Australian independent publishing stalwart Text acquired by global giant Penguin Random House
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Local publishing house says it will ‘retain creative control’ and no redundancies are planned for Melbourne office. The world’s largest general book publisher has acquired one of Australia’s leading independent publishers, the Text Publishing Company.
Penguin Random House announced the acquisition on Wednesday, with the chief executive of its Australian operations, Julie Burland, saying the move consolidated the publishing house’s longstanding relationship, where its Australian arm distributes and sells all of Text’s titles in the Australian and New Zealand markets.
Text will continue to sell its books further afield through a network of international agents. Based in Melbourne, Text was co-founded more than three decades ago by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher. After moving through the hands of Fairfax Media and UK publishing house Canongate Books in the early 2000s under the co-ownership of Michael Heyward and Penny Hueston, Text became wholly Australian-owned when the Lonely Planet founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, bought into the company in 2011.
Heyward said Text had survived through five different ownership structures in its 35-year existence and would maintain its independence. “What we’ve agreed is that Text will continue to retain creative control of all of its key publishing processes – acquisition of books, editing of books, curation of the list, publicity, marketing, design, production, export and rights,” he told Guardian Australia.
