New Trends in Literary Publishing- Author-Publishing in Australia

The purpose of this project is to make a limited edition special collectors edition of the novel The Antipode Room, which will be published on December 1, 2013. The aim is to make a limited edition eBook, and signed print book to commemorate the launch. This will also be the first book publication of its kind in Australia, hence the occasion for a commemorative edition.

The book began life in an MA and PhD in creative writing and literature and has since evolved into its own form. This is the first author-publisher new literary publication, to use eBook and printed book format in Australia, which aims to show other authors that this is a viable way of reaching new audiences and readers.

Synopsis:

Interweaving loss of self-awareness coupled with a strange excursion or journey, The Antipode Room, is a fugue narrative, telling of Ruby’s flight to Australia and her past lost life, it voices the main characters’ inner thoughts of: Ruby, Hugo, Ray and Margarita. She ends up on a murder charge in an Australian jail.

Innocents are often condemned, scapegoated, for crimes they did not commit, but is this the case with Ruby? Imprisoned in Australian jail she writes to remember what happened on that "fateful fatal afternoon" when her best friend violinist, Margy, was murdered. The Antipode Room is based in London, Sydney, Newcastle, forest in northern New South Wales, the underground opal town Cooper Peedy and the desert. The main character "Countess Ruby Rivers" emerged in London from an amnesiac fugue, forgetting her past, she reinvents her self-identity and her past. Her life is transformed when she meets the infamous conservative phenomenologist and professor, Hugo, who gives her Ruby Love, a contemporary art gallery in inner London. The Antipode Room is a point of departure, the space of the art gallery, it tells the story of their one-way trip to Australia on a mission to collect Australian artists for Ruby Love.

A chance meeting in a Sydney art galley, at the opening of the NEW REPUBLIC exhibition brings Ruby into dangerously close proximity to the leader of art-activists, Art Criminals, who had a mysteriously profound influence in another life; she has not been able to forget his words, and her lost self rushes back. Forgetting Hugo, she disappears with Ray.

I think you might lose yourself gazing into mesmerizing sclerophyll forests in northern New South Wales.

    Another day I might feel inclined at the low ebb before lunch, to go into my office and lock the door. Browse through my private collection; fall into images of beauty, irresistibly seductive objects of desire. Objects. I can hold within my gaze. I can own and possess in a way that’s impossible to ever possess a real lover. Make mine forever. (The Antipode Room)

The Antipode Room is 75,000 words, a medium length novel of approx. 240 pages to be published as an eBook, and printed book, with photographs.






The cover image is a new photographic work:


Blue Fugue, digital photographic montage, Ruth Skilbeck (2013)



E-Book and printed book.

Postmistress Press: Notes from the Publisher

by Ruth Skilbeck

 I am now, as an author-publisher, writing and publishing my books, ten books that I have written over the past 15 years, of taking an MA and PhD in creative writng, and lecturing in universities, on contracts and working as a freelance arts writer. I am doing this, as there appears to be no one else in Australia taking this initiative and joining the new global literary movement of author-publishers, which is thriving in other parts of the world. I have wanted to publish my books for several years but held back until now due to the crisis in publishing - and authors not being paid in academic publishing. I have published over 10 articles in leading peer-reviewed research books and journals in my field  (including Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, ERA A listed journal, and a forthcoming article on a photographic research series I made, in International Journal of the Image) and hundred of media articles, in leading arts periodicals, newspapers and magazines (lists available), but still not making any income as an academic writer and blogger over the past years. To keep on writing, and working as a writer, and on encouragement and requests from readers of my works, I am starting up a new author-publisher house, Postmistress Press, in the cottage I own in Newcastle NSW, which was the first post office and telegraphy office in Adamstown, the inner city suburb (which had a postmistress). I plan to publish my own books of literary fiction, critical theory, and collections of my published essays and articles. Then I plan to publish books by authors, in the areas of my research.
     The only way I can do this is through support of readers, and that is why I am starting up by publishing my first two novels with pre-orders from a Pozible crowd-funding campaign. Without financial income support from book sales, I will not be able to do it, so all pledges for book pre-orders are very much appreciated, as sales are required to keep me going with my plans and enable me to publish my books, and then publish new works by authors in Australia, and internationally, if my publishing receives enough financial income from sales, I can do this, if not I will have to go back to contract teaching.

     My income is from publishing, so far as I have not yet published any books, income is nil, so the results of the first book sales, will be critical to the sustainability of the first year of my enterprise, which began in September. I have one year to see if this will work or not. Please help me support new Australian writing and literature by supporting, and buying, my books.

      If contributions exceed the target, the chance of being able to publish my next books will increase as all sales go into the publishing house.  My publishing house is a small literary enterprise that will be reliant on income from sales of books, to survive. I am the main employee at present, but if the house grows, later it will employ others to work in publishing books, as well as contracting for cover design, videos, and editing.

     I also plan to run teaching courses in writing and new publishing later in the year, and the success of this enterprise is critical to that as well. This is the first author-publisher house in Australia which aims to publish original new literary arts books, fiction and critical theory, and PhDs and MA in creative writing books. If it receives sufficient income to keep going, it can make a contribution more broadly to encouraging new Australian literary arts cultures. Postmistress Press, and this enterprise has been enabled by support from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations' funding for small business, which is very much appreciated.

Project sponsors and acknowledgements:

Ruth Skilbeck and Postmistress Press thank:

• Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
• New Hunter Business  

and the book lovers who pre-order books and art,  for their support.



Ruth Skilbeck, November 2013