In Fairfax’s relaunched National Times, Guy Rundle has a perceptive but inconsistent piece on the unsustainability of parallel importation restrictions (often abbreviated to PIR) for Australian books:
Though the chief opponents of PIR have been the large book chains and their tame flacks, the main game in terms of radically cheapening and improving the flow of information and culture should be the abolition of territorial controls altogether.
History shows new and wider modes of circulating knowledge, debate and information are the means by which entrenched power and unquestioned authority is challenged. Just as the printing press destroyed the monasteries, and made possible the Reformation.
This seems genuinely liberatory, so why are so many of the cultural left against it?
In Australia, it’s because the cultural left has long seen progress as a coalition between left-liberal intellectuals, the state, and regulation and subsidy. In a backward postwar society that was accurate enough. Not only has technology changed our relationship to the world, but state regulation has become the barrier to wider cultural growth. In the meantime, a left-liberal clique have come to control the cultural institutions now being threatened – and find themselves in the position of defending a system that retains no logical basis whatsoever. Their progressivism has become the conservative status quo, linked to their cultural power.
It’s a valid point, and as always with Rundle, argued with his cutomary flair and elan. It’s true that the executives and cultural managers running Australia’s cultural institutions – and I’m guessing here that Rundle means the big cultural businesses and organisations such as the ABC, Fairfax, the major performing arts companies, state-funded libraries and art galleries and so on – are predominantly “left-liberal” in their political outlook, if only by a kind of default owing to neo-liberal assault on non-market cultural institutions and expressions and the general perspective of many conservatives and economic libertarians that state support for the arts is unjustifiable.
But has state regulation reallly come at the expense of “wider cultural growth” in Australia? On the whole, it’s difficult to argue that it has, especially at a time when many of the most vibrant organisations in Australia’s mixed cultural economy are the state-owned or funded ones, like the ABC and the big city cultural festivals.
Of course, the heavy hand of state regulation is certainly felt in copyright law, where western legislatures (including Australia’s) have enthusiastically enclosed the cultural commons at the bidding of multi-national music and movie industries – not to mention Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s quixotic tilt at internet regulation .
But does this mean Australia’s comparitively low trade barriers and liberal publishing regulations are really holding back Australian publishing? The evidence from the sector says they are not. In fact, if anything, Australian publishing appears to be thriving under present conditions. This may mean that the industry is healthy enough to survive in a liberalised trade environment. Or it may mean, as the Productivity Commission report on the subject suggests, that the meagre trade protection afforded by parallel importation restrictions has provided a small but valuable cross-subsidy, particularly to the sorts of smaller publishers that support interesting Australian novelists and non-fiction writers. If that is so, then why unilaterally liberalise PIR?
It’s interesting that Rundle finds himself to the right of the Productivity Commission (which ironicallly recommended a public subsidy as a more “efficient” solution to retain the “positive cultural externalities” provided by PIR) on this issue. He is normally quite suspicious of neo-liberal solecisms like the “left-liberal clique” or the “stone-cold absurdity” of cultural protection, and in other contexts, Rundle has railed against the damage wrought on the American middle classes by pro-market, deregulatory policies. Perhaps in this case, his cultural libertarianism is trumping his far more collectivist and radical views on economics.
As for the monastaries, political action by the state was far more influential in their decline than the printing press.
Cross-posted at my blog.
See for yourself — go to booko.com.au and choose more or less any book. Even deducting shipping from the Australian bookshops it’s very rare (in my experience) to find a book cheaper locally.
Now obviously this doesn’t prove why books are more expensive here, but it seems to me that local booksellers badly need to get a better deal — and more competition between local and os publishers might help.
I’m not sure why you say it is ‘ironic’ that the productivity commission recommends a subsidy as being better than the current arrangement. A subsidy is explicit, which means the costs are visible, and a subsidy removes unintended distortions caused by the current arrangements.
I’ve said this before elsewhere so why not say it again – in the grand tradition of cut’n’paste authors the world over:
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
Thanks chav – thats cleared it up then.
Probably the stongest argument for the current system is that we don’t know if prices will fall if we did away with the current system. There is a very strong likelihood that local publishers will be seriously damaged if the current system is not retained.
What if prices have nothing to do with supply? What if book stores – and foreign-owned publishers – have made the cynical business decision that the current prices are those that the book-buying market can bear and will continue to charge those prices regardless?
We could think a little outside the square and offer concession cards for people on low incomes to buy books.
But this is where traditional trade theory becomes more than a little disturbing. Are militant free traders saying that Australia just doesn’t have any business being in thinking, in writing, in creativity? As it is, Australia outsources too much of its thinking on economics, foreign policy, politics. But the free trade obsessives think we should stick to areas where we have a comparative advantage – like digging up iron ore. It’s time to close down our inefficient thinking industries. God help us!
P.S. There is a lot of invoking of the working class kid who just wants to read a book but can’t afford it. There are lots of opportunities to read cheap books in this country – from discount stores to secondhand bookstores (to say nothing of the competition provided by libraries and Amazon). Always be suss about neo-libs invoking the working class.
I’ve got a better idea than lowering wholesale costs so the chains can pocket the difference: we all shop at The Book Depository until a local player offers a competitively priced alternative.
Sounds like its more about defending inefficient and uncompetitive management practices and large hospitality tents at writers festivals.
P.S. There is a lot of invoking of the working class kid who just wants to read a book but can’t afford it. There are lots of opportunities to read cheap books in this country – from discount stores to secondhand bookstores (to say nothing of the competition provided by libraries and Amazon). Always be suss about neo-libs invoking the working class.
If you work in a factory for 40 hours a week, you are likely to be too stuffed to be doing much reading, whatever the price. But there is certainly something weird about the costs of books in Australia- my wife is quite into novels, and she is Canadian- and she’s horrified by the prices here. Since I am not a reader, I can’t really explain why it is so.
The best account of this issue I’ve read comes from Bernice, a blogger I see comment here from time to time. She’s a leftie, but she’s seen through the publishing industry spin (and boy do they spin; this I know intimately). As for Guy’s apparent ideological shifts, he has been spending quite a bit of time around the Spiked! crew of late…
skepticlawyer @ 9 – thats a really good summary. Opposition to PIR is at best about buying a bit of time as more consumers just buy from overseas direct. PIR is \ one reason we don’t have an amazon.com equivalent in Australia.
One other point I would add is that as the use of digital book readers increases, importation is very very simple. You get much lower prices, no GST and no shipping fees. It will get to the point where parallel importation is just not an issue, authors will be too busy rallying against peer to peer networks as consumers share digital versions of their books with each other. And these are much smaller files than CDs or movies.
A compromise for Australia authors who are worried about cheap imports of their own books would be to restrict PIR laws to only apply to Australian authors who want it applied to them. If foreign authored books don’t drop in price compared to the Australian authored ones then we’ll know the change in law has had no effect. But I rather doubt that will happen.
Trust Guy to use fanciful “facts” (the monastery story) and overblown rhetoric. On this we can depend. He’s the younger generation’s Bob Ellis. Free-wheeling and erratic.
Rundle argues that cultural protectionism is a leftish position, and he is arguing for the free trade of information and culture. Rundle is a leftie why?
H&R @ 6
Buying books from anywhere but The Book Depository (about half the cost of Oz prices and free express airmail (kills Amazon for this reason)) means you’ve got too much money. I can usually get books by mail or back order quicker from TBD than I can from Australian bookshops. TBD also has a huge back catalogue. Last but not least bonus is that I can get a hardcover edition when only a paperback one was available here.
The latest Tim Winton cost me $20 (post free!) when it was selling in Aussie bookshops for $45.
And the thing is the money I save is money I can spend on more books.
The definitive word on this issue is Harry’s:
I’m all for a bit of protectionism if it could be effectively administered. It worries me that profits are being squeezed out of all the products that I really care about; books, CDs, fruit. I want writers, musicians and farmers to prosper and I’m very happy to pay a bit extra to ensure that happens. After all, it’s not as if those things are expensive with a book or CD being about 25% of a plumber’s callout and fruit being ridiculously cheap. Unfortunately, we live in a cheapskate age where it seems the majority are using all their energy and ingenuity to get stuff on the cheap. And in that culture, what chance protectionism?
Ah, the Revolutionary Communist Party.
…..are predominantly “left-liberal” in their political outlook…”.
eltham and rundle here maintain what i consider to be an oft used and taken for granted mythology..that the australian arts & culture glitterati are left wing just ‘cause some of them liked keating for 5 minutes. i consider the australian arts industry to be one of the most right wing in the english speaking world, far further to the right than the arts workers and institutions in the say, Canada or the USA – positive discrimination for example has completely shifted the staffing of museum and high art institutions in the US. some of the australians, very few at best, are social democrats, the rest, in my experience, are deeply conservative. if one has “left-liberal” leanings either intellectually or aesthetically – one does not work in art & culture in australia, nobody takes the risk of offending the australian family, church or the rightist media – one simply does not get hired if one is “other” say, NESB or black – there are very few exceptions that prove the rule.
Hey folks, read the article a bit more carefully. First I noted the various genuine advantages to PIR – protection for authors from their own product being dumped on the market, publishing support etc etc. And at the end I talked about thinking how we will achieve cultural protection in the new media environment. I’m a firm believer in direct subsidy and govt support for cultural activities.
But protection by limit of trade has always been a double-edged sword at best, and there’s a long tradition of the materialist left – deriving from marxism but not limited by it – opposing protectionism as something that freezes social and economic relations at a certain stage of development, rather than allowing for the greater changes made possible by changed production relations. See for example humphrey mcqueen and others on arbitration etc.
This is an intra-left debate with a decades-long history in australia, and if LP readers arent aware of it, then they should make themselves so.
And my principal point was that tech cahnges had made the whole thing absurd, rather than good or bad per se.
Hence also the critique of the ‘cultural left’ and the ‘left-liberals’ – which are increasingly separate groups from a smaller (but pretty active) materialist left. This split becomes greater as cultural and knowledge production become core rather than peripheral, and the interests of cultural producers becomes a factor in its own right – rather than intellectuals simply attaching themselves to this or that side of the old class war. It’s why left-liberals can look progressive, but actually wind up conservative and elitist (in eg PIR and also the Henson case, support for the 20/20 conference etc).
If anyone’s interested in reading about this at more, possibly axe-grinding, length, i’ll have a piece on it in the forthcoming arena magazine (due out october).
As to connection with spiked, that arises from the shared pathways of post-marxism – unlike some i don’t change my politics every 5-10 years, my politics develops within a given set of ethical priorities, subject to changing analysis, and a changing world.
As to the monasteries thing, arggggh it should be bloody obvious that they could only be finished off politically because their cultural power base had been weakened by their loss of a monopoly on learning.
So what do you think of the LM crowd’s global warming denialism, massacre denialism (Serbia, Rwanda), the cult of Furedi and their long, strange journey from far-left to ultra-libertarian?
don’t be unkind Bill Posters,
guy’s a materialist kind of guy.
I still treasure his published piece, lamenting the “death of communism”, as an example of the blinkered materialist wishing to cling on to a discredited ideology, when the very masses on whom this ideology had been foisted, had swept it away and consigned it to a dustbin.
Sorry, I can’t provide a link. Perhaps guy will. After all, he doesn’t change his spots every 5-10 years. So I’m surmising he’s still proud of his nostalgia for Soviet/Eastern European communism….
and in this spirit:
if LP readers arent aware of it, then they should make themselves so
let’s hear it for Guy……
***************
Hold off on the bonfire building, LPers. Fawke it, that was a different Guy!
******************
Bill Posters, have you been prosecuted yet? Bast*rds!!
I see no difference between the pathetic mewlings of australian authors, and the car manufacturers crying out for more money for their uncompetitive, bullshit factories. Anyone who claims Bryce Courtenay as a cultural value needs their head checked. Here’s a suggestion to australian authors worried about being ‘decimated’ by
cheapfriggin reasonably priced books from overseas: Write better books instead of encouraging this uncompetitive, over-priced bollocks that gouges the people you should be caring about most: your audience.Writers don’t have some divine right to only have jobs as writers – indeed most don’t. Government grants are one thing but these market distortions are rubbish and all they do is drive people like myself, who read quite a lot of books, to the Book Depository et al, and thus they don’t get the cash anyway.
patrickg
I’d put in a word for Libraries too. Can save a keen reader hundreds of $ each year. Cheerio.
Another factor not mentioned is that the English language book publishing industry is split between the US and the UK. The left-intelligentsia in Australia is mostly anti-American, and this reform of parallel imports is likely to boost US book imports into Australia and disadvantage the UK industry and its Australian subsidiaries.
But Guy Rundle is spot on that technological change is rendering this argument as irrelevant. I’ve recently stopped buying books in shops (tho I grab a book or two when I visit Hong Kong from Dymocks there – where they are much cheaper than here!). Instead I buy online, as some of the above comments relate. Unless you are rolling in money, you’re crazy not to. I’ve just bought a computer programming book, retailed in the shops here at $104 for $50 from fishpond.com.au – who dont charge postage for > $50 orders. They send books here from New Zealand, but operate in A$. I’ve also purchased from Amazon and Book Depository, too – these always work out cheaper than going into a shop here.
$35 for a new paperback is too high. But I find it depressing that the only way economists can find to bring prices down carries the risk of seriously damaging our publishing industry.
Is it asking too much of the economics profession that they come up with a few ideas to bring down prices within a domestic economy without always lazily relying on foreign competition? Can’t they, just this once, acknowledge that areas like culture are special cases and find some other way around this problem?
What is this “materialist left” that Rundle is now talking about?
??? not sure…
how about
1) “the materialist conception of history”
2) “dialectical materialism”
Materialist as opposed to metaphysical??
You can clearly see that there is NO metaphysical content in either 1) or 2)
So Rundle is positioning himself as a metaphysician?
Thanks for your comments Guy, I won’t nitpick about the monastaries …
>
There’s no doubt the impending Kindle-led charge to the digital revolution will render the PIR debate less relevant. *My* point, which perhaps I didn’t make clearly enough, is firstly that cultural protection is no bad thing, and secondly that you can’t understand the PIR debate without a broader understanding of copyright law itself, which is of course a very large system of multi-national trade protection in its own right. For instance, compared with the draconian levels of DRM that Amazon mandates for the Kindle, PIR is a comparitively minor restraint of trade.
Self-styled “materialists” eventually stubbed their toes on actual, existing material conditions….
… and the serfs got sick of copping the very ‘material’ bullets and bludgeons wielded by their bully-boy ‘materialist’ rulers
To borrow a phrase attributed to the assassin of Abe Lincoln in his moment of infamy, “that’s what happens to tyrants!”
cultural protection is no bad thing
Blood oath its a Bad Thing. Petty parochialism is one of the banes of human existence; if you want to write, write for the world.
copyright law … is of course a very large system of multi-national trade protection
Absolutely true, but that surely is an argument for undermining it rather than reinforcing it with grotty little bits of protectionism.
Oh, and a quick snark on Rundle. “liberatory” – what’s with the neologism? Surely “liberating” is what he meant.
“$35 for a new paperback is too high.”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. There’s even some nonsense industry term for the out-sized paperback that scrapes an extra $10 out of those that can afford it.
Once that palaver started 4 or 5 years ago, I decided to cease local buying, and switched to The Book Depository. Yes, there’s a mass of detail in the economic ebb and flow, but it was that single prick of an act by local publishers that turned me away.
Also, I’ll second Skeptic Lawyer above – it was Bernice’s brilliant piece that smashed any local protection arguments to pieces for me. One of the best blog posts evah.
DD @31, I’ve never liked verbs that pose as adjectives. They sound like ad-speak/propaganda, and they muck with tense. “Liberatory” was just fine in my book.
no, no, no
“liberatory” is far the superioir terminology: in its essence it denotes and proclaims a process which may be nascent, nay, pre-latent.
A tendency towards liberation rather than the tawdry and rather bourgeois concoction “liberating” which can be tested empirically against key measures of “freedom”, whatever that might mean, you bloody fascist; oh neologism rules and must rule. It is the sine qua non of my perfumed and ineffable existence.
*superior*
{sigh}
What in FSM’s name are you blabbering on about?
I was wondering the same thing, silkworm. What a tedious discussion!
Given the consensus emerging on this site, reform-minded ministers like Tanner and Emerson should be preparing a submission to phase out the Parallel Import Restriction as out of date and anti competitive.
Sure there will be some self-interested squealing from the usual suspects, but they may risk losing more votes by doing nothing from people disgruntled about overpriced Dan Brown novels in Target.
I reckon a Dan Brown novel on the remainder table for $1 would be seriously overpriced, Terry @ 38.
But that’s just me.
Terry, I’m impressed by your idea of emerging consensus. We’re all happy little consensus vegemites in the neo-liberal world. We’ll I’d like to dissent a little.
Book publishing in Australia probably wouldn’t be reduced to the level of our film industry – that is, a few percentage points of market share for the Australian product – but it would be seriously damaged. Is paying $29.95 for a book instead of $35, but ruining book publishing in this country, really such a bargain?
Bob Carr has made the point that there is a connection between having a lot of books in a house and kids developing the habit of reading. True, but is the price of new books really the barrier to having books in poorer households?
Most of us on the centre-left – broadly and uneasily – made our peace with the market and even open trade long ago, but certain areas of our society should be protected from the ruthlessness of the hyper-efficient market – areas like education and culture. Can’t the neo-libs out there see why people like us are deeply uneasy about the idea that nothing is sacred, why we view you guys as “feral abacuses” (to borrow a Keatingism). Or that we think you’re from another planet when you seem not to give a damn about your own culture?
Ginja, the Australian film industry is the way it is because the industry doesn’t make enough films that enough people want to watch. That wouldn’t change if you put a $5 mark up on cinema tickets for Adam Sandler films.
If Australian culture was such a fragile bonsai plant that it would be swept way by the removal of a $10 mark-up on Danielle Steel hardbacks at K-Mart, then we all may as well emigrate.
The change would be implemented over time. Its called structural adjustment. All industries go through it at some time, whether with government support or without it. And the forces driving change here – globalisation and digital technologies – are those affecting most local industries.
Or are we saying that it is one set of rules for the creative class, and another for everyone else? That is a losing position, particularly for a Labor government.
Well, that’s what most European countries argue. Ever heard of the ‘cultural exception’?
I note that the only people within the publishing industry that want this change are Dymocks and Woolworths. Do you think that perhaps it maybe less about concern for Australian readers and more about wanting to totally dominate the book trade and drive out the independent booksellers? Besides, if Bob Carr’s for it, I’m ag’in it.
Fine, the French have declared their vineyards to be part of the ‘cultural exception’. Doesn’t prove it as a case for Australia to become more like France.
Having spent a lot of time in France, I think it is.
The Sarkozy government also pays for 18 year olds in France to get newspaper subscriptions.
Linked text
Should the Rudd government pay for 18 year olds to get daily deliveries of The Australian?
Nah, they have better newspapers in France.
I think local sellers are pretty much stuffed anyway unless they can manage to fix up whatever business practices are the reason for it taking so bloody long for ordered-in books to arrive.
My university bookshop was taken over by the Co-op this year, and they offered a 10% discount on all purchases to members, so I joined at the beginning of August. Since then I’ve actually tried there first with every book purchase I’ve made, but they only had three of the books I wanted on hand. All the others I was told it would take six to eight weeks to get them in. Jesus! If I order from Amazon or the Book Depostory, invariably it’s here in 7-12 days.
So, since the start of August I’ve bought three books from an Australian retailer, nine from Amazon, and three from the Book Depository, and one direct from the German publisher’s website. In each case I tried to get it locally first.
I’d be happy to pay and extra $5 on top of every Australian book if I knew most of it went to the author and some to the publisher. Hell I’d pay an extra $10 to Peter Temple and Garry Disher.
It’s the extra $10 on the new Dan Brown or the Idiots Guide to Wordpress that’s the problem.
Ginja, I’ve no idea how my culture is being protected by stopping shops from stocking books imported from overseas. I’ve tried to work out what and where the problem is but I can’t see it. How does making a Dan Brown novel $5 more expensive help my culture? More to the point, how does making a Peter Carey novel $5 more expensive help my culture? How does making textbooks more expensive help my culture? I strongly dissent from the proposal that increased profits for publishers is the best way to protect my culture and
I suggest it’s damaging to my culture to leave the Australian publishing industries preserved in 1991 amber, when the world is changing at such an astonishing rate.
This restriction on imports is supposed to help the industry, but it’s so indirect as to be impossible to work out what effect it’s actually having, beyond providing extra work for the two book printers in Vic and SA. The Commission had a go at some sums and on some measures 85% of the income assistance provided by the restriction goes to non-Australian rights holders (Dan Brown, et al). That’s your money and my money, propping up US culture.
I seem to recall pretty much the same arguments (and prediction of ruin) being made in 1998 when the restrictions on CD imports were lifted, but last I checked there were still lots of Australian acts in the charts, the shops and on the wireless.
d
You’re not kidding, FXH. For all the novels borrowed from family members, I probably owe Peter Temple the price of a longish boozy lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Haymarket.
Peter Temple: if you’re reading this, get in touch. It’s my shout for san choy bao, crispy skin duck, steamed dumplings, tea and VB stubbies on Sussex St. Call it my contribution to Australian literature.
I strongly dissent from the proposal that increased profits for publishers is the best way to protect my culture
Inflated profits for Penguin or inflated profits for Woolworths? You’re making a decision in this context, at the end of the day.
As I said, you needn’t suffer the local racket in order to enjoy and support the country’s talent and heritage.
@ Ginja #24
“$35 for a new paperback…”
Whoa whoa whoa. Hold it right there. I’ve been out of Oz for almost a decade, so I don’t know the lay of the land in Aussie bookstores. Is the figure you quote accurate generally speaking?
I wouldn’t pay that much for a new release hardback (the last Harry Potter was $29.95, new release, hardback) here in the US.
gary @52 – yup you been out of town a while – I’ve seen paperbacks here for $35
gary – i actually got the Tom Waits Lowside of The Road by Barney Hoskins for ~$28aus landed on my doorstep inside 7 days from overseas in hardback – local softback was $38
liam – I always speak the truth -Temple has two newies coming out – a Jack Irish and a procedural sort of successor to Broken Shore – i’ll pay the bookshop surcharge unless its out overseas first
liam – Temple and Disher are both too sophisticated to be caught dining out either in sydney or with VB (or you)
Its me, perhaps nabs, melbourne, little creatures and Camy Shanghai Dumpling- want an invite?
@fxh 54
That’s some mighty expensive literature. At my two local chains I expect paperbacks to be between $6.95 and $15.00 (USD). BTW, I fact checked my Potter purchase: new release hardback cost me $20.46 (USD)… You guys are being screwed.
too long out of the country: it’s “rooted”, sir
Got me there, FXH.
What I lack in sophistication I make up for in excess, however—what can I say? I’m a creature of my city.
Helen DeWitt points out that she gets $1.12 from a sale of her book @ $14.95 new. She has set up a paypal button so that people who want to buy it secondhand can still contribute the measly $1.12 direct to the author. I don’t know how that is working out but it is a model that I would like to see more authors adopt. I can’t afford to pay new book prices but I can afford to send them the appallingly paltry cut they get from a new book sale.
Talking about Dan Brown, his latest novel ‘The Lost Symbol’ is released in Australia today with a RRP of $49.95 (you’ve got to be kidding).
Now have a look at the following prices quoted at Booko and wonder why people are buying from overseas booksellers via the ‘Net:
http://booko.com.au/books/isbn/9780593054277
There is just no argument for the high price of books in Australia except one of a gravy train thanks to the protection provided.
Pretty simple really.
(1) If there’s a legitimate place for a public subsidy of Australian authors, then it belongs out in the open, not hidden in the accounts and business plans of the publishing companies.
(2) For equity reasons it’s better that the subsidy be paid directly from taxation revenue, which is reasonably targeted towards ability to pay, rather than through PIRs, which don’t discriminate between rich and poor (at least not relatively speaking; of course it’s true that rich people buy more books).
(3) As DR says our PIRs are hopelessly targeted, with a large proportion of the subsidy going to overseas rights-holders.
And you’d think the liberal-left intelligentsia would be well up for this. Why leave the fostering of Australian writing talent to the consumer-facing Penguins of the world when you can do it through an arts council divorced totally from the wants and needs of actual readers? Which brings me to my next point: can we please have a direct subsidy without the liberal-left as the gatekeepers?
BBB
Su – that’s a bit like what I do for musos in reverse – any time I go see a band whose stuff I’ve stolen via P2P, I’ll chuck an envelope up on stage with a thank you note and five bucks.
su – thats a great idea for authors.
I’d be happy to sling some authors a couple of bucks everytime I read their book I borrowed from a library or a friend.
Or even sling $2 to author and $1 to local independent bookshop each time I buy a book from Book Depository – I’d still be way in front in saving.
Yeah, like carbon offsetting for publishing. I’d still favour yum cha as currency, though.
Does the CPRS allow a book publisher to claim carbon credits every time a citizen borrows one of their books from a library (instead of buying it)? Good!
How’s about LP sets up a scheme to market that? Huge yum cha credits for Liam as Progenitor. (c) Haiku 2009.
So… remaindered books are dumplings?
Daryl Rosin, imagine you’re an Australian novelist. You’ve written the great Australian novel. Problem is, the manuscript for that book never gets published because the Australian publishing industry has been reduced to something not much larger than a cottage industry and publishers in the US decline to publish it because they don’t understand the cultural subtleties and nuances that make it a great book.
Gary, it seems that people who never or rarely buy books are suddenly up in arms about the price of them. I’m a heavy book buyer, and of course selfishly I’d like books to be cheaper, but that has to be balanced against other concerns – like the ability of Australian writers to get published.
I happen to think Australian culture is important. Australian culture is not so delicate that it will wilt and die if import restrictions are done away with (we’ll still buy more Australian books than see Australian movies) but much will be lost in the process.
It worries me that Philistines – that is, economists – want to be in charge of this debate.
I could be wrong, but I don’t see import restrictions being done away with.
…I should add that the idea that Australian authors – who are hardly over-paid as it is – is also a big concern.
….I meant to say something about Australian authors taking a pay cut in previous post. Having a shocker – trying to have phone conversation at the same time as blogging.
Ginja, how do you know any of this subsidy is actually finding its way to novelists and is not being spent on propping Bob Ellis up at the hospitality tent at a writers’ festival somewhere.
As a writer myself (non-fiction) I’d have to add that my experience of multinational publishing houses is that they do a lot more research into the Australian market than the locals.
The problem with protectionism is always that it freezes bad business models in aspic, while the recipients of protection cloak themselves in the “national interest” like Pauline Hanson with the flag wrapped around her. Adam Smith spotted this aspect of business cartels as early as 1776 in The Wealth of Nations.
Its not an argument against supporting Australian writers. It is, however, to argue that outdated subsidy models to prop up uncompetitive publishing houses is a bad way to deliver such support.
I’m a big book buyer too, Ginja, with 6000 currently taking over my house so those extra dollars to buy books in Australia is something I have to consider. The dollars I do save buy more books.
As for Australian publishing (as in publishing of Aussie authors) becoming a cottage industry, it already is just like Australian film production. Until Australian authors (and filmmakers) get their eyes out of there navels and publish (produce) products that appeal to a wide audience, it will remain a cottage industry with the authors earning the small amounts they do.
Where are the Australian Dan Browns? Where are the Australian political thrillers? No matter how good Tim Winton’s books are, the audience for them will always be limited. Australia lacks commercial-quality authors with worldwide appeal and we have too many ‘literary’ authors.
We in Australia understand the ‘cultural subtleties and nuances’ of many books published in the UK, USA etc. Is it because those countries have better writers who are able to get those ‘cultural subtleties and nuances’ across to their audiences?
Books are simply too expensive in this country and with the ‘Net, better transport etc., our market size and location at the bottom of the world shouldn’t matter.
all of these arguments were put about lifting the restrictions on CDs..”the australian music industry will collapse”..”aussie songwriters won’t get their just rewards”..”our unique aussie culture will be swamped by evil cultures from…(insert evil culture of your choice)”… all of these arguments were put by the major record labels trying to protect their market..(not, I would argue, their culture at all…).
restrictions were lifted, CDs got a little cheaper, nothing else happened.
Dunno about the Little Creatures either, FXH. The pils is OK (although not much better than I can do at home), but the ale is vile.
How many ‘literary’ authors should we have, Daphon?
See the problem here? Arguing that the public don’t know what’s good for them and that only *we* (whoever that is) have the ability to define such nebulous qualities as cultural value and thus deserve to subject punters to the intellectual equivalent of gavage is a wasteful, arrogant and frankly deleterious-for-everyone-involved process.
I may not like Dan Brown or whomever, but damned if I’m going to tell someone else what they should or shouldn’t be reading, and why they should pay for books they don’t even like. It’s a leisure activity, damn it, not a medical treatment or a job. People should be allowed what they want.
If Australian books are too shit to compete with cheaper, better books from overseas, the solution is to write better books, not pay more for shit ones.
Except the car industry isn’t the same as the book industry. But let’s just use blunt ideology instead of complexity to make a decision, shall we?
Why not use ideology?
Complexity doesn’t seem to be working, as Laura’s noted in the case of Australian booksellers, and as FXH’s noted in the case of “Australian” authors. And the idea that an Australian literature requries protection isn’t exactly a principle free from ideology itself.
No, of course it isn’t. I’m not even arguing that the status quo should stay, because frankly I don’t know enough about the publishing industry. But I’d also reckon that quite a few people here don’t know much about it either. What I’m objecting to is the simplistic comparison between cars and books. One thing is not necessarily the same as the other. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying;’There’s always a simple answer to a complex question and it’s always wrong’.
So you think we should be getting people to pay for books they have no intention of reading, and wouldn’t enjoy if they did? Cause that’s what this is.
It is the same. I’m all for cultural value and what-not, but to act like Australian books are somehow intrinsically more valuable than other books (or anything) is ridiculous. Cultural value is what grants are _all_ about, and a much better way to deal with the problem – if you think there’s a problem at all, which I don’t.
Ptrickg, what on earth are you saying? Is there anyone trying to get people to pay for books they have no intention reading?
In France Nicholas Sarkozy gives every 18 year old a newspaper subscription. I’ll bet plenty of those go unread.
In Italy I shudder to think what Sgr Berlusconi gives many of the 18-year-old but this is not strictly relevant.
Terry this morning included:
“and is not being spent on propping Bob Ellis up at the hospitality tent at a writers’ festival somewhere.”
I trust the Productivity Commission has investigated the serious distorting effects on the whole industry, should Bob Ellis ever go teetotal. We need to see the modelling. Prost!!!
But Fine that’s what happens when you make people pay a premium on books that would otherwise be $5-god-knows cheaper – to subsidise a host of Australian books they aren’t buying. Or rather, that’s the argument defenders of the status quo are taking.
I actually do know about the publishing industry, having worked in it, and this is all about helping publishers gouge us, not helping authors.
See here for a good explication.
Terry, whatever you want to argue is entirely up to you, but when in the course of a single thread you twice mention the 18 year old French newspaper subscriptions, and also twice mention the hospitality tent at writers’ festivals, well…can you see how thin and undernourished it makes your position appear?
Australian books, Australian stories obviously have a scarcity value, measured against the aggregate pool of stories in world literature in English. I think objectively, and believe in principle, that the Australian culture industry needs to be helped to not disappear under the two combined pressures of the massive volume of stories from elsewhere, and the yawning lack of interest from the RoW in Australia-specific storytelling.
But, I don’t necessarily think that government grants are the best way to nourish Australian storytelling, and even less am I convinced that trade protectionism so demonstrably disadvantageous to local consumers is a good way to go.
It annoys me that we seem to have to have the nurture-Australian-culture conversation all mixed up with the parallel-importation conversations. They’re two different debates. And yes, I’m aware which side is responsible for so effectively commingling them.
All other things being equal, I’d love prices for new books to come down. I’ve never really felt I was “being screwed” after reading a book – maybe I love them too much for that.
I wish economists would apply themselves to practical issues like bringing down book prices in this country – without destroying our publishing industry and without always lazily relying on foreign competition (often the cure is worse than the disease). Can’t they think creatively just this once?
But all this reminds me of the VSU debate a few years ago. Student unionism doesn’t interest me much, but I remember hearing horrible Young Libs complaining how they didn’t want to subsidize things like the uni bar. They just wanted to get their engineering/accounting/commerce degree and stay in their room and read Ayn Rand and brood over horrible Lefties having fun and interesting conversations with members of the opposite sex.
Neo-liberals may one day get their super-efficient utopia – but gee it’ll be a boring place! Like spending a wild night with John Hewson.
c’mon laura, leave the hospitality tents alone.
on an adjacent thread you suggested women athletes could have open slather on performance-enhancing drugs. not a thin argument, more a bulked-up muscles argument. if those hospitality tents keep bob ellis quieter or happier, keep them open please.
Maybe just a hospitality pump would be sufficient then Ambigulous?
yes a one-person pump!
“The yawning lack of interest of the rest of the world in Australian storytelling”. Let me see: Thomas Keneally, “Schindler’s List”, Frank Moorhouse, “Grand Days”, Robert Hughes, “The Shock of the new”, Germaine Greer, “The Female Eunuch”, Patrick White etc. etc. And there are the contributions of Australians to global literary studies, cultural studies, history, art criticism, sociology and so on.
The idea that we need protectionist measures for Australian writing because the rest of the world has a set against us is a real pre-Whitlamite, pre-1970s notion of Australian culture, and I’m surprised that it has such a hold on the culturati.
If that is the case, then Guy Rundle is right to argue that the real enemies of Australian culture – understanding culture as a fluid and dynamic thing, interacting with gloablisation, multiculturalism and new technologies, rather than a fragile bonsai plant to be kept away from the outside elements – are in fact those who claim to be its “friends”.
omg, another bonsai plant! Or am I seeing double!?
Cultural nationalism is a reactionary discourse, whatever metaphors are used for it.
Moreover, since all and sundry have said on this site that they simply go around the PIR by buying books online, then the only people buying these overpriced books in Australian stores are (1) those without a credit card and/or (2) those who are not Net-savvy. And guess which economic class they are predominantly in?
When Gough Whitlam purchased “Blue Poles” in 1973, he made a defiant statement that Australia would swim with, and not against, global cultural modernity. The delegation to China while it was still a no-go country for the US aligned this to an internationalist foreign policy.
When Bob Hawke and Paul Keating floated the $A in 1983 and set about dismantling tariff barriers, they were saying that Australian industry would swim in the global waters, and not in the wading pool of the protected economy with its floaties on.
I am gobsmacked that the so-called “friends” of Australian literary culture believe that a Labor government will reject its heritage and lurch back to the 1960s, in order to protect a few businesses with flawed business models. Its time to look forward, not hang on grimly to the wreckage of the past.
“Cultural nationalism is a reactionary discourse, whatever metaphors are used for it.”
That’s me told.
“Its time to look forward, not hang on grimly to the wreckage of the past.”
What a shame, then, that Australians are so fond of historical fiction.
Ginja @ 67 – if your book is that great then why not use some of the replacement grant money to help with editing, use a print on demand service and/or sell digital versions and sell them through a website and keep all the profits? If it ends up being popular the bookstores will want to resell it and you can then go big….
in comment 84 I mentioned “the yawning lack of interest from the RoW in Australia-specific storytelling” – thinking of the uncontroversial fact that books about Australia don’t as a rule figure much in overseas markets, are hard to buy from overseas bookstores, very seldom make overseas bestseller lists. (It’s not that they hate us, we just don’t figure with them. And why should we? Why should they care about us any more than all the other niche cultures the planet is host to?)
Terry in comment 88 then wrapped quotation marks around this actually totally different phrase: “The yawning lack of interest of the rest of the world in Australian storytelling”, and then followed it with a list of books that are by ‘Australian’ writers, but which aren’t specifically about Australia.
I’m wondering what, if anything, this demonstrates.
Not much passion, drama or narrative twists in the emergent stoush on this thread. In the interests of saving it from the slush pile, a few needlessly provocative observations.
Someone once described reading Patrick White as like golf. Long swathes of scenery interrupted by outbursts of snobbery.
Regardless of what scheme’s in place, it won’t stop Australians writing for possible publication. Every writer who set out to make good money from writing and succeeded, worked bloody hard at it* and even then many didn’t make it. But for most writers, it’s an addictive combination of ego, therapy and exercising brain muscles. Bit like blogging.
Why is it a brand new CD costs the same as a brand new DVD? Millions more went into your average film compared to your average album and yet they often retail at the same price.
Let’ face it, technology has once again upended a hoary old business model. Long tail, yada yada.
“Moreover, since all and sundry have said on this site that they simply go around the PIR by buying books online, then the only people buying these overpriced books in Australian stores are (1) those without a credit card and/or (2) those who are not Net-savvy.”
Or my case, waiting for the tram home across from Hill Of Content and The Paperback. “Hmm, just missed a tram. Think I’ll pop in and have a browse for a few minutes. Umm…savings account thanks.”
There will always be space in any decent community for good bookshops, as so there should be, but personally my online buying to bookshop buying ratio is now running around 80/20. More of it and cheaper out there on the ether.
When is some smart production house gonna develop Gary Disher’s “Wyatt” novels for a screen? Australia’s answer to Donald E. Westlake’s “Parker” books except Wyatt’s more socially mobile.
Did I say “needlessly provocative”?
I have never finished a Tim Winton book. Something about his prose style reminds me of prawns left just a fraction too long in the fridge and then served with an overly elaborate sauce.
*For the purposes of argument, I am assuming Dan Brown put a lot of time and effort into becoming the kind of person that would write the books he does.
“Hmm, just missed a tram. Think I’ll pop in and have a browse for a few minutes. Umm…savings account thanks.”
Amen to that, brother.
“It annoys me that we seem to have to have the nurture-Australian-culture conversation all mixed up with the parallel-importation conversations. They’re two different debates. And yes, I’m aware which side is responsible for so effectively commingling them.”
Agreed. PIRs are, in effect, a hidden and poorly targeted regressive tax. It’s quite baffling that sections of Teh Left want Australian authorship nourished through PIRs when the obvious alternatives are more equitable, more cost-efficient and more likely to end up actually benefiting Australian authors.
You would think PIRs indefensible from a left perspective but the capitalists within the Australian publishing industry sure know how to pull the heartstrings!
And the contrast with the debate on GST on books ought to be embarrassing: transparent 10% price rise for Australian state government public expenditure (i.e. mostly schools and hospitals) = bad, opaque 10ish% price rise for the shareholders of publising companies, foreign rights-holders and authors = totally fine, desirable even!
BBB
BBB @ 97 – There is probably a concern that once the subsidy becomes more transparent that there will be public pressure to reduce or remove it. And currently the subsidy also goes to established authors no matter how well they are doing when it should probably be primarily directed to emerging authors.
Amen to that amen, brothers.
But is it meant to be Hill of Content, or of Content? I like the latter best.
Liam and FXH: For borrowing the books, you owe me plenty. Could we meet halfway? What about lunch in Mildura? On another point, I have never been to a writers’ fetival that had a hospitality tent. Tents, yes. In Brisbane I was once given a cloth bag made in China holding six biscuits and a small bottle of water.
Just noticed Dan Brown’s latest in Coles for $24.49. Wouldn’t be too happy if I had paid the RRP of $49.95 in a bookshop.
peter – in my defence I actually have all your books – paid for at au$ protectionist rates – one even signed – but it was a pre-signed one from Black Swan or espresso as they are now known – but I do lend them to others. However I’ve had so much enjoyment from them I’d be more than happy to shout you lunch – email me.
Asking me to go to Mildura is a bit of a big ask – Box Hill perhaps?
I wouldn’t be too happy if I paid anything for a Dan Brown novel.
bernice – and I thought I was a dreadful snob. I did enjoy Da Vinci as a read and a romp – but then I’ve had closer contact than most with Opus Dei and the sleazier side of the Roman mob’s misguided far flungs.
Well OK it isn’t as appalling as The Celestine Prophecy; but the point re its price at Coles versus a bookshop raises the retailing strategy of loss leader. It is highly unlikely that Coles are making a red bean at that price – even given their ability to muscle extra discount from the distributor, way above that which either independents or chain bookstores receive. They are simply pricing the book to establish themselves as the best RRP price in the market, and hopefully to entice Brown fans into the store who will then pop a few other goodies into their shopping baskets. Which is also why they are so keen to source books such as this from say the US so that they can be sold under Australian RRP, with Coles having some margin in place.
A book that has an initial print run of 6.5 million copies would have print production cost per unit that could I suspect be measured in cents. Yes there’s an authors advance of some size, marketing etc etc but the profit on such a book lies principally with the publisher – which is why multi-national publishers who have distribution divisions in Australia are so desperate to maintain the status quo.
And news just in re the GoogleBook settlement. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/20/2691001.htm?section=justin Much as expected; Google’s curious assumption that they could overturn major principles of copyright has been interesting to observe. If I were a shareholder, I would now be very very pissed at the vast sums of monies spent on this, when the average 3rd year law student could have pointed out it wasn’t gunna fly.
“Google’s curious assumption that they could overturn major principles of copyright has been interesting to observe.”
I can’t find the DoJ’s submission online anywhere, but from reports it’s based mostly on anti-trust and competition concerns. Google reached a commercial arrangement with rights holders and other than some details about treatment of orphan works and non-US rights, I can’t see where the copyright problems are.
d
To quote from the linked article, Marybeth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights:
“absolves Google of the need to search for the rights holders or obtain their prior consent and provides a complete release from liability”.
If you can spare a few hours of your life, (which you’ll never get back), read through the entirety of the proposed settlement. http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/r/view_settlement_agreement
There are number of huge problems with Google’s stance. Firstly the above. Use of someone else’s copyright currently requires the proposed user to clear that use with the copyright holder and pay any fees that fall due (and to allow the copyright holder to vet such usage, and to prevent it if the copyright holder believed it inappropriate). To shift the responsibility onto the copyright holder to track unauthorised uses could mean that an author would have to spend hours trawling around looking for breaches, then pursue that illegal use. This is almost impossible for publishers to police, let alone the solitary author or owner of copyrighted material.
Secondly, the settlement proposes that unless you opt in and claim the $60 on offer, Google will assume it has NO FURTHER legal responsibility to clear the use of copyrighted materials at any point in the future, even if you were not aware of the settlement or perhaps inherited the copyright on Great Aunty Patrick’s novels post the settlement.
Thirdly, Google proposes to define works out of print (a narrow geographical definition of being available in the US market – if an Oz author is in press in Australia in an edition that is not readily available in the US, it will be treated by Google as out of print in the US – handy isn’t it?) but for which copyright still applies, as being within their gambit to digitise with NONE of the current copyright obligations having to be observed by Google.
Given that Australia is about to enact a Personal Securities Act which will allow IP & copyright to act as assets, if you had borrowed credit against the agreed value of copyright that you may hold, you may be more than aggrieved if you suddenly discover your asset is no longer that. Apart from losing control of your IP into an environment where the unauthorised user is gaining substantial revenue by virtue of the use of the digital display environment for advertising purposes.
According to The Age, Guy now stands shoulder to shoulder with the anti-environmentalist, genocide-denying entryists of the Revolutionary Communist Party:
A pity, if true.
I can’t believe that a book market the size of Florida will go ignored by those with the means to fulfil it. Maybe it might have been different in the olden days, especially when printing presses were expensive, but less so now I suspect.
I really like the machine that Angus & Robertson has for printing one-offs of classic Australian novels that would otherwise be “out of print”.
Even within a multinational company, sales figures would show that certain titles would sell better than others. This suggests peculiarities that smart marketers would wish to examine closely and tailor product in order to take advantage of such a market, hence etc.
Many of those smaller publishers set up over the last few years in response to a given regulatory environment. That environment has chaned, hence some of the assumptions behind their business model may need to change. The government giveth, and the government taketh away.
Speaking of Australian publishing for Australian markets: I’d be fascinated to see sales figures for Battlelines – with The Costello Memoirs we got weekly updates, less so with this latest one in the genre.