Promoting the Drovers

Promoting a book north of Brisbane can be a wary business, especially if the author’s car carries a Canberra number plate. In this most nationalistic of states, he must first establish his credentials as a Queenslander. In my own case, born at Boonah near Ipswich and with many years’ experience in the north, these were impeccable. Next, his book should have links with Queensland. Again, for myself, this was a simple exercise, since my latest work, The Drovers (Macmillan, $ 1 9.95), an amalgam of yarns, personal experience, and historical research – a new kind of history, if you like – ranges over the droving routes which once crossed inland Australia through Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. One of the funniest yarns in the book (about Ken Axon’s dog, Red, which could count sheep) was set in Charleville; and one of the most exciting (when a night rush of cattle literally ‘made mince&shy;meat’ of an entire droving crew) at Alpha. And you can’t get much more ‘Queensland’ than that. The only obstacle left was the Canberra number plate: After a long and eventful career, I am currently a research scholar and part-time tutor and lecturer in history at Australian National University. John Orrell, who for many years has been writing his careful and sensitive book reviews in the Cairns Post, helped me over that one. ‘People up here don’t like Canberra and they aren’t too fond of academics either,’ he said. ‘So when reviewing The Drovers I stressed that you had lived in the bush for so many years and had at one time been a professional crocodile shooter. That established you as more or less one of them – a northerner and a bushman – rather than just another city academic talking down to them.’ My recent tour took me over 4,000 miles (7,000 kilometres) through northern and outback Australia. It must have been one of the longest such overland promotions ever undertaken by an Australian author on his own initiative and – mainly – at his own expense. The venture seemed appropriate as the drovers about whom I had written – figures of folklore soon, I hope, to be also figures of history – habitually made journeys lasting many months. These were tremendous migrations with stock travelling at under ten miles a day, when patience and an intense and philosophic observance of nature had to be blended with the capacity for instant action if the mob happened to rush (or stampede) in the night. My own high-speed journey was accomplished in several weeks, the only problems being a broken fan belt and a collision with a galah which destroyed one headlight (and one galah). But nights sleeping in my swag and ‘listening’ to a silence so intense you could feel it soaking into you through the pores of your skin, were a renewal of the spirit, and of the inspiration I had gained from the north and the in land over so many years, long ago. I drove from Canberra on the inland route to Rockhampton, north to Cairns; then back along the coast, staying at Townsville, Rockhampton again, Brisbane, Coffs Harbour, Sydney, then returning to Canberra. West of Ravenshoe on the Atherton Tableland I renewed acquaintance with ‘monster country’. Residents hereabouts with or without the influence of pannikins of ‘Bundy’ rum, are forever seeing thylacines, striped or spotted tigers, giant cats, or leopards black as midnight with long, swishing tails. Once near Croydon, I myself had spotted a wild pig dash across the road in the headlights, holding a large bird in its mouth. Seen through other eyes, I suppose, this might have become a lion with a mane of feathers. The region had not changed, for in Lucey’s Hotel, Mount Garnet, a lady informed me she had recently seen a ghost: ‘The figure was female, perfectly genteel and dressed in black, but giving off an aura so comforting I feel sure she must have been one of my ancestors.’ From a promotional viewpoint, the tour was a great success. Complicated arrangements made in advance by Macmillan’s publishing manager, Alan Davidson, worked perfectly. In Cairns, I was guest of honour at a ‘Meet the Author’ evening organised by Mary Ann Shaw, the energetic Chief Librarian of Cairns Municipal Library. The Cairns Post, whose centenary issue I had recently written under contract, published a feature review of The Drovers and various news items. There were several radio and television interviews. The reception was similar at Townsville, Rockhampton, Brisbane, in Coffs Harbour down the NSW coast, and even in Sydney. To say that the intensity of the interest surprised me would be an understatement. Somehow The Drovers seemed to strike a chord with a people re-examining their past as the impact of a trendy ‘multiculturism’ threatens the survival of folklore and traditions once called typically Australian. In Queensland, I had the added factors of: the annual Show season bringing thousands of outback visitors to the big coastal cities; the coincidence that the tremendously popular Man from Snowy River was screening at that time; the rarity of appearances by authors in centres like Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, and even Brisbane. Reactions tended to refute the notion fashionable in literary and some academic circles that the bush is finished as a basis for inspiration. According to this view writers should no longer define their nationalism in terms of geographical environment and effects, but on the basis of Australians being the most highly urbanised nation on earth. Such an approach ignores not only folklore but deep family traditions, and denigrates the indigenous strain of the new multiculturism. Among the highly-urbanised people who interviewed were a Sydney based descendant of the original Cattle King, James ‘Hungry’ Tyson; a radio personality who as a boy in Thargomindah (Qld) had purloined lambs from droving mobs and raised them on his own account; also a member of a family which for generations has owned Ironbark station in NSW, mentioned in Banjo Paterson’s ‘The Man from Ironbark’. These are only a few examples. But a review of titles of the recent fine crop of successful Australian films would indicate that links with the pioneering past are by no means so shallow as some of today’s intellectuals would have us imagine. While promotionally successful beyond expectations, the journey was no ego trip: it was expensive and demanding work aimed at selling The Drovers in some centres where it held special interest. Alas, like so many authors before me, I had the utterly discouraging experience of seeing interest aroused in The Drovers only to find no actual copies on sale in bookstores and that booksellers had not previously been made aware even of its existence. Distribution will always be a problem in a huge, relatively thinly-peopled continent, particularly nowadays when few publishers employ a travelling representative. But the frustration of seeing a unique selling opportunity wasted through lack of efficient – or even rudimentary – distribution, or any attempt to coordinate publicity with sales effort, can perhaps only be understood by authors who have suffered similarly. Undoubtedly this is the area from which the major lessons can be learned from my own highly personal attempt to promote The Drovers. Unless some efficient answer can be found to the business of distributing Australian titles in areas where they are likely to sell, the current economic recession is likely to result in the disappearance from the book world of some well-known names – publishers as well as authors.

Keith Willey

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