Some of the ABC’s critics have
been
suggesting that it should not be in the business of publishing books. The
truth is that the controversy over Chris Masters’s Jonestown book may have so damaged the brand that the opportunities
will be curtailed.

One
of Australia’s top literary agents, Lyn Tranter, says that she will not offer any contentious books to the ABC as a result of
the controversy. “What we know now is that it’s not enough to have a good
manuscript and to have (head of ABC Books) Stuart Neal onside, you have to
worry about the Board as well. Whether
or not it is a good book and a commercial proposition are not the only
considerations, apparently.”

Tranter said it was ludicrous to suggest
that the Chris Masters book would not have been a good commercial proposition.

Tranter heads the agency Australian
Literary Management and is my literary agent. She also represents some of Australia’s
leading authors including John
Bryson, who wrote Evil Angels, Margo Kingston, author of a book
on Pauline Hanson and Not Happy John,
which became the focus for a political campaign during the last Federal
election, leading novelist and essayist Amanda Lohrey, whose most recent
publication is an Australian Quarterly Essay on the rise of the religion,
Nicholas Whitlam, Eva Cox, and Leon
Gettler, who writes on corporate ethics, among other matters.

Tranter said she had recently overseen an
auction between Melbourne University Press and ABC Books for the rights to a
controversial book by the author Antony Loewenstein. Melbourne University Press won the auction “and
now I am saying thank heavens for that,” said Tranter.

Tranter also heads the Australian Literary
Agents Association, of which most reputable agents are members. ” I can’t
talk for the other agents, but I know that I will not be approaching ABC Books
with anything that is at all contentious from now on,” she said.