The future book industry: barns filled with remainders
Sophie Cunningham
July 15
This article was published today in Crikey.
‘STAND by for elegantly expressed outrage as authors and publishers respond to the Productivity Commission's recommendation to end the ban on importing books,’ says The Australian, expressing the kind of contempt for writers, culture and language which has fueled this debate.
The Australian book industry is now considered one of the major English language publishing markets. Over the past three decades Australian publishers have fought hard to have this market treated as an independent player alongside the US, UK and Canadian markets. Each international market has a territory within which it can confidently do business. No longer, if the Productivity Commission’s recommendations are to go through. Australian publishers, and therefore writers will be left with LESS protection than that afforded to publishers and writers in the rest of the English –speaking world (other than New Zealand) and we’ll be back where we were in the 1950s, when most Australian writers were forced to publish overseas. The Australian industry will contract. Jobs will be lost.
The headline of the article I quote from above is headed, ‘Australians have a right to buy books at the lowest prices’. But do they? They don’t seem to have the right to, say, appropriately priced dental care, and I don’t see the Productivity Commission jumping all over that. And, the bottom line is that you can get cheap books in Australia (yes, many of them through Dymocks and Big W, two of the chains lobbying for these proposed changes). The Coalition for Cheaper Books has said that the price of Tim Winton’s Breath is quoted on a UK website price as A$14.70, including delivery, compared with an Australian Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of $25. But, actually, Breath retails at Big W for $16.21 ($14.74 without the GST). I worked, for a couple of years recently, at an independent bookstore. When a big book, such as the latest Harry Potter came out we sold it at full RRP rather than the large discounts the chains were selling it at. The thing is, that people bought it at the full price because they cared about that particular shop, and they cared about books. They also had the choice of buying it cheaper at dozens of other stores. Furthermore, once you take the exchange rate into account much of the talk of how expensive Australian books are evaporates into misinformation. Of course, what irks The Coalition for Cheaper Books is that they make so little margin on the books they sell. What concerns them is not that Australians can have books more cheaply, but that they don’t have a higher profit margin. It seems the Productivity Commission is prepared to recommend sabotaging a successful industry in pursuit of those profits.
Six months ago The Guardian, pointed out that while the current laws in Australia, ‘can mean that books are more expensive - and harder to get hold of - in Australia than they are elsewhere’, it also allows the country's local publishing to flourish.’ It is that flourishing, that has meant, for example, that Melbourne was recently declared a UNESCO City of Literature. All those small publishing houses, independent bookshops, and writers working away on their projects on the side of other jobs. There is no point in having cheaper Australian books if those books are not, in fact being written, and/or the publishers and bookshops that nuture them are going out of business. Cavernous stores with tables of remainders do not a city of literature (officially or unofficially so designated) make.
Worse still, what if the books that continue to be written, are written with an eye to what is the commissions second recommendation, somewhat ominously describes as, ‘a view to better targeting of cultural externalities’. Excuse me? As one bookseller joked yesterday: ‘Mulga's Bill's Bicycle: This was a really good book. Though I am unsure about the cultural externalities of the story.’ Questions were asked by one festival director as to whether Cultural Externalities were, in fact, a little known 70s prog rock group (yet another group ignored by jjj’s Hottest 100). But no –here is the definition: ‘The consumption of culturally valuable books, and the ideas they contain, can help diffuse social norms. Where more people come to understand the unwritten rules of a society, their actions become more predictable or ‘trustable’ to others, facilitating social and economic exchanges. . . More generally, the reading of books of cultural value may help individuals to feel more connected to, and to be more productive within, particular social groups or the wider society, to the benefit of all. . . .the ideas embodied in some books have had far reaching impacts. Most obviously, the core ideas that were embodied in books such as The New Testament, The Wealth of Nations, Mein Kampf and The Female Eunuch have had major impacts on how societies operate. . . .another way that Australian books could generate external benefits is if they make Australia a more ‘marketable’ identity to the eyes of foreigners.’
As writer and blogger Lili Wilkinson says, ‘basically, the only books that should be supported in Australia are a) "culturally valuable" books that make us better people (in a creepy Orwellian-sounding way) and b) books that Americans will want to read.’
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find the description of cultural externalities to be supported as being those akin to The New Testament or Mein Kampf reassuring. And my memory is that Germain Greer took The Female Eunuch to a UK publisher first, not an Australian one. But then it’s not reassurance the Productivity Commission is interested in. Or culture. Or writing. Or books.
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Comments
15 Jul 09 at 16:28
What will the Australian publishing industry look like without PIRs? PIRs have indeed helped our industry to flourish, but change doesn't have to be bad. The recommendations allude to other ways of supporting writers and publishers. That's where our focus shld be - if we lobby properly, we cld surely end up with some better than before...
...15 Jul 09 at 16:37
I do agree we need to think about how to manage what happens
next - work towards better contracts for Australian authors that
are published in the UK and US for example.
15 Jul 09 at 16:59
Oh, I thought that Mein Kampf thing was a joke and hadn't realised that it was the PC using that as an example. It is a stunning example of ignorance. That said, while there is a lot justifiable concern about the proposed changes, I think the publishing/writing community needs to hone it's arguments and response precisely. I didn't find the initial position of the ABA for example, all that compelling. the success of the Dymocks-led lobby has been around a simple message: cheaper books. Ok, it's dumb and it's wrong, but it's a killer sound-bite. What's ours?
...15 Jul 09 at 17:00
Always amazes me how a person's being articulate and using language well is so offensive to conservatives (they said the same thing about Obama, him with his fancy words). 'Elegant expression', I suppose, is a sign of elitism and the prestigious ivory towers we all dwell within. Those would be the ivory towers with rent cheap enough for oz writers on their average annual incomes of 11 thousand dollars to afford.
Who knows what will happen as a result of the PC's report (I'm pretty sure half-price books ain't it), but a side effect of the discussion is, as you say, a vigorous airing of the right's deeply held suspicion and loathing of artists. Good old Straya.
...15 Jul 09 at 17:30
MIke, I agree with you- the campaign has got really bogged down in detail, to our detriment.
...15 Jul 09 at 17:39
The rules and proposed changes around copyright are nuanced and complex. Rather than the detail, we need to hear the voices of the printers, the booksellers, the people who want local publishing to remain healthy. We need to be visible. Even if that means picketing and protesting. I'm ready.
...15 Jul 09 at 17:47
So am I.
...15 Jul 09 at 17:55
Something the pro-change media are really flaunting is not just cheaper books, but 'cheaper books for the kiddies.' If you don't support change, then your agin kiddies.
...15 Jul 09 at 17:56
Oops, sorry, that was inelegantly expressed.
...15 Jul 09 at 18:02
From what I can gather, inelegance is considered a plus. You know, not so snobby and wanky.
...15 Jul 09 at 21:27
Are these the two sentences that sum up the Commission's underlying attitude and agenda?
"In addition to the royalties (and related income) that authors receive from book sales, the non-pecuniary rewards that many derive from writing — such as the opportunity to influence the views of others, and the ‘joy of self-expression’ (Abbing 2002) — are widely acknowledged to be significant. "
And: "...there is a social cost to granting authors and publishers the exclusive right to exploit their work. Such exclusive rights enable copyright holders to restrict the diffusion of their work in order to raise its price and thereby increase private profits. This reduces the dissemination of the ideas embodied in the work, and thus the associated benefits to society."
Are they suggesting that authors don't need to be paid because they enjoy their work, and yet that their work is too important to be entrusted to them? The last sentence suggests a real problem with the concept of copyright as a whole, and not simply with parallel imports.
...16 Jul 09 at 8:13
I like to think I keep an open mind on issues like this until
I'm presented with evidence.
As someone with a basic understanding of economics and policy analysis, I've found the PC's report disappointing in terms of presenting persuasive evidence, and it seems it relies heavily on theory.
I'll need to read through it myself, rather than read what's written about it, but at the moment it seems it even shies away from a comparative analysis of the results of similar policies in similar countries, like NZ.
...16 Jul 09 at 9:52
My understanding (gleaned form second hand sources, I admit) is that, in New Zealand, the publishing industry contracted, jobs were lost, and there was no drop in book prices.
...16 Jul 09 at 9:55
The stuff about cultural externalities is quite worrying. Does that mean the PC wants us all to write caricatures of Australian culture so Americans think we all act and talk like Steve Irwin?
...16 Jul 09 at 10:04
Yes, the cultural externalities business worries me more than
the rest, really. I think funding will be linked to caricatures, as
you mention, AND to worthy tomes of serious non-fiction. Admittedly
there is some of the latter at play already,in the current funding
structures.
16 Jul 09 at 10:51
Sophie - I've heard the same re NZ. If the PC report doesn't mention this and try to support its argument by exploring why a similar result would not be expected here, then that's a bit damning.
On Radio National's Book Show last night, the head of Dymocks seemed to think that repeating phrases like "competitive market" and "consumer choice" made for a persuasive argument. He was wrong.
...16 Jul 09 at 12:19
Also (and again bearing in mind that I'm yet to read the report) using cultural externalities to support removing government regulations is particularly peculiar, given that externalities are considered to be forms of market failure that can provide grounds for government intervention.
...19 Jul 09 at 21:27
"...exclusive rights enable copyright holders to restrict the diffusion of their work in order to raise its price and thereby increase private profits. This reduces the dissemination of the ideas embodied in the work, and thus the associated benefits to society." This certainly goes to the heart of the issue of copyrighting art or intellectual property, in any form. How much do the decision-makers within commerce and politics really value the 'associated benefits' of art? When citizens want to get their hands on a work of literature, they just make that a priority and do so, thereby driving up demand for it. Same for music. Should musicians now be forced to accept Limewire's free downloads simply because their music benefits society? Why is it always the artists that are subject to the 'vocational' argument?
...22 Jul 09 at 10:56
Writing as an American living in Australia, I can confidently say that the current exchange rate still does not make Australian books cheaper. When I look at paperbacks in Borders I see that books are selling at a range of $19 - $25.50. That's for a paperback. The same book can be purchased in the US for $7.99. The exchange rate theory is hogwash.
It's cheaper for me to order through amazon and have it shipped to Australia than it is to buy in a book shop.
I can't buy an argument that higher prices on books is protecting the Australian publishers or authors.
In simple math I could buy two books from the states and have them shipped here for the price of one Australian paperback. Hardcovers are even more ridiculously priced.
If the book prices were reduced I would purchase all of my books in Australia. Even my Australian friends order through amazon from a foreign market because it's cheaper.
If books sold for 8-10 dollars in paperback I'd never buy from the US.
As to caricatures about Australia, I can say that Americans rarely give thought to Australia or its citizens. And for those stereotypes you can thank Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin.
Higher priced books only mean a higher profit for publishers and authors which us understandable but it seriously limits the amount of books that the average Australian is financially able to afford.
People purchase expensive books here for the same reason that
they have expensive Internet and phone service. It's because many
aren't aware that better prices and services are
available.
29 Jul 09 at 13:32
Chris - at the risk of straying off topic, many of us buy
expensive phone services because the infrastructure is relatively
monopolised, and there's too little incentive for investment in
improving it. Add to that the fact that we're bottlenecked in terms
of our net access by physical cabling distances and limitations,
and you get a pretty good understanding of why our internet's
pretty pricey too.
Awareness of a better deal isn't everything; in the phone and internet services sectors there are scale and regulatory factors that complicate things (as there are in the book industry).
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