'The caravan moves on': Louise Adler returns to the publishing fray

EDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict.

Louise Adler, the former Melbourne University Publishing chief executive who quit in January after the university decided to shift its focus to academic books, is returning to the publishing world.

She has joined Hachette as publisher at large with a brief to expand the multinational’s current affairs and politics list. Hachette group publishing director Fiona Hazard said she expected Adler to publish the sorts of books for which she had become known: "political titles, smart thinkers and memoirs in the current affairs space".

Former MUP chief executive Louse Adler is joining multinational publisher Hachette as publisher at large.Credit: Joe Armao

Ms Adler would not talk about the circumstances surrounding her departure from MUP but she has already signed up several authors including three whom she published there: ABC journalists Sarah Ferguson, author of Killing Season Uncut and On Mother, and Louise Milligan, author of Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, plus Sky News political editor David Speers, author of On Mutiny, and Herald Sun sports journalist Mick Warner.

Adler described herself as a chronic publisher. "I see an audience and I see books. Other people see an audience. For me it’s that business of engaged writing by engaged writers. People who are interested in the social issues, not just the political culture and political analysis, but the social issues of the day."

At MUP she earned a reputation for publishing political memoirs and she sees no reason for not continuing.

"I’ve always thought it's about the main actors, the protagonists in the drama of our political culture. But it's also the analysis of it: the partisan, the personal view and the broader kind. It's the commentary as well as the individual actors in the drama of political life."

When Adler was appointed to MUP she was given a brief to turn it into a more commercial operation that published general "trade" titles as well as academic books. She subsequently published works by Mark Latham, Tony Abbott, Gareth Evans and Sam Dastyari, and journalists including Paul Kelly and Gabriella Coslovich. She also published more commercial titles such as I Gatto, by underworld figure Mick Gatto, which since being released in 2009 has sold more than 63,000 copies.

Adler, a former publisher at Reed Books, arts editor of The Age, and editor of The Australian Book Review, resigned along with five directors in the aftermath of a board meeting last December at which they were told about the change in MUP’s approach and also received critical feedback from new university vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell.

The last books that she commissioned for MUP are appearing in the next few weeks and include titles by Allan Fels, Hilary McPhee and Brian Toohey.

"You work very hard to create a list and a profile for a company and we brought a wonderful bunch of Australian writers together and then the caravan moves on and you have to recognise that. You have to be at peace about that. You did the best you could, you published with integrity people who had integrity.

"I wish MUP all the very best. I want it to flourish. We need good publishing to flourish everywhere."