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There’s been a lot of talk about changing Australia’s parallel importation laws lately.

For those who don’t know what this means – Australia is a protected market. This means that if an Australian publisher has the rights to a book then a publisher from another country cannot sell the same book to booksellers in this country. This only relates to bulk purchases that will be re-sold into the Australian market and does not affect individual purchases. You can still go to Book Depository or Amazon if you wish and buy whatever you like.

The Australian Government is looking at changing this so that booksellers can buy from wherever is cheapest. And many individuals are thinking ‘Yay! Now I can get that book I want for $9.95 rather than $19.95.’ But they’re not taking into account that this also means an American publisher could do a huge cheap print run of Tim Winton’s Cloud Street and sell it back into Australia at a cheap price. This means those sales won’t go to an Australian publisher, which means they won’t get the financial benefits and will have to publish less. Most publishers’ lists are propped up by a successful 20% or so of authors. This allows them to publish books that might have small markets, or try new and unproven authors and ideas. Once the parallel importation laws change this will change too. Publishers will have to take less risks to stay financially viable.

If you want to see an example of an open market without parallel importation laws – look to New Zealand. Booksellers there can buy books from wherever is cheapest in the world. And there are very few local publishers. This means few avenues for local authors and locally published content.

And by now I’m sure someone is saying why don’t you just make books cheaper, and then they can keep the laws. If you’re interested please stay tuned on for Part 2 of the cost of books – what it takes to make a book.

xx

DD