“Protection in the creative industries is inextricably mixed with issues of our national identity and pride in our creativity.”

Oh yeah? Our ‘national identity’ went out the door when multiculturalism came in.

This is just an industry whine about competition. And since when was book publishing a ‘creative industry’. Book publishing is a money making industry, just like manufacturing industry which has also diminished in Australia, without any complaint from this author, I’ll wager.

“There are pressing reasons to look at support for the creative industries in Australia, and to strengthen cultural policy.”

“…to strengthen cultural policy”! What a joke! Back to multiculturalism: there is no intention of even retaining our culture, let alone strengthening it. One of the problems with Australian writers and the literary ‘elite’ is that they live in a world of their own, pounding out pretentious, arty rubbish that few people want to read. They are a bit like Australian television producers, and as much as I am loyal Australian, I have to say that Australian literature and television, whether it is supposed to be entertaining or instructive, is a load of crap, which has little, in any, connection with reality.

Books are too expensive in Australia, and there is no guarantee that they will get cheaper if the arty-farty Australian industry loses some of its protection (we have, after all, had numerous actions from the morons advising governments that were supposed to save us money but have done the opposite), but at least it’s worth a try. And, this author and the people she represents are not worthy of any sympathy

The boundary between art and commerce has always been tricky.

Mozart, anyone?

Chatterton? Samuel Butler? Homer?

It is an interesting challenge, even for a well-meaning academic, to justify more dollars for artistic endeavour, if only because the judgments made on the product itself will always be subjective.

And is it only me who runs a mile at the words "...the importance of access to Australian stories told by Australian story tellers"?

Especially when immediately followed by "Protection in the creative industries..."

Creative Industries?

Oxymoron?

Having worked in publishing for over 20 years, I have seen it totally transformed by the subsuming of local, independent publishing into an homogenized, global, multinational, corporate-based industry.

Not only has publishing’s creative content lost much of its Australian-ness, but much more importantly, it has lost all forms of Australian administrative, managerial, financial and technological control. The priorities have completely changed from being about local needs- and service-based commercial principles to being about keeping a global set of corporate systems firmly within a unified control framework.

The current global publishing industry cannot operate without the deregulation of territorial copyright laws, so they will be deregulated. That is a certainty. However, all the euphemisms will be employed to pretend that a consultation process is occurring – reports, studies, recommendations, inquiries, commissions etc. That’s the global name of the game.

Prices will not come down. Australian content will be further lost. And global publishing will proceed as usual. Australian creative content will be buried, but will tunnel through to the light in whatever way it can. It always does.

Another stooge for multinational publishing houses. The real guys supporting local writers are the little independent publishing houses and bookstores. They will continue to do well because they provide product for quality, not price.

We should cease protecting foreign companies operating in our markets, just as we should cease subsidising through our taxes foreign car manufacturers.

A 2006 Newspoll survey: almost 50% of Australians don’t read daily to their children and the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Aspects of Literacy survey showed 50% or 6.2 million Australians aged between 15 and 74 have poor to very poor literacy skills, that is, they have experienced difficulty reading many of the printed materials they come across in everyday life.

I don't mind paying a bit more for local authors but I resent deeply paying more for international publications in a country that doesn't read..."Books?...maaaaaaaate....?...have a beer?".

The quality of Australian produced literature can be measured by the dollars that the consumer is willing to throw towards it. If they choose the overseas version over the Australian then it's because the local isn't measuring up against the competitor. The consumer wins by getting what they want, or prefer, at a cheaper price. This is economics 101. Book publishers care about book publishers, not Australian consumers. Also what percentage of books sold actually fall under the Australian culture banner? It's probably a tiny fraction actually, what reason do they have for me paying more for (for example) an IT development manual?

SJF my thoughts mirror yours.

Just a thought, does this mean we will have to put up with American spelling and idioms in Australian novels?

We will be changing diapers instead of nappies and going to theaters instead of theatres?

Sorry I'm just not getting this - so are you saying that all the money currently being gouged out of Australians is going to creative Australian story writers?

Why aren't we drowning in them then? Why isn't everyone talking about them? Why aren't these authors swimming in royalties?

I reckon you could double the gouge and still not notice.

The problem as has been already stated is that is not what people want, so they don't buy them so there is no demand.

The bookshops all rage about culture and protection, all for their own pockets - none of the $M makes it to the "aspiring authors" a couple thousand here and there at most, through taxes and state and the odd federal scheme. Do bookshops or chains give anything back? Really? How? Where? Do the publishers?

Please don't tell me the difference in book prices is all spent on helping the creative ones here!

Does anyone actually go out looking for Australian stories? I have a diverse interest and buy a lot of books, libraries tend to want them back so I avoid them now, all from online overseas bookshops. Well except the one for someone special last week, but that was from an Australian online bookshop, a second hand edition of a rare European book.

I know some aspiring writers, who work diligently at their real jobs but love to write and dream, they don't expect someone should pay them a living wage for it. (they're not very good and they know it, but it's a life)

Mind you I have seen one would be author on OLO who rages at the injustice of writing but not being published, there's a good reason for that - no one wants what that person writes.

I think some people who would like to be authors look in the mirror and see one, everyone else just sees them for what the really are.

What has culture to do with what I pay for a book?
I buy books because they are informative or entertaining,not because I must.
If I can get one for the cheapest price, I'll do so.
I choose from what's available. If a book is not available at a price I'm prepared to pay, then I'll choose another, or go without.
It's the law of supply and demand. Those imploring me to buy from them should first make sure that it is something I want at a price I want. Otherwise, don't bother.
Remember WIIFM.
What's in it for ME!

I see a new Oz musical.. Rent Seeking.

A young author writes a book that noone wants to read about topics noone cares about , gets it published thru a subsidy and protection arrangement, reviewed by a bunch of pig tailed half wits on Aunty who love the tale of sexual stirring in inner city drug affected Yoof, and it sells just enough to keep his NewStart rolling along.

Next we pay for it to become a movie, which noone sees, etc etc.

I heard the book retailers and book publishers go toe to to on this on radio. Bob Carr (who is on the Dymocks board) and the author of this piece, if I recall correctly. I recon Pericles and Boaz David would have more chance of agreeing on something.

When NZ did this one said book sales went up, the other said they went down. One said the number of NZ published books also went up, the other said the NZ publishing industry and the local authors they supported were destroyed. A while ago we did the thing we are planning to do with books now to CD's. Naturally one said there are more Australian CD's produced now than then. The other said there were less. Between them they made it impossible to sort out fact from fiction. It was like listening to kids screaming "Did - Did Not - Did Too - I Did Not ..." in a playground.

There is however one thing I do know from personal experience. It almost always cheaper for me to purchase a book overseas and pay for the freight for shipping that one item than it is to buy a book locally. That isn't the case for just about any other type of goods. To me, that means something is broken. It should always be cheaper for a local merchant to import something by the pallet load than I can do singularly. And whatever is causing that should be fixed.

I bet books don't go down in price. I heard the last Aussie business shirt maker to go offshore being interviewed some years ago. He said that having a cheaper product he told the big retailers that they could now sell his shirts for less. Oh no, they replied, people are used to the old price.

Why is price the most important criterion for everything? The world is filling up with cheap throw-away junk - easy come, easy go. We now have teenagers buying 'landfill fashion' - clothes so cheap they can wear them then throw them out. If we have the urge to read, we can borrow books for nothing from our local libraries, or from friends, or get them cheap from a second hand shop. The price of books is not an impediment to the acquisition of culture, it merely affects the acquisition of new books. Books are like good furniture or a work of art - they are long lasting, can be shared and passed down through the generations. A few extra dollars for the initial purchase is pretty small beer.

Leigh wrote, "Our national identity went out the door when multiculturalism came in".

Master replies: No Leigh. "YOUR" identity went out the door. However, there remains the vast majority of Aussies who are not throwbacks to the 1950s, whose national identity is still VERY MUCH intact.

Australia has been multicultural for EVERY MINUTE since 1788. Our culture is, and has ALWAYS been, made up of many different races, original nationalities, religions, outlooks and philosophies. Good ol' Oz has NEVER been a mono culture, although they tried in the 50s with the notorious White Australia immigration policy. That failed, and rightly so.

What becomes important is not so much the loss of fiction books from Australian authors, but the loss of any non-fiction books from Australian authors.

The non-fiction books have valuable intellectual property, and the Australian public would have paid for that intellectual property, because the Australian public would have paid for the education of the author.

This is particularly the case for textbooks. I have heard of estimates that within 10 years there will be no textbooks in this country written by Australian authors. The schools and universities already use about 100% imported software, and the intellectual property of that software belongs to another country.

If the schools and universities start using 100% imported textbooks (very, very likely), then there will be no Australian intellectual property left inside our education systems. The public pay for the buildings in the schools and universities, but the intellectual property inside those buildings belongs to another country.

I wonder who gets the best deal out of that?

Neither this article nor anything else I have read explains how permitting parallel imports of books will reduce incomes of Australian authors.
It will reduce the income of Australian publishers - mostly subsidiaries of overseas publishers - and should reduce the price of books.
I cannot see any other major consequence although clearly publishers have convinced authors that it will hurt them.

What was the culture before multiculturalism came in.
Does AU have a culture, was there ever a culture.
The Aboriginal is the only one that can lay claim to that event.
AU has 200 cultures or more. The original aboriginal land only had one culture. The original wording of this thread borders on raceism.

Unfortunately Ken Nielsen, I think if publishers start to suffer reduced profits, they may well wish to reduce the royalties they pay authors. So authors will suffer.

This is market forces at work. While I am no free market fanatic, it's not realistic to expect people to buy what they don't want to read, so perhaps writers need to:

A) look at new markets / opportunites to use their skills
B) write more commercially palatable stories
C) supplement their income from another source (I'm sure many already do this).

The world changes and we all have to adapt to it in one way or another. Writers / authors don't deserve special treatment.