Sunday, August 23, 2009

Parallel Importation Discussions

I have to confess that I am more than a little disturbed by the proposal to lift import restrictions on books. It sounds superficially appealing as books will supposedly be cheaper but there is a downside which is, I suspect, that a repeal may well lead to a flood of overseas books swamping the Australian market with obvious implications for small press publishers and authors in particular. I don't pretend to be an expert but the Australian Society of Authors, the Australian Horror Writers Association and a number of individual writers are to my knowledge all lobbying against it and I'm sure there are others.
If you want to know more I suggest you go to Satima's blogspot where she has details of what is proposed and a helpful list of links to other websites by people involved in the book business.

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