Last week, Melbourne-based Text Publishing announced that it had been acquired by Penguin Random House Australia. This is the third acquisition of an Australian independent publisher in less than six months. Affirm Press was acquired by Simon & Schuster, and Pantera Press was purchased by Hardie Grant late last year.
Still, industry experts say the purchases are bad for the Australian publishing ecology. Dr Ben Eltham, a lecturer in media and communications at Monash University, told the ABC that title homogenisation is inevitable.
