Zero tolerance
This week, treasurer Joe Hockey speculated the GST threshold could be reduced to zero on items bought online from overseas. No arguments from booksellers, publishers and authors whose various associations issued a statement in conjunction with the Copyright Agency and the Council of Small Business. Booksellers' Association chief executive Joel Becker said: "While hundreds of thousands of us collect and pay our fair share of GST, governments continue to protect offshore businesses who do not pay tax, do not employ Australians, and therefore do not contribute to Australia's hospitals, schools, roads and other essential services." Australian Society of Authors chairman David Day says Australian authors have been hit hard by untaxed imports of their own books from overseas, for which they receive minimal royalties.
Staying in the pink with Penguin
The merged Penguin Random House operation chipped in £24 million ($51 million) in the first half of this year to the profits of Pearson, the British conglomerate that last week sold The Financial Times and is looking to sell its share in The Economist. That represented a 33 per cent increase on the previous year. So it's no wonder that when Pearson boss John Fallon was asked whether Pearson would sell its 47 per cent in PRH he said no. "We have a 47 per cent share in Penguin Random House, and we are very happy to continue to be shareholders."
Boris steps unto the breach
Watch out for an avalanche of Shakespeare books next year in time for the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death. The Hogarth Press has already lined up an array of authors from Howard Jacobson to Gillian Flynn to Anne Tyler to reimagine the plays in fiction – Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time: The Winter's Tale Retold will be the first to appear, in October. Now London mayor, new Conservative MP, newspaper columnist and, don't forget, former keynote speaker at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, Boris Johnson, has reportedly been given a $1 million advance to write a new biography of the Bard. Assuming he has the time.
Brooks at a gallop
Geraldine Brooks' next novel, The Secret Chord, is not due out until October. It tells the story of King David and was sparked by her son's desire to play the harp. David's exploits are dotted throughout the Old Testament and also supposedly recounted in the lost biblical works of Nathan the Prophet. Brooks' novel is narrated by this prophet – and appropriately dedicated to her harp-playing son, Nathaniel. But even before The Secret Chord is out, Brooks is working on a very different novel, Horse, about a racehorse and a missing painting and fluctuating between the beginning of the American Civil War and the art world in '50s New York. Two very different beasts from the one writer.
Agitating for book sales
Last weekend it was the Rare Books Fair; this weekend it's the Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair, which claims to be the biggest annual meeting of anarchists in Australia. About 40 independent booksellers and activist groups will be running stalls 10am-6pm today at the Abbotsford Convent, St Heliers Street, Abbotsford.
