Save Australian Writing! 

Support the idea of a national publisher with this campaign.

The Backstory:

In Iceland there are 10,000 writers for a population of 340,000. The Icelandic government buys 1000 copies automatically of every book published.

Iceland does this for its writers, the state sponsorship of literature, because otherwise they would have no literature. They do this because Icelandic is not English.

Meanwhile Australian writers face the cruel trifecta of publishing monopolies going global and sucking up local imprints, Amazon underselling them, and 'fair use' literally putting us out of business.

Australia, too, is a minor literature, a downtrodden colony of the US/UK scene . Digital disruption and commercial genre publishing,  with their economies of scale and mass audiences, squeeze out our indie publishers. Or they buy them up, if they succeed. They to add them to global stables where marketing directors sit on every board.

Commercial genres can't substitute for a writing culture. If we don't act, Australia will be without one.

The Pitch:

We need a chook raffle! We need something like Britain’s national lottery. We need philanthropy like Twiggy Forrest gives to the Western Force rugby team. We need a national publisher, like we have a national broadcaster.

We need a not-for-profit national publisher with a peer-reviewed process and some 'zero-price' marketing strategies, like handing out free books on public transport.

Call it The Chook Raffle Press. Make Australian writing free-to-air!

This campaign will fund:

• Setting up the project

• Constructing a website

• Consulting with stake-holders – writers, readers, publishers,

libraries, writing centres, writing festivals, writing programs

• Applying for funding from Copyright Fund

• Lobbying arts ministers for a national publisher policy