Pub Talk is an interview series where we chat to some of Australia’s most experienced and influential publishers, editors and agents about the industry and the many pathways to publication for new writers.
Jane Palfreyman is the publisher behind some of this country’s most beloved reads. In this interview, she talks about learning on the job, knowing how to spot a bestseller and her recent move to Simon & Schuster’s new imprint, Summit Books Australia.
This article is available exclusively for KYD Members. Subscribe from just $1 a week to unlock this and heaps of other perks, including our Member’s Lounge newsletter!
You first entered publishing in 1985. Could you tell us how you got your start? I understand that you learned almost everything on the job.
Yes. (Laughs.) It was a long time ago. There weren’t any courses or anything like that back then. I started out as a sales rep for Pan Macmillan because someone had given me the really good advice that you can’t stick around waiting for your ideal job—which for me was editing—so just try to get into the industry any way you can. So that was my first proper job.
I was driving all over country NSW selling books, which was a great way to start in the industry, seeing how different markets work. And then I was a rep at the airports, and the publishing director was going to Frankfurt or something, and we had drinks, and I told him that I had a literature background from uni and that I was interested in getting into editing. When he came back, he said, ‘Okay, we’ll give you a go’. And Penny Hueston, who was working at Pan Macmillan at the time [now senior editor at Text], gave me a manuscript to edit, looked over my edits and was like, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’ (Laughs.) So I became an editor!
Everyone does learn on the job, all the time, but that was an incredibly lucky break. For people who want to get into the industry, just getting in any way you can is still the best thing to do, and then just show enthusiasm in your area of interest.
Christos Tsiolkas has said that you were part of a ‘generational change of really talented, really smart, really passionate young women who were coming into publishing’. Looking back over your career, do you think things have changed for the better?
Oh god, yeah. Just in terms of what there is to read and how diverse the voices now are. When Christos started, there were hardly any Australian books depicting queer life. There were some migrant stories coming through, mainly European migrant books, but it was very limited. It was very white, very male… It’s changed incredibly.
You’ve worked at some of the biggest publishing houses in the country, with a significant time, up until recently, at Allen & Unwin. How did the move to Simon & Schuster come about?
They basically just made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, which is having my own imprint, as well as the connection with three other Summit publishers around the world. This will hopefully mean more Australian voices are being published overseas—that is what I would like to happen.
For people who want to get into the industry, just getting in any way you can is still the best thing to do.
Honestly, I was just ready for a change. Seventeen years in the same place, plus Covid and all of that. I just feel so energised. It’s a good last act, I think, before I hang up my boots. (Laughs.) But I don’t want to do that for, like, a decade.
In our recent interview with Penguin Australia publisher Meredith Curnow, she talked about the decline of imprints under the industry’s conglomeration. She said that there wasn’t much reader—and writer—awareness of them and their distinctions. Do you think imprints are still important?
I’m not sure they are, to be honest. I mean, when I was younger, Picador was a big drawcard for me—those amazing Picador writers in the 80s. I just knew if I picked up a Picador book it would be interesting and challenging—so that’s a handy thing about an imprint. But I still think it’s the individual books and the attention they get that draws a reader to them, and I do think the average reader doesn’t know or care where their books come from.
But they are important from an industry point of view. It’s a good way of saying here are some exciting new writers, and this is the kind of list I am building.
Simon & Schuster also houses Scribner, which has a focus on Australian literary fiction. What is your vision for Summit?
I will also be publishing Australian literary fiction. Our lists will sit alongside each other. [Scribner publisher] Ben Ball and I work really collaboratively, we’re great mates. He was a part of the reason I came over, just a fun person to work with. I think both of our lists will reflect our tastes.
The list I build won’t be that different to the lists I built wherever I’ve been. There will be some authors in common, I’m sure, and just finding new voices and getting them to as many readers as possible.
Your first Summit acquisition was the memoir We Are the Stars by Gina Chick, the winner of Alone Australia. What made you want this book?
Well, Gina basically. [Author] Craig Silvey is a huge Alone fan. I’d never watched any of it, and he said, ‘You have to watch this one, it’s the first one set in Australia.’ And I did. I just found that daily slog that people were going through so fascinating, and Gina was so different because she was celebrating being there—not fighting against it and the natural world, which so many others were. She was there on the moss doing her little fishy dance, and I found that absolutely captivating.
Gina was so different because she was celebrating being there—not fighting against it and the natural world.
The book, to begin with, is just Gina and her message about how you can overcome the most terrible loss by celebrating the root of that loss. But it’s also a fantastic book about reading. She’s someone who, as a misfit kid who felt on the outer of things, was absolutely saved—and defined—by books, and she still is. She uses this incredible phrase—which I think is one of the best ways of describing that feeling of reading a really great book—that your heart is remembering something that it already knew. There just couldn’t be a better way to start Summit.
Image: We Are the Stars (2024). Source: Summit Books Australia.
And you have a surprising personal link to Gina too?
Yes! I didn’t realise it at the time, but I’d actually published her mum’s book, thirty years before. One of the first books I published was called Searching for Charmian, and it was by her mother Suzanne Chick, who had found out that her birth mother was [author] Charmian Clift. I didn’t know Gina’s last name when I was watching it, but she looked so familiar. That incredible family resemblance. So when I found out, I thought, of course she is! Everything just made perfect sense. And it turns out she’s a great writer, just like her mum and her grandmother.
You have a history of establishing quite close bonds with some of your authors. How do you see your role as a publisher? Is it an important interpersonal one?
I think it has to be because you react so personally to the writing. I know lots of people don’t necessarily socialise with their writers, and it’s very much a kind of nine-to-five job, but I just don’t have boundaries like that. If you happen to make good friends with someone by starting out loving their work and then loving them as a person, that’s a huge bonus of the job. And it just makes working with them so easy and fun.
We all just want the best for their work. Just because I may be more personally involved in helping them, doesn’t mean I don’t make editorial comments that aren’t maybe sometimes hard to hear. But they’re done with goodwill, and the more you know the person, the easier they are to make. But I don’t make friends with everyone. It’s just one of those things; you click with the people you click with.
Curtis Brown agent Pippa Masson told us that it’s getting harder to sell debut literary fiction. I know that you have some exciting upcoming debuts in your lineup, including New Australian Fiction 2024 contributors Dominic Amerena and Lucy Nelson. Why is it still important to you to find new talent?
Just because there is so much out there, and helping someone build a literary career is one of the best parts of the job. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing writers from their very first books. New writers keep appearing, and they have fresh ways of telling our stories. There’s nothing more exciting than opening the first page of something that maybe no one else has seen and getting that chill from reading something great and original and beautiful.
What is the best way for writers to approach Summit Books with a manuscript?
I get lots of recommendations from people, from writers and agents, and people find me. We’re also looking to start a submission process. We don’t have an official one yet. It will be for short windows, and we’ll respond within a certain period. Everyone is busy in publishing, really stretched, as you can imagine, but it’s important to be able to offer that.
What kind of work do you do to develop first-time authors?
Reacting first as a reader and then as an editor. I think it’s important to note how you responded as a reader first, without making copious notes or anything like that. Just reading it through and when you finish, feeling like you have an idea of where you think things may need cutting or expanding, or where something may need work or doesn’t feel right. That usually—hopefully—leads to helpful suggestions. I think it’s good to do that as a conversation, and then it becomes an ongoing conversation. About the characters, their motives, inner lives…just everything about the writing process.
Helping someone build a literary career is one of the best parts of the job.
And just be as encouraging as possible. Not making editing a ‘you need to change this’, but a ‘have you thought about this?’ Just making it a gentle process. Over the years, I’ve noticed with some editors that line editing can be so brutal. I don’t think people mean for it to be brutal, but they have a particularly straight way of saying stuff. For a writer, that can just be devastating. Really, we’re readers who make suggestions, and they’re to be taken or left by the writer. It’s still their book. There are those terrible metaphors about editing and surgery. Like Gary Fisketjon saying he wants to see blood on the table. I much prefer that invisible seamstress kind of thing, but even then I think it’s more collaborative than that.
During your career, you’ve shown a good eye for local books that are both literary and commercial, with both bestsellers and major award-winning novels, including five Miles Franklin winners, in your backlist. What do you look for in a good read?
Just that feeling of excitement. That something is new or saying something different, maybe points other writers have said before but in a slightly different way or a different voice.
I do publish books that I love personally. I’m not sure that I’d necessarily put that in the job description because it seems egotistical in a way, but I think over the years, you also get to know how the market works and what excites people. For me, the ideal book is something that has broad appeal but also is just fantastic writing.
Image: Australian books published by Jane Palfreyman.
Those titles have been entered into the Australian psyche in their own ways. Books like Jasper Jones, The Slap and The Natural Way of Things.
Yeah, I saw that The Slap just got number one at Readings as the favourite Australian book of the 21st century. That was so fantastic.
Did you anticipate that they would resonate in that way?
One of my new colleagues at Simon & Schuster is someone I worked with at both Random House and Allen & Unwin—because publishing is such a small industry. (Laughs.) And she said she still has the letter I sent out for Jasper Jones. She said that it felt like the perfect way to introduce a book, so she kept it. So yeah, I kind of do.
But it doesn’t mean they always do work. But when you get that feeling, you have to listen to those instincts. It’s just one of those things where you get the hair standing up on the back of your neck. You just know. One of the last times I had that feeling was Jacqueline Bublitz’s Before You Knew My Name. We did that deal three weeks into pandemic lockdowns. And Allen & Unwin backed me for that book, which was so incredible at the time because we didn’t know what was going to happen to the world. Who knew if we would even be publishing books? It’s good to have that kind of radar, I think.
Is there anything you’d like to see more of in Australian publishing?
I’d like to see more diverse works. I think it’s still a very white industry, and I know there are lots of people trying to change that. We have to, obviously. It’s been slow, but there are all sorts of great initiatives now. Just more diverse voices, I guess. More mainstream Indigenous work. I know that there’s a lot being published. We [Simon & Schuster] have Anita Heiss’ Bundyi imprint; Nakkiah Lui has her Joan imprint at Allen & Unwin. Just more of that.
You’ve taken risks in your choices. For example, you took a chance on Loaded, which was culture-defining in terms of Gen X literature. You have also been ahead of the curve with millennial writers like Bri Lee and Clementine Ford in the non-fiction space. Do you have any hunches about Gen Z?
I think they’re going to create incredible work. It’s already happening. I think it will be about topics like loneliness, poverty, houselessness…issues that some people have always faced, but now an entire demographic is facing. There are going to be incredible stories coming out of that generation.
For me, the ideal book is something that has broad appeal but also is just fantastic writing.
TikTok and Instagram have obviously had a huge impact on book sales in the last couple of years. Is it something that you think about?
I’m not a TikTok person at all, but I have to say, coming to Simon & Schuster, my mind has been totally blown by the level of knowledge of the romantasy and romance genres, and the incredible success of my colleague Anthea Bariamis in that area. She publishes a lot of it and is just killing it. I’m learning so much from her and the editors at Simon & Schuster.
But personally I am finding social media difficult. I loved Instagram for a long time, but I get that whole ‘dead inside’ feeling more and more now. I think a lot of writers are turning off it too. I’m amazed by how I can be engrossed in something, and then I pick up my phone and my brain just cancels everything except what is on my phone.
In terms of finding readership, social media and the attention economy pose a challenge.
I’m not surprised that people’s attention spans are growing shorter and shorter. But reading has never been more popular in a way. So I think romance and romantasy are saving people in the way Harry Potter did back in the day. Bringing them back to books. And I love the way younger readers are not snobby about genres. They read so broadly, and one book is just as treasured as the next.
You’re working on your list now. Can you tell us about what’s coming up?
I can tell you about Dominic Amerena’s book, I Want Everything. It’s an incredible debut and our first fiction acquisition for Summit. It’s a wickedly smart book about literary fraud and creative ambition. It’s in that Australian tradition of literary hoaxes—I just love that book so much. It’s also been picked up in the UK, which doesn’t happen very often.
We’ve also got Lucy Nelson’s short story collection. She’s got such an incredible eye for the details and a really smart, funny voice. Some stories are expressedly about childlessness, and in others, it’s just a glancing motif in the background. They’re brilliant; she’s fantastic. We’ve also purchased a novel from her.
It’s exciting! Some big names will also be coming over, but I really can’t talk about that! (Laughs.) We’ll see. I’m just thrilled to have this chance.
