Playing it by the book

It's been a best-of-times, worst- of-times ride for Penguin publishing boss Geoff Walker. On one side of the ledger, record-breaking sales for Penguin in the teeth of a recession and the threat of electronic competition. On the other, alleged plagiarism by three of his authors, including Witi Ihimaera, one of Penguin's most celebrated and a personal friend.

Walker is resigning after 25 years as Penguin's publishing director. He leaves in December, and the obvious question is: did those cases take a toll?

Walker, 63, says the discovery Ihimaera's novel The Trowenna Sea contained several unattributed borrowings was a "terribly unhappy time" and his lowest moment in publishing.

But it's not why he's leaving.

"It feels about the right time to try some new things," he says, adding his plans are for something publishing- related, although more than that he won't say.

Neither does he accept he should be "pinned up against a wall" for the plagiarism rows.

Professionally, the scandals were clearly a career low. Walker says that in 25 years the relationship between publisher and author hasn't changed, especially in New Zealand, where there is not much use of literary agents.

"It's still based on trust. With my longer-standing authors, I have very close personal relationships."

Does he feel betrayed by Ihimaera over The Trowenna Sea, which Walker personally published? "It's much more complicated than that. Obviously, some of what happened I wish hadn't happened, but I don't have a sense of betrayal, no."

Walker says Penguin agonised over whether it could have picked up the offending unattributed passages, as well as those in Sally Cameron's The Tui New Zealand Fruit Garden, which contained direct lifts from Wikipedia, and former senior Victoria University historian Danny Keenan's Wars Without End, with its close and unacknowledged correspondences to a book by Nigel Prickett.

"But in the end, it is authors who are the ones responsible - simple as that. In the contract with the publisher, the author guarantees to provide work which is free of any copyright difficulty. They guarantee that it's their own work. We do, however, need to look pretty carefully at the pressures we put ourselves and our authors under."

Is he saying that deadline pressure was a factor? "Possibly."

What of Walker's handling of the aftermath? In the latter two cases it was exemplary: advised of a problem, Penguin promptly withdrew the books from sale. But with The Trowenna Sea, he has been criticised for what you might call a rush to non- judgment - defending his author before knowing all the facts.

"I think if we were going to do it all over again, we'd have withdrawn the book immediately," he concedes. "We're a little wiser now."

Among Walker's fellow publishers, there is certainly a strong feeling of "there but for the grace of God go I". And in the blogosphere, the general reaction to Walker's resignation has been that the bad news trifecta shouldn't blight his legacy.

But what is that legacy? On the Bookiemonster blog, one writer declared Walker has done more in 25 years for local publishing than anyone. Another wrote that he'd been a driving force in developing New Zealand's literary talent.

Among the naysayers, the bone people author Keri Hulme cited Huia and Victoria University Press as being "far more proactive" in publishing New Zealand fiction.

That's arguable - Walker says Hulme's claim doesn't stand up "for a second" - but it tells you that in the incestuous world of New Zealand letters, its most powerful publisher is going to attract strong comment.

It probably helps that Walker came into his role at a turning point in homegrown publishing.

Penguin NZ, which until the late 1970s was little more than a distribution channel for Penguin Group's British list, had been given the nod from headquarters to start publishing books by New Zealanders.

Recruited from Reeds, where as an editor-publisher he had spent 10 years commissioning New Zealand history and natural history, Walker was charged with building a local list almost from scratch.

Fergus Barrowman, publisher of Victoria University Press, says Walker "seized that opportunity".

Barrowman has lost authors to Penguin, notably Lloyd Jones, whose novel Choo Woo was published by VUP but who took his Book of Fame and the Man Booker-shortlisted Mr Pip to the bigger publishing house. Walker, he says, "has that element of ruthlessness in him which it takes to succeed at that level".

But Barrowman doesn't begrudge him. "He's taken Penguin from small but exciting beginnings and built it into one of the great New Zealand publishers, fostering the careers of many of our leading writers."

Fellow publisher Brian Bargh, of Huia, says he views Penguin as part of a large multinational, and Walker as a hardnosed, commercially minded publisher not shy to trade on the magnetic power of the big brand.

"But you can't blame him. It's a competitive environment. And sometimes it works the other way and a Penguin author decides to go back to someone else. I respect him for sticking in there for 25 years and some fabulous books have been produced as a consequence."

Penguin's fiction list includes Jones, Maurice Gee and Patricia Grace.

In non-fiction, the roll is headed by Dame Anne Salmond and the late Michael King.

"That little bird [Penguin's logo] has very powerful magic in the publishing marketplace," Barrowman says. "But Geoff's personal relationships with his writers has been a factor."

The fact Walker rose through the ranks of the editing side, not the marketing or financial arm of publishing, has probably helped. He's an author's publisher.

Grace's first dealings with Walker were when he edited Potiki.

"He's very articulate, gentlemanly - which I value - professional and kindly. I get the sense of a man with a great passion for what he does - and for people's stories," says Grace.

"The trust has been mutual. I haven't wanted a contract until near the completion of something."

Lloyd Jones says Walker has "never been the kind of publisher who sits back and waits for the manuscript to arrive on his desk. He's assiduously pursued books by matching writer and subject.

"Several bookshelves to do with Maori history and culture owe their existence to his vision and energy."

Jones says Walker's personal stamp is best seen in Penguin's classy cultural New Zealand non-fiction list. "Just think of all the outstanding books on local history and literary biography that have come out on his watch. Michael King's biography of Janet Frame and his Penguin History of New Zealand and Anne Salmond's literary anthropological explorations are just a few that come to mind."

Walker started his working life in journalism, as a reporter at the Evening Post. In the mid-1970s, he moved into television as reporter and studio interviewer on Gallery, with Brian Edwards and David Exel.

From there he moved to Reeds and on to Penguin, where the fledgling New Zealand-focused part of the business consisted of Walker and "quarter of a secretary".

"They were exciting days. There had been an explosion of New Zealand literature in the late 70s and early 80s - the bone people, Fiona Kidman's A Breed of Women, Sue McCauley's Other Halves. New Zealanders were buying and reading New Zealand fiction in large quantities for the first time. I think the women's revolution had something to do with it."

Today, the momentum appears to be running the other way, notwithstanding Penguin's bumper 2009. "I think books are to some extent under threat from alternative forms of entertainment. The book trade is organised into very strong groups such as the major chains and that has changed the bookselling scene, and we're also facing an uncertain future with digital products and the recent economic downturn."

One might imagine - although Walker doesn't say it - that this constant grind has played a factor in his resignation. As Jones says, "Geoff's had one of the more difficult jobs in New Zealand publishing, keeping a big machine turning over in a small market."

Tougher times have certainly made publishers such as Penguin more commercially driven, with a closer integration of editorial and sales and marketing.

Walker says it remains true that the best publishing happens when someone is passionately inspired by a project.

"But successful publishing isn't a bunch of editors deciding what books to publish . . . Only yesterday, a book I was keen on, the sales director said: 'That's not going to sell', and so I said, 'OK, we'd better look at it again, then'."

Last year's big sales result was driven by books on cooking, baking and spiritualism. Ask him if he views Penguin's populist non-fiction list as a cash cow to subsidise the classier stuff, and the urbane Walker gets as close to agitated as he ever does.

"Absolutely not; they're all treated equally inhouse," he declares. "And around the world that distinction is starting to blur. So-called serious fiction is being packaged as commercial fiction, and with the commercial fiction the standards are getting higher and higher."

In any case, New Zealanders are still buying serious local fiction, which Walker reckons is in good health. They're also buying history: King's The Penguin History of New Zealand has sold more than 250,000 copies. "How do you sell 250,000 copies of a serious work of history in a country of four million people? It's been an extraordinary process."

Walker was King's friend and his publisher. They met at university in the 70s. "Personally, his death was a terrible shock and remained so for a long, long time. In publishing terms, it was an immense loss. The contract for his memoirs was sitting in my in- tray the day he died.

"It was also the time of Don Brash's Orewa speech and some extreme race-relations talk, and I was thinking of commissioning a book from Michael about that."

Of highlights, he's spoilt for choice. The success of King's history is one.

"And being at London's Guildhall with [literary agent] Michael Gifkins and Lloyd Jones when Mr Pip was up for the Man Booker prize, it doesn't get much better than that.

"In fact, publishing Mr Pip, with all the contact I've had with foreign publishers, editors, agents and scouts, has been a real highlight. There is a whole world of foreign rights that has its own rules and personalities and is absolutely fascinating. And when the deals are done it can be very exciting."

But the joy of the job, the year-in, year-out meaningful achievement, has been to work with some of New Zealand's best novelists and writers.

"To be part of that creative process, to be honoured to be the first person sometimes who reads the manuscript off their printer, has been humbling and immensely satisfying.

"You know, I'll never forget the first time that Maurice Gee actually wanted my opinion on a new novel!"

In the end, after a quarter of a century, Walker is still a reader, still a fan.

- © Fairfax NZ News