The real reason it’s so hard to get your Australian novel published

which I came to via, Who’s afraid of Australian novels?

Which pauses me to ask you, when was the last time you bought an Australian novel? Answers in the comments box, just as a fun exercise. I mean, I’m in the process of buying Australian novels to publish but it’s an interesting question. As I looked round to see what I have just recently bought and when I last bought an Aussie novel, I guess we bought Tansy’s Reign of Beasts last month in February. And before that, maybe The Courier’s New Bicycle? at Xmas/New Year? Not too bad really. But if I was to go back before that … probably the last time I was at Crow’s Books and it was raining that day and I still worked at my old job.

So, how about you? (Bearing in mind you’re probably doing the AWW 2012 challenge, right? :P)

]]> http://champagneandsocks.com/2012/03/18/vox-pop/feed/ 17 http://champagneandsocks.com/2011/12/11/australian-women-writers-2012-national-year-of-reading-challenge/ http://champagneandsocks.com/2011/12/11/australian-women-writers-2012-national-year-of-reading-challenge/#comments Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:20:02 +0000 http://champagneandsocks.com/?p=822 Well, I have a list of things that I want to do in 2012 and I know it’s ambitious. But it does include getting my read on so I thought I might as well throw my hat in the ring and join along the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge.

Objective: This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in reviewing and social media newsfeeds that has continued throughout 2011 by actively promoting the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women’s writing. (See the page on gender bias for recent discussions.)

Goal: Read and review books written by Australian women writers – hard copies, ebooks and audiobooks, new, borrowed or stumbled upon by book-crossing.

Genre challenges: 
Purist: one genre only
Dabbler: more than one genre
Devoted eclectic: as many genres as you can find
 
Challenge levels:
Stella (read 3 and review at least 2 books)
Miles (read 6 and review at least 3*
Franklin-fantastic (read 10 and review at least 4 books)*
* The higher levels should include at least one substantial length review

So, I’m going to be a Purist and stick to speculative fiction :). And I’m also going to be practical and set myself the Stella Challenge level – 3 books and 2 reviews.

I think it will be a lot of fun and I want to encourage others to participate. There’s also a second part of the challenge WeLovetoRead2 which is also a really worthy challenge. I’m not going to participate in that aspect of it though, due to time constraints.

However, Twelfth Planet Press will be getting behind the campaign and will be offering a 10% discount on our books throughout 2012 which conform to the challenge. Either email us at contact@twelfthplanetpress.com with the link to your challenge post for a discounted invoice or let us know in the instructions for your purchases by including the link to your challenge post. In the meantime, we’re having a sale for December and are offering 20% off almost all of our catalogue.