In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries. It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published. Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world. Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.
Susan Hawthorne joined the Womens Liberation Movement in 1973. She quickly volunteered at Melbournes Rape Crisis Centre and was active in student politics. She has organised writers festivals, been an aerialist in two womens circuses and written on topics as diverse as war, friendship with animals, and mythic traditions. She writes non-fiction, fiction and poetry and her books have been translated into multiple languages. Her most recent non-fiction is Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy. She has taught English to Arabic-speaking women, worked in Aboriginal education and had teaching roles across a number of subject areas in universities including Philosophy, Womens Studies, Literature, Publishing Studies and Creative Writing. She is Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities at James Cook University, Townsville. She has won awards in writing, publishing, the gay and lesbian community and in 2017 was winner of the Penguin Random House Best Achievement in Writing in the Inspire Awards for her work increasing peoples awareness of disability.
"Susan Hawthorne has provided all of us who cherish and love books, knowledge, ethics, cultural diversity, multiversity in all its forms, with a wonderful manifesto for our sustainable survival. Bibliodiversity. Read this book, share it with your friends, discuss its content, imagine the kind of world you want to live in and the books and ideas you want to keep sharing to help make the world a better place to live. Do not just read the book but use its bibliography as a learning resource as it is almost as rich as the book itself. Like those who sat at the feet of the Maori Rainbow God, Uenuku, learn from this wisdom and share it with the rest of the world." Dr. Cathie Koa Dunsford, Director: Dunsford Publishing Consultants
