Well, after all that work by the Productivity commission, all those submissions, all the debates, all the column inches, all the blog posts and all the private discussions the government has decided to do nothing. In a decision truly worthy of a modern centre-left neo-liberal government Rudd et alia have decided to just leave things the way they are. Actually that’s not quite right. They’re claiming that their act of nothingness is in fact an act of laissez-faire capitalism; if in doubt, leave it to the market to decide. No doubt if the market fails to sort the issue out then they’ll get the Productivity Commission back to do another review in a few years.
In a small victory for reading culture in Australia the news of the government’s (in)decision took up almost the whole front page of the Australian the day after the announcement. That small victory however was offset by the fact that Amazon and The Book Depository were both name checked in the leading article. Many Australians will already have heard of Amazon. The Book Depository may not have been on many people’s radars but that’s changing fast. I’ve had more than half a dozen people recently recommending it to me. Free-worldwide delivery is a great marketing trick and one which is attracting a lot of interest from the Anglophone diaspora.
Through this debate I’ve come to the conclusion that we really need to distinguish reading from book buying. The two are not the same. A lot of our book buying habits arise from consumerism rather than a love of reading. “Shopping” has become a valid pastime in our age and bookshops provide one of the richest browsing experiences on the high street. This year I gave up buying books and instead started going to my local library, borrowing from friends and downloading free ebooks. What I’ve learnt through the experience is that reading is a lot more fun when you stop buying books.
I was also keen this year to make a dent on my backlog of unread books but instead I’ve actually just started giving them away. Unread books are a burden because I feel obliged to read them even when I’m not interested in reading them. Giving up on a library book after 50 pages is a lot easier than giving up on a book that you’ve shelled out $30 for.
Back to the government’s decision and I’m not particularly surprised or interested for that matter. Protectionism is a defensive play and it may preserve the domestic publishing industry in the short-term but in the long-term it’s not going to help win the war. The war is the fight for reading culture. At the heart of this whole debate must be a belief that people who read are happier people. Furthermore, there must be the belief that a society which writes and reads about itself is a happier society. You know you have a rich literary culture when a book or piece of writing is able to define the zeitgeist or significantly change public opinion on a particular issue.
I’d like to suggest a few offensive strategies to the Australian government which may or may not work but I’ll throw them out there anyway.
Promote reading for children
This one’s obvious but I’ll spell it out anyway. Childhood is when reading habits are entrenched so the key to developing a rich literary culture in your society is to get your children reading. The government already spends a lot of money encouraging kids to read be it through schools or other programs but there’s no harm throwing more money at the campaign.
National E-book library
The issue of e-books and libraries is a thorny one which seems to be the subject of an uneasy standoff at the moment. Public libraries owe their existence to a longstanding belief that reading should be free to everyone. It’s a principle that I still believe in but one that is going to come under increasing pressure. The problem is that the experience of reading an e-book is not at all dissimilar to the experience of reading a library book; you don’t get a physical object, you can’t lend it to friends, you can’t keep it on your shelf as an intellectual ornament. And yet to buy an e-book costs upwards of $10 but to borrow a library book is free. This contradiction has yet to be resolved.
I’d suggest that Australia should be the first country to set up a comprehensive national e-book library. I don’t just mean a fancy internet archive of important Australian literature. I mean a website where any Australian can go and download a copy of the Da Vinci Code for a set period of time ideally for free.
This would involve an almighty deal with the publishing industry but I think it’s a deal that needs to be made. It would force the publishing industry once and for all to decide how much they want to charge people for reading a book as opposed to owning one.
Set up a CSIRO for books
CSIRO is Australia’s national science organisation. It is a public sector organisation but operates autonomously and independently of the government. It is self funding and has been very successful especially in recent years. The government should set up a similar organisation to promote, publish and commercialise Australian writing. Such an organisation is going to be essential in the coming years as e-books and cheap imports start to really take their toll on local publishers and book sellers. Nationalisation isn’t very popular nowadays but is there any reason why we shouldn’t nationalise domestic book publishing. If not nationalise then maybe mutualise.
Invest in libraries
Libraries and not bookshops should be the hubs of book culture. There are many ways in which libraries could employ additional funds to promote book culture. One simple way would be to advertise in the community to let people know about their local library. Most people I know don’t even know where their local library is. Additional funds could also be used to buy more new release books. There is currently a 3 month wait to read Tim Winton’s Breath in my local library. Substantially increasing the public lending right for Australian authors is also an option and may help publishers take lending more seriously as a financial model. Literary events, prizes and competitions are also another great way for local libraries to promote book culture. Further to my digital library idea above it would be great if we could start opening mini-digital libraries in shopping malls. I hate shopping malls with a vengeance but I do occasionally find myself in them and I always lament the fact that there aren’t not-for-profit spaces where you can sit and relax and know that some capitalist isn’t going to try to gouge you.
So my next step was to look for an app which would allow me to access Gutenberg content. One search on the marketplace later and I arrived at Aldiko, currently the most popular e-book app on the Android marketplace.
I’m a big Google fan so I am very excited to hear