Publishers team up to bring ‘Puberty Blues’ back into print

A new edition of Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette’s iconic novel Puberty Blues hit the shelves earlier this month to coincide with a new TV series currently screening on Channel 10. What makes this TV tie-in edition unusual, however, is that it’s the result of a unique co-publishing arrangement between Text Publishing and Random House.

The collaboration came about when co-authors Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, who famously fell out after their book was first published in 1979, each expressed a preference to work with a different publisher.

‘Kathy Lette has a longstanding relationship with Random House and wanted Random to do it,’ says Text’s Michael Heyward, while ‘Gabrielle Carey wanted Text to publish the book because McPhee Gribble first published it’ (Di Gribble is the co-founder of Text Publishing). ‘So we put our heads together and came up with this innovative solution.’

To keep things simple, Text took responsibility for the design work while Random House is looking after manufacturing and distribution. All costs and revenues are being shared by the two publishers.

‘For something that seems like a left-field publishing proposition, it happened like a charm,’ says Heyward. ‘If you think about it, authors have always collaborated, why shouldn’t publishers?’

Tags: adaptationspublishing

Category: Features