Australians love cheap books. Here’s why that’s a problem

We all love a bargain, but what is the real cost of buying cheap books online or at a discount in department stores?

In the past decade, the number of bookstores in Australia has more than halved, going from 2,879 in 2013 to 1,457 to 2023, according to an independent research site.

An equally sobering statistic from the 2022 National Survey of Australian Book Authors is that the average annual income of a practising author is $18,200. That’s well below the poverty line.

And these figures are linked. A growing cohort of Australian writers and independent bookstore owners are putting the blame on online retailers and discount department stores that sell books at bargain basement prices.

“This constant discounting devalues the work that goes into a book, the effort that goes into writing a book, the process that goes into publishing a book, and you grow a generation of readers that think a book is only worth a few bucks,” Michael Robotham, best-selling Australian crime writer tells ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas.

Robotham says independent bookstores were critical in his literary success.

“It was independent bookstores that launched me, particularly in Australia. My first novel had not done that well in Australia, and the second one was picked up and championed by independent bookstores everywhere.”

It’s that relationship between bookstores and writers that is significant.

“The hand-selling, the championing of Australian work, the reading recommendations, the staff picks, that sort of support, that is where Australian talent is discovered,” Olivia Lanchester, former CEO of Australian Society of Authors, says.

So what’s the reality of running an independent bookstore in Australia? And is there a way of levelling the playing field?

‘Don’t buy a bookstore to make money’

Ray Bonner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist. And for the past six years, he has co-owned Bookoccino, an independent bookstore on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

Bonner says he didn’t buy the business to make money, but rather it was because of his lifelong love of books.

Yet he says the enterprise of running a bookshop has become increasingly difficult.

“It used to be you could sell enough books to pay the rent, to pay the wages and yourself [a modest wage] … Well, wages have gone up, rent has gone up, and volume has gone down. Thank you very much, Amazon,” Bonner says.

If it wasn’t for the bookshop’s cafe and events, the business wouldn’t survive, he says.

Bonner recalls serving a customer on the day Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare was released.

“A woman came in and said, ‘How much is [the] Prince Harry [biography]?’ And I said, ‘$54.99.’ She pulls out her mobile phone and said, ‘Well, I can buy it at Big W for $32 … Why are you charging so much?'”

Bonner tried to explain that publishers give recommended retail prices and that independents can’t sell below that and survive.

However, online book sellers like Amazon or major retailers such as Big W and Kmart can afford to operate at a loss for certain items.

“Someone coming into the store will probably pick up orange juice and pick up four or five other products, and they’ll make their profits on that. ” says award-winning author Richard Flanagan.

“So they don’t really care about books, they just use books as a way of getting people into their store.”

Unlike independent bookstores, “they’re not there to really support an industry, they’re just using books as a way of dragging customers through the doors”.

However, a BIG W spokesperson said in a statement: “At BIG W, we are proud to make books affordable and accessible to as many Australian families as possible, and the families that shop with us have come to trust us for having everything from new releases to classics all year round. 

“We work closely with our publishing partners to ensure our range delivers the variety and value our customers have come to expect.”

Loss of diversity

One of the problems with major retailers selling books is the loss of diversity of books on offer, Flanagan says.

“The people who sell cheaper books don’t sell the extraordinary diversity of writing … they just sell a handful of the biggest bestsellers,” he says.

“It’s true with an online retailer, all books can be found but it’s equally true that they’re really only interested in selling the biggest.”

This situation could be seen as dire but Flanagan says there is a solution.

“If you believe in Australian writing, then you have to understand, we have to find a way to have more bookshops to make them sustainable, and that there is an answer to this crisis, and it’s a proven answer.”

What is the solution?

Another part of the puzzle is fixed book pricing (FBP), a policy adopted by many European countries, including France and Germany, that was designed to discourage discount pricing of books. 

FBP works by restricting physical and online stores from selling newly released books below the recommended retail price for a period between 6 to 18 months.

Australia had its own FBP scheme until it was abolished in 1972.

“When you go to these European countries with this fixed book price system, there is support for the bookshops,” Flanagan says.

For example, unlike in Australia, the French independent bookstore industry is flourishing, with more than 3,500 stores and growing.

Robotham says he isn’t opposed to some discounting, but his most recently released book is on sale online at half the recommended retail price.

“I know [from] a reader’s point of view that’s a great discount but independent bookstores … can’t compete with a discount like that and sell a book for a price like that.”

The author says because his work has been published in many countries, he’s become familiar with the various markets and laws.

“When you go to countries like France, Germany, Japan or Korea, these countries have fixed book pricing … and that means you get this result. When people go to France or Italy, they always say, ‘Why are there bookshops everywhere?'”

Both Robotham and Flanagan argue that fixed book pricing would be a huge positive for the Australian writing industry and say the “policy would cost the Australian government nothing”.

Some disagreement

Not everyone is in furious agreement about fixed book pricing.

Lanchester says Australian publishers are reliant on discount department store channels and they have legitimate concerns about the impact FBP could have on those relationships.

“I think the bigger issue for publishers to consider is the long-term strategy for how we are going to prevent … one or two major retailers that can use loss-leading pricing strategies to force out smaller businesses,” she says.

The other concern raised is so-called leakage.

“It’s a justifiable concern that if [FBP] was brought in, people would start ordering online from America and Britain [where there’s no FBP] and that therefore an illegal market would rapidly grow and supplant much of the legal market here,” Flanagan says. 

A statement from the Australian Publishers Association says: “As national reading rates continue to decline, it’s crucial that we provide more opportunities and affordable ways for Australians to access books and incorporate reading into their daily lives.

“We believe that there are better ways to support those goals without a mandatory increase in the price of books for families, which risks a slump in the number of books sold.”

Flanagan is sympathetic to this stance.

“Publishing [in Australia], it’s not a big profit industry … It’s a lean business, and the publishers are successful at it because they try and make every dollar count, and they can’t afford to lose any business any more than what they have.”

But Flanagan says with Australian independent bookshops closing at such a rapid rate, it’s critical that something is done.

“I think we’ve got a couple of years to try and make sure that we level up the playing field, so that bookshops cannot just stop closing but start opening,” he says.

“It’s time for the government … to respect Australian writers … otherwise, we’ll find ourselves back where we were in the 1950s — [a] cultural desert.”

This post was originally published on here