This article provides a summary of and commentary on ‘A Lovely
Kind of Madness: Small and Independent Publishing in Australia’, an unpublished
report by Kate Freeth, commissioned by the Small Press Underground Networking
Community (SPUNC), the representative body for small and independent publishers
in Australia, and released in November 2007. Freeth’s 14,000 word report
constitutes the most detailed and comprehensive study of Australian small and
independent publishing since the second volume of Michael Denholm’s Small
Press Publishing in Australia (1991) and provides much primary material for
policy makers, scholars, and people working in and around the publishing
industry.