About black dog books

black dog books is an independent Australian publisher of books for children and young adults. We produce an award-winning list ranging from picture books to innovative non-fiction to pitch-perfect YA stories.

We're proud to publish titles by some of Australia's best loved authors and illustrators, including the Dragonkeeper series by Carole Wilkinson. Our outlook is unashamedly Australian, but our stories are universal.

black dog books: we're not a small dog, we're an independent dog.

The ‘black doggies’

• Andrew Kelly is the managing director at black dog. He has the messiest desk and his own blog.
• Maryann Ballantyne is the publishing director of black dog — Australia’s most exciting independent publisher. Although still extremely young, her career spans more than 25 years in the industry. Maryann is passionate about bringing Australian stories to young readers. Contact Maryann to enquire about rights for black dog titles.
• Melissa Keil is an editor at black dog. She has wide and varied interests &mdash she likes both Times New Roman and Helvetica.
• Jess Tran is the production, sales and stock coordinator at black dog. She has not said yes to a lenticular on a cover yet, but the editors are working in it.
• Sophie Splatt is another editor at black dog. She is also to blame for the high rate of Oreo consumption within the office.
• Kevin Roughana is in charge of the black dog finances. A black dog by day, he moonlights in theatre wardrobe.
• Gitsi Maksay is our publicist extraordinaire. If you want to talk media, reviews, authors, events or just generally about how great our books are, then contact Gitsi.
• Phoebe Norris is our administration coordinator. If you have a query about your web order, are placing an order, or would like a catalogue sent to you, contact Phoebe.
• If you are having problems using the website, please contact our webmaster.

black dog’s green policy

black dog works hard to be green, and to be greener. We all wish to minimise our impact on the planet, and we’re constantly seeking to improve what we do. And we wanted to be precise and targeted in what we say we’re doing, here’s our work-in-progress statement:

• We minimise the amount of marketing material we print, and when we do we use recycled paper.
• We have a compost bin for scraps.
• We use environmentally friendly soaps and detergents. We don’t use paper towels, but the genuine article made of towelling.
• Where possible we use paper sourced from sustainable forests and we prefer to use FSC certified paper in our books. We are constantly talking to our printers about ways we can reduce our footprint on the planet.
• We use our feet and public transport as much as possible. We’re centrally located and can easily be reached by public transport. We encourage using public transport or riding a bike to work. There are bike racks in front of our building for visitors (thanks to Carole).
• We use recycled paper for our printers, and print on both sides of the page where feasible.
• We carbon offset all flights with Greenfleet, and we offet the cars that are used for office deliveries.
• We recycle paper, batteries, mobile phones, printer cartridges, computer and electrical equipment, plastic containers and bottles.
• We don’t print documents (especially manuscripts) or emails that can be read on screen unless absolutely necessary. We have a number of e-readers for reading manuscripts where feasible.
• We don’t have a water cooler.

Copyright information

The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows 10% of the number of words on this website to be reproduced and/or communicated by any Australian educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a Notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under part VB of the Act.

For details of the CAL licence for educational institutions contact:

Copyright Agency Limited

Level 15, 233 Castlereagh Street

Sydney NSW 2000

Telephone: +612 9394 7600

Facsimile: +612 9394 7601

E-mail: info@copyright.com.au

Except as permitted under the Act (for example for the services of the Crown or in reliance on one of the fair dealing exceptions i.e. a fair dealing for the purposes of research or study) no part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

All inquiries should be made to Andrew Kelly with ‘Copyright permission’ as the subject line.