Books

Whether you're coming to Australia on holiday or for good, don't plan on buying your books here

This was really brought home to me during my first Christmas living here.  As I browsed the shelves at Borders, it became clear that what I had thought of as stocking fillers at home were in danger of becoming the main gift, such was their cost.

It varies from book to book, but it is not uncommon to find them priced at a third higher or even more than you would expect in the UK, for example.  A study by the Productivity Commission has found that, on average, books in the US and UK are 35% and 18% cheaper respectively.  If this comparison is between bookshop prices in the three countries, then once online prices are taken into account, the differences probably become even starker.   

Strictly for the wealthy

The ludicrously high cost of a good read has been the product of Australia's Copyright Act.  In a nutshell, if an Australian publisher wishes, and is able, to publish a book within a certain period of it being published in another country, then retailers are banned from importing copies for sale here.  What that means in practice is that Australian publishers have hitherto existed in a protected market, in which they can more or less charge what they like without fear of being undercut by cheaper imports.

Australian publishers argue that this has enabled them to protect and nurture Australian writers.  The extent to which this is actually true is debated.  In any event it's hard to admire a piece of protectionism that helps propel books into the class of luxury items and disincentivises poorer people from buying them.

Perhaps even more pertinently, it appears to be in the process of causing an apocalypse in the Australian book retailing market.  Booksellers the world over are facing troubling times, as competition from online sales and e-readers undercut them.  In Australia they have been hit harder than most.  Not only are the shops here expensive in the first place, providing a major incentive for shopping around, but customers ordering from overseas don't have to pay the locally applied 10% Goods and Services Tax, either.    

The results so far have been messy.  Earlier this year, two of the largest chains of bookshops - Borders and Angus & Robertson - collapsed into insolvency.  This has simply added to the woes of those who love the opportunity to browse before buying.  Not only are you paying through the nose for the privilege, but it's become harder to find a bookshop to do it in.

The Productivity Commission has recommended the scrapping the protections - but not for some time yet.  Even when this comes it may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.  With increasing numbers of Australians getting their reading online direct from offshore sellers it's increasingly difficult to see that it does anything but damage the local book industry at multiple levels.

This year I will have to remember to order my family's Christmas reading online, well in advance.  Even if I were prepared to pay Borders' prices, they're not there any more.

Whilst writing this post, I found this informative and entertaining piece from a writer who's a bit more sympathetic to the stated aims of the Australian publishing industry than perhaps I am:  MissAdventure: Parallel Importation (Or: Why Are Books in Australia So Expensive?)