The Man from Uncle doesn’t want my book

Matt Handbury is Rupert Murdoch’s nephew and the owner of Murdoch Books. He’s known as ‘The Man from Uncle’. I have received two emails from him in recent months. All right, I’m not that important – they were group emails.  The first included a press statement and it went out to all of the ‘MB family’ from the publishing house CEO. (Murdoch Books originally published my book EleMental: A First-person Shooter, through their imprint Pier 9.)

Matt Handbury’s words made for very interesting reading, and it was rather sad in parts: ‘Many staff will lose their jobs …’

They (Matt really, I guess) were planning to cut right back to their core business of stylish books about food and lifestyle. Gone, any idea of publishing more young adult novels like mine!

A lot has changed in the world of publishing books. Once upon a time emerging authors such as myself, finally landing a publishing deal, would receive support to help them gain a foothold. To sum up the world now, I give you another quote from Matt Handbury’s press release. They’re dramatic words:

‘While digital publishing is still a fledgling business in Australia, overseas trends tell us that a tsunami of change is coming our way, as it did the music industry. Certainly the online sale of physical books has already had a devastating effect on Australian bookstore and other retail sales. … Clearly the old model will not suffice into the future. … While there is clearly sadness and pain in letting go of so much and so many people integral to the old way of doing business, not to act now would be to ignore the alternative end result.’

And then I received a second email a few months later. It was blunt. They are entering into merger negotiations with A&U. I guess the cutbacks, though clearly drastic, still weren’t enough.