Small presses occupy a distinctive position within the publishing ecosystem, often associated with high-quality literary books and an apparent indifference to immediate financial profit. Pierre Bourdieu’s account of cultural production supports this conception by placing such publishers at the restricted pole of production, in opposition to the mass or commercial pole (1993). Drawing on my PhD research into the production of value by small Australian publishers, this paper proposes an account of independent publishing that foregrounds the accumulation of social value: networks, affiliations and forms of belonging that can sustain a press’s cultural and commercial activity. “Parties”—including publisher-hosted book launches and other celebrations—provide particularly revealing instances of this accrual of social value. Seemingly casual and non-commercial, they allow small presses to cultivate an atmosphere of disinterest or coolness while building the communities on which their cultural and economic value depend. 

In this paper, I analyse two case studies in order to develop an account of the role of parties in small press publishing in Melbourne. Drawing on archives pertaining to late-twentieth-century publisher McPhee Gribble, I demonstrate the strategic importance of these parties to the independent press within its local community of literary and cultural personnel. I then consider Instagram posts from contemporary small press and party organiser Sick Leave. Functioning as a kind of public archive, these posts advertise a local artistic community that buttresses the press’s activities. This paper thus explores parties as a mechanism for small publishers to convert their social desirability into other forms of profit, highlighting the tension in independent publishing between an outward disinterest in commercial motivations and strategies for accruing value.
 

Luca Demetriadi is a PhD candidate in Publishing & Communications at The University of Melbourne. Luca’s research considers contemporary small publishers through a sociology of literature lens, with particular interest in the social aspects of cultural production and consumption, cool studies, and Australian literature. 

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