design

The world of Australian publishing shrank last week – and the industry fears it is bad news for lovers of literary fiction, and for those who want to write it. Fresh concerns for the health of the Australian novel have arisen after one of the world’s big publishers bought Melbourne-based Text Publishing Company after more than three decades of independence.

Text’s publisher would not disclose how much the acquisition by Penguin Random House was worth to its owners, Michael Heyward and his wife Penny Hueston, and Maureen and Tony Wheeler. But industry insiders were in almost unanimous agreement the sale was a sign of the rocky times book publishers are facing.