Small & Independent Publisher Directory


Shawline Publishing Group (Victoria)

Anthologies (including short stories, essays, reviews, commentary)

Publishing just got smarter We turn writers into good selling midlist authors so they may achieve a highly credible position in the global marketplace and be amongst the bestselling peers in the world… Our agency provides the highest level of professional support to every author within our community. A niche model and one of the […]

Amra Pajalic

I am looking to self publish my unpublished and out of print manuscripts, as well as short story collections that my husband wrote and which were published in literary journals worldwide.

Apothecary Archive

Apothecary Archive publishes, archives and distributes poetic material with a particular interest in creative production that combines text and image. In 2020 the long-running poetry publisher Five Islands Press became an imprint of Apothecary Archive. Apothecary Archive created The Atomic Book, a digital archive of the work of Outlier Artist Anthony Mannix and distributes The […]

Hunter Publishers

Hunter Publishers is an independent Australian book publisher, founded by John Hunter in 2008. We publish a singular blend of fiction, poetry, graphic novels, and non-fiction. Many of our books have gone on to win or be shortlisted for prizes, including the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards; the NSW Premier’s Literary […]

Bonfire Books

Bonfire Books is an Australian independent publisher founded in 2019 to find the best in new writing and the lost works of our literary inheritance. We note a lack of perspectives in the Australian mainstream that adequately address the rushing complexity of contemporary life. We seek to uphold the best of our literary tradition and […]

Downingfield Press Pty Ltd

Downingfield Press was established in 2017 with the objective of publishing authors whose voices would otherwise go unheard. We do not specialise in any particular genre, but rather focus on the cultural value of a particular piece of work. Downingfield Press grew out of a 2013 project established by our Publisher to bring his own […]

Upswell Publishing

After 14 years of shaping a list as publisher at UWA Publishing, I am delighted to announce I am launching my own imprint, Upswell, in 2021. The principles I used to build a list of books that speak to each other across a set of intellectual interests and how they worked language and revered it […]

Animal Dreaming Publishing (New South Wales)

Founded in 2003 by Scott and Trudy King, ANIMAL DREAMING was conceived as a way of promoting Scott’s first self-published book by the same name. Frustrated and downhearted by the simple truth that no publishing company in Australia (or overseas) was willing to publish his book (which they narrow-mindedly deemed ‘too Australian’), Scott was advised […]

The Text Publishing Company Pty Ltd (Victoria)

Text Publishing is an independent, Melbourne-based publisher of literary and commercial fiction and non-fiction. Text has been awarded the ABIA Small Publisher of the Year three times and won the inaugural Leading Edge Books Small Publisher of the Year in 2018.

Bowman & Hawkes (Victoria)

Bowman & Hawkes is a brand new, small independent publisher, in Western Victoria, formed in 2018.

Blue Vapours Publishing

Blue Vapours Pty Ltd Blue Vapours Creative Studios were founded in 2002 from a ramshackle back room in Abbotsford. Since then we’ve moved offices, expanded, contracted, expanded again, given up alcohol, taken alcohol up, burnt out two coffee machines and a grinder, killed three colour laser printers and had some ripper corporate events.

Subbed In

Subbed In is a not-for-profit DIY literary organisation and small press based in Sydney, Australia. Subbed In’s program of publications and events aim to elevate the voices of trans people, people of colour, non-binary people, sex workers, women, people with a disability, LGBTQIA+ people, First Nations people, survivors, working class people, and anyone who finds […]

Puncher & Wattmann Pty Ltd

Puncher & Wattmann is the leading publisher of poetry in Australia. Founded in 2005 by David Musgrave it has published over 150 titles. It publishes poetry, literary fiction, literary non-fiction, memoir, biography and anthologies.

in case of emergency press (Victoria)

Anthologies (including short stories, essays, reviews, commentary)

in case of emergency press is for emerging writers who are sick of emerging and are ready for the full emergency

Quemar Press (New South Wales)

Quemar Press was founded in 2016 as a publishing house with a focus on publishing new work and also preserving works which are little known in a Modern Australian context. With this emphasis on new and classic work, often by women, Quemar Press has published new, experimental novels and new poetry collections by award-winning author, […]

IndieMosh (New South Wales)

Indiemosh is a self publishing facilitator providing editing, proofreading and publishing services to Australian indie authors. We can help you self publish your masterpiece – we take your manuscript and turn it into a gorgeous paperback or ebook, available online to readers all over the world. We’re a family-run business in rural New South Wales […]

Cordite Publishing Inc. (Victoria)

Cordite Publishing Inc. is registered as a charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission ABN 60639190286, and is listed on the Australian Registry of Cultural Organisations. Its publications are Cordite Poetry Review, an Australian and international journal of poetry review and criticism, and series of print books.

Black Inc. (Victoria)

Anthologies (including short stories, essays, reviews, commentary)

Founded in 2000, Black Inc. is an independent Australian publisher of quality non-fiction, fiction and poetry, based in Melbourne. Our imprints include the Quarterly Essay journal, Australian Foreign Affairs, and Nero and La Trobe University Press books. We love ideas and stories. We are passionate about important new works of history, politics, biography, criticism and […]

Australian Scholarly Publishing (Victoria)

Australian Scholarly Publishing – ASP – has been publishing scholarly and general books for over twenty years. It now releases 50–60 books a year under its Australian Scholarly scholarly, Arcadia general, Tantanoola fiction and Chancery Bold law imprints. Almost all of its books are published in printed form; a growing number are also published as […]

Vagabond Press (New South Wales)

Vagabond Press is an independent literary press that was established in 1999 out of the desire to open up a space for new writing. For close to two decades we have published a range of established and emerging poets from Australia and more recently Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Our books have won many of the […]

Grattan Street Press (Victoria)

Grattan Street Press is the imprint of the teaching press housed in the Master of Publishing and Communications program at the University of Melbourne.

Ptilotus Press (Northern Territory)

Ptilotus Press is a community publishing initiative devoted to the unique and distinct voices of Central Australian writers and writing. Established in 1996, the press is based in Alice Springs and managed by a collective of dedicated local writers.

Obiter Publishing (Australian Capital Territory)

Obiter Publishing is a Canberra-based independent publisher of history, fiction, and experimental non-fiction. Our focus is works that nurture new, marginalised and diverse researchers and writers.

Tale Publishing (Victoria)

Founded in 2015, Tale Publishing is a small publisher with the objective of publishing two or three books a year. We developed out of the Monash Writers Group where it was clear that many people had interesting and well written stories that they couldn’t get published by traditional publishers. We aim to publish interesting stories […]

Magabala Books (Western Australia)

Magabala Books is Australia’s oldest independent Indigenous publishing house. Based in the pearling town of Broome in the far north of Western Australia, Magabala Books is one of the most remote publishing houses in the world.

Giramondo Publishing (New South Wales)

Building, stimulating, encouraging The Giramondo Publishing Company was set up in December 1995 with the aim of publishing quality creative and interpretive writing by Australian authors. It seeks to build a common ground between the academy and the marketplace; to stimulate exchange between Australian writers and readers and their counterparts overseas; and to encourage innovative […]

Backroom Press (Western Australia)

Entertaining and educational books from Broome Backroom Press Inc. is one of Australia’s smallest publishing houses. It is located in Broome, a small Kimberley town in Western Australia, and was set up to publish entertaining and educational books from the region. Backroom Press was incorporated as a not-for-profit association in 2009. The object of the […]

University of Queensland Press (Queensland)

Tiny Owl Workshop (Queensland)

Lover of great stories.   Tiny Owl Workshop is a new, small publisher based in Brisbane. They love great stories, whether they be adventurous, epic, dark, flirtatious, funny, fantastical, sinister, daring, quirky, short, long or anything in-between.

Spinifex Press (Queensland)

Award-winning and feminist. Spinifex Press is an award-winning independent feminist press publishing books across a wide variety of subject areas. Spinifex Press was established in 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein. It is an independent Australian-owned company which publishes innovative and controversial feminist titles with an optimistic edge. To date Spinifex has published around […]

Pantera Press (New South Wales)

Great storytelling, good books.   Some great businesses have started in home garages. Think Disney, Amazon and Google. Pantera Press sprang to life around the story-loving Green family’s kitchen table because their garage was full.  We view the so-called ‘slush pile’ of Australian unsolicited manuscripts differently. To us, it’s a valuable resource, an underexplored diamond […]

Overland (Victoria)

Radical   Overland is the most radical of Australia’s literary journals. It produces a quarterly print journal and an online magazine updated most days, as well as holding regular events at literary festivals and other forums.

Express Media (Victoria)

NFP Youth Writing and Media   Express Media is a not for profit organisation founded in 1985 with the aim of supporting young Australians in writing and media. It is a Melbourne based, nationwide organisation, with members and subscribers from all states.  Its core values are support of artists across a range of genres, providing […]

Australian Book Review (Victoria)

A Powerful Generator of Literary Ideas Founded in 1961 in Adelaide by Max Harris and Rosemary Wighton, Australian Book Review (ABR) has long been a vital part of Australia’s cultural life. Over its ten print and digital editions each year, the magazine publishes in-depth literary criticism as well as new poetry, short stories, essays, commentaries […]

Griffith REVIEW (Queensland)

Griffith Review is a leading Australian literary journal offering fresh takes on big ideas. Each quarterly edition is loosely themed around a particular concept and features essays, memoir, short stories, visual essays and poetry by emerging and established writers.

Hybrid Publishers (Victoria)

Hybrid Publishers, based in Melbourne, Australia, publishes high quality books covering a broad range of titles by well known and new authors, including business and legal texts, books on personal development and health, history, memoirs, Judaica, stories of Indigenous Australia and a small amount of fiction and poetry. Hybrid does not publish children’s or YA […]

Lacuna Publishing (New South Wales)

bold, original, thought-provoking books Lacuna publishes fiction, non-fiction and poetry that challenges the status quo, introduces new ideas, shares untold stories, or presents a fresh perspective. We aim to fill the gap for authors whose work is too challenging for mainstream commercial publishing and too important to risk in self publishing. We publish up to […]

UWA Publishing (Western Australia)

fine books and new ideas A division of The University of Western Australia, UWAP has been publishing important books since 1935. Producers of fine books and new ideas, UWA Publishing (UWAP) continues to expand the boundaries of academic publishing, striving for social, cultural and intellectual renewal. Award-winning fiction and non-fiction works illustrate its strength and […]

Transit Lounge Publishing (Victoria)

high quality literary fiction and narrative non-fiction with a global feel Founded in 2005, Melbourne-based press Transit Lounge publishes high quality literary fiction and narrative non-fiction with a global feel. We have a strong interest in writing about other cultures and our titles often reflect the true diversity of Australian writers and writing.

Affirm Press (Victoria)

Affirm Press is a Melbourne-based independent book publisher with a focus on publishing great Australian stories.

MidnightSun Publishing (South Australia)

beautiful, unusual, striking, sexy, challenging MidnightSun Publishing was founded in 2011 by writer Anna Solding, who is still its managing director. The company has published novels for adults, YA fiction and children’s books. Books, including picture book One Step at a Time and short story collection Wild Gestures, have been nominated and won awards including […]


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