Cirrus@Austlit

This study explores the commercial and cultural pressures on adult book publishing in Australia in the 1980s and considers how publishing responded to those pressures. The period was characterised by local and international mergers and acquisitions, a trend toward vertical integration in business, diversification of product, and the emergence of celebrity publishing. With rising interest rates, firms needed to reduce debt, improve profitability and minimise the costs of product acquisition. Penguin Books Australia, one of the two major players in trade publishing in the 1980s, is used as a major source of information for this study.