pink shorts press on the radical freedom of being independent in the publishing industry
We caught up for a chinwag with Pink Shorts Press to get the inside scoop on the indie publishing industry.
In the last year, three of Australia’s major independent publishers have been acquired by larger companies. For some, that alone would scare hopeful publishing boffins away from the starting line of the industry. For Pink Shorts Press – an Adelaide/Tarntanya-based indie publishing house – they saw it as a challenge. Run by clever ladies Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart, Pink Shorts Press isn’t any ordinary publisher. We chat to the head honchos about creative risk-taking, the power of collaboration and why offline advertising might just be a golden ticket for physical media products.
Tell us a little bit about Pink Shorts Press. Margot: Pink Shorts Press publishes fantastically readable, socially conscious and slightly offbeat books, and we also run editorial services and workshops – or Wordshops. Em and I met working at a small publisher here in South Australia about a decade ago, then we both followed our creative career paths interstate, as tends to happen. Every year we would come home for Adelaide Writers’ Week (the oldest writers’ festival in the country) and talk about starting our own thing here. Last year, we each moved back and took the plunge.
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How do you go about finding authors to publish? Emily: We set out to publish creative non-fiction, then signed up three novels and a collection of short stories! All of our books are on the shorter side (something you can read over a weekend), they all make us laugh, and so far, all of them are by South Australian authors, which makes us happy. We are open for submissions, but we also reach out to people with interesting voices or ideas.
Is there a specific gap in the publishing industry you are hoping to fill? Margot: Last year, three of the major independent Australian publishers were bought by bigger companies, so there’s a gap there for creative risk-taking! The industry is also very focused on the east coast, which we’re hoping to rebalance. We’re also trying to explore a new model of bringing together books and workshops on things like brand voice to elevate the importance of words and editing in all aspects of work and life – especially in this age of AI slop.
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What does the day-to-day of running the publishing house look like? Emily: Not as much reading as you might think! We only release books twice a year, but we do pretty much everything ourselves from our little bookshop space in Adelaide Arcade. We’re constantly jumping between editing and proofreading, sending out books to media and customers, typesetting and cover designing, contacting bookshops and workshop clients, updating spreadsheets, organising events, writing newsletters and eating a lot of biscuits.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced and how have you overcome them? Margot: Almost every publishing house has the same problems: printing and distribution. We are very lucky to partner with Simon & Schuster, who support us on both these fronts, helping us get books out to the amazing bookshops across the country. Our books (like most books made in Australia) are printed right here in Adelaide. We were also able to get a free space through the wonderful Renew Adelaide program. Collaborations and partnerships have really made everything possible for us so far.
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What is something you wish you’d known about running Pink Shorts Press before you started? Emily: We both wish we had some extra skills in publicity and accounting, and maybe in BookTok. Although, we’ve made a conscious decision to keep it light on the socials – we want to encourage people to get off screens! We’ve focused our promotion efforts on Substack and offline alternatives – we recently made a newspaper poster book for our new releases – and we love building community through events.
What are the freedoms of being independent in the publishing world? Margot: Being able to make our own decisions about who and what we publish feels truly radical in this day and age. But we believe there’s something a bit radical about books in general – you get to stretch your brain in new and beautiful directions and immerse yourself in something considered, longform and – hopefully – long-lasting.
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