This guide aims to give you the information you need to write and publish your own book the way that you want to, whether that’s the story of your life, a poetry collection, a children’s book, or something else.
In this guide, you’ll find advice and information on everything from choosing a printer to designing a cover. Depending on your motivations for publishing, you might like to read the sections on marketing and selling your book, or on creating beautiful objects that your friends and family will cherish. You can dip in and out of this toolkit and read the sections in any order.
This guide is the outcome of years of publishing experience from the authors and the people we’ve worked with. The four authors – Beth Driscoll, Kim Wilkins, Alexandra Dane, and Sandra Phillips – are academics who teach and research book publishing at the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland. Sandra has also worked as a publisher and editor, at IAD and Magabala Books, and Kim is also a fiction writer who has published over 30 novels. Between us, we have published 85 academic articles, 10 academic books, and taught thousands of students about writing and publishing.
The four of us came together in 2023 for a research project, Community Publishing in Regional Australia. Publishing has traditionally been concentrated in the capital cities where multinational companies are based, but we wanted to raise the profile of the DIY publishing activities happening outside of major cities.
We partnered with seven organisations. Three industry groups had an interest in learning more about and meeting the needs of DIY publishers: Booktopia, an online retailer that is an Australian alternative to Amazon, Busybird Publishing, a company that supports writers to make books, and Small Press Network, a peak body for small publishers in Australia.
We also partnered with councils in four Australian towns – Alice Springs/Mparntwe, Broken Hill, Winton and Ayr – and conducted interviews and workshops with local writers in each place. You’ll find some of their publishing stories and insights throughout this guide.
So, onto the DIY Publishing Toolkit! Pick a section, get started, and happy publishing.
Non-fiction, Publishing, Self-publishing, Writing
About The Author
Beth Driscoll is Professor in Publishing and Communications and Deputy Dean Academic in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She teaches in the Master of Publishing and Communications. She is the author of What Readers Do (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) and co-author with Kim Wilkins and Lisa Fletcher of Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction in Twenty-First Century Book Culture (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022). She has also self-published fiction with her collaborator Claire Squires, under the nom-de-plume Blaire Squiscoll (The Frankfurt Kabuff and Tante Fran’s May 68 Book Club: Choose Your Own Revolution)
Kim Wilkins is a Professor of Writing, and Associate Dean (Research) of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of Queensland. She has published scholarship relating to genre fiction, bestsellers, and book culture. She is also the author of more than 30 works of fiction and has her works translated into more than 20 languages. Her novel Wildflower Hill (written as Kimberley Freeman) was a Target Book Club pick in the United States.
Alexandra Dane is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications. Her research focuses on the production and circulation of power in contemporary book cultures. She is the author of White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture (2023, Cambridge UP).
Professor Sandra Phillips has extensive industry experience as a former publisher and editor, and is Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne. As Associate Dean Indigenous, Professor Sandra Phillips leads Indigenous strategy for impact across the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. A Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng mother and grandmother, Sandra’s research also includes the Reading Climate: Indigenous Literatures, School English, and Sustainability project.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/communitypublishinginaus
Research: https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/school-of-culture-and-communication/our-research/research-projects/community-publishing-in-regional-australia
