Back in August, I wrote the first post in my Monday Musings sub-series on Quiet Achievers in Australia’s literary landscapes, meaning people like publishers, for example. My first post was on Terri-ann White from Upswell Publishing.

Of course, most of these people aren’t really Quiet Achievers. Those in the industry will know them, often well. However, for the general reading public, people in the industry are not necessarily well-known, hence this new little sub-series.

Barry Scott (Transit Lounge)

I have read and reviewed many books published by Transit Lounge over the years because they publish the sorts of books and authors I like. According to Wikipedia, Transit Lounge was founded in Melbourne in 2005 – 20 twenty years ago – by two librarians Barry Scott and Tess Rice. It is an independent Australian literary small press, which publishes literary fiction, narrative and trade non-fiction. Its focus is to “show the diversity of Australian culture”. Their website says they are

dedicated to the publication of exciting new fiction and non-fiction.  Our tastes are broad and encompass literary fiction and upmarket genre writing such as  psychological thrillers.  We have a particular interest in creative literary publishing that explores the relationships between East and West and entertains and promotes insights into diverse cultures.

As far as I can tell, Scott works full-time on the press, while artist and photographer Rice works part-time. In 2018, Scott was interviewed by Books+Publishing, and said their books:

go in search of the outsider, the marginalised, the immigrant, the different or the disappearing. We are always searching for what seems beautiful, unique, true, and isn’t afraid to push beyond the current zeitgeist in terms of themes or genre tweaking.

And, they have been successful in doing so. AS Patrić won the Miles Franklin Award in 2016 for his immigrant story, Black rock white city (my review), and Jane Rawson’s “genre-tweaking” From the wreck (Bill’s review), won the 2017 Aurealis Award for best science fiction novel, with its blend of historical and science fiction. Many other Transit Lounge books have been listed or won significant awards, including, recently, Lisa Kenway winning the Ned Kelly Award for Debut Crime Fiction with All you took from me (my post).  We often wonder about the impact of awards on sales, so I was interested to see a comment by Scott, in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) after Patrić’s win, that the company overall “will be more visible” and that he had “already noticed more people following the company on Twitter and wanting to see its books”.

In 2023, Scott was interviewed by ABR (the Australian Book Review), and here we hear his motivation for getting into publishing:

I was involved with administering the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in 2003 when the Unpublished Manuscript Prize was conceived. … I became acutely aware that there were many talented writers unable to achieve publication. Transit Lounge always has been and always will be about giving some of those new writers a voice, as well as publishing more established authors.

A bit like Terri-ann White! That said, Transit Lounge’s focus in terms of what they publish has changed a little over the years. In the above-mentioned SMH article, Scott said that he initially ‘wanted to publish Australian authors writing about other cultures and people writing from overseas about here. “We have moved away from that a bit; we were a bit more travel based than we are now”.’

Once in the publishing game, it seems that Barry Scott was fully invested, that is, he became involved in the industry. He was a director of the Board of the now-unfortunately-defunct Small Press Network. In 2009, he visited the US for several weeks, under a Copyright Agency Limited grant to find out about small independent publishers there, including the state of the industry. You can read his report at Overland.

Meanwhile, I’ll return to the ABR interview. Over the years, it has run several interviews with publishers, and I will refer to those – if or when I focus on those people. It’s illuminating to see their different reactions to the questions. For example, when asked about the significance of book reviews, Scott replied:

They are gold, even when negative. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’

Not all publishers responded so positively to this question, although most recognised that reviews mean something to authors. I recently listened to the interview with Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist on the Secrets from the Green Room podcast, and Simsion, a “data person” who has researched bookselling at some length, said that the main impact on sales comes from “word of mouth”. He didn’t talk about how you get that word-of-mouth started, but surely reviews, as Scott implies, are a contributing factor? I wonder whether the current fragmentation of book “reviewing” across traditional media, websites, blogs and social media, is, in fact, resulting in increased “word of mouth” exposure?

I have a few Transit Lounge books on my TBR, as I write, including Carmel Bird’s latest novel – a foray into historical fiction with Crimson velvet heart, set in Versailles at the end of the 17th century.

I’ll conclude, however, with a comment made by another author. In the blog, In Their Own Write, Mandy Sayer says

Barry Scott at Transit Lounge is a truly collaborative publisher, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with him.

This was August 2025, just before the publication of her memoir, No dancing in the lift. It seems that the fire is still burning in Scott.