Encouraging news from the Australian book industry

1.07.20

Despite our concerns about the impacts of COVID-19 upon the literary sector, we have been buoyed by the enduring strength and resilience of the book industry, particularly in Australia. While we are unable to quantify the full economic impact of the pandemic on authors and illustrators yet, and still expect a long-term fallout, reports from the industry indicate that the situation is better than initially feared. This is largely due to the relatively swift relaxing of restrictions in most states, meaning that bookstores have been able to resume normal trading faster than anticipated. 

Although international book fairs are not operating as normal, most, if not all, have successfully pivoted to digital programming, ensuring that despite travel restrictions, the business of international rights sales can still go ahead, albeit in a truncated way. These include the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the Hay Festival, BookExpo and Frankfurt Book Fair. The same goes for major literary festivals across Australia, including the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Newcastle Writers Festival, and more recently the Emerging Writers’ Festival, which have produced either partial or fully virtual programs.

Bookshops have also been facing the crisis head-on. Some retailers with online sales capabilities have reported strong sales throughout the lockdown and many bookstores have explored innovative new ways to reach their customers, whether by replicating the bookstore experience through a virtual bookseller platform, or offering free bicycle delivery to their local communities. Some bookshops have also pivoted to online events programming, hosting their usual book clubs, book launches and in-conversation events via Zoom or social media, ensuring that the promotion of new titles can continue.

Emma Cross, Assistant Manager at Sydney’s Better Read Than Dead stated, “If the last few months have revealed anything to us, it is this: the news of the demise of bookselling has been greatly exaggerated. Every week, we adapted to the crisis by bringing in new measures to keep our staff and customers safe. We have become a different bookstore under the circumstances of COVID-19 but it has shown us that our store and indeed, the industry can weather such a powerful storm. We have observed a huge increase in sales for Australian fiction, especially as the Stella and Miles Franklin announcements went ahead on-time, and our bookshop community has only continued to grow.”

Suzy Wilson of Riverbend Books in Brisbane noted that strong sales have continued following the lifting of social distancing restrictions, saying “we are doing better than expected since reopening, yet the ground still feels slippery. Given our book clubs are not meeting in person yet (still Zooming) and we have had no author events, I am grateful and relieved about this good June result.” However, Suzy noted that they do have concerns about the end of JobKeeper payments in September.

However, the team at Hobart Bookshop said, “Early in the Australian outbreak, as lockdowns began to happen around the country, we were much busier than usual for this time of year. People seemed to turn to books for comfort or wanted to stock up on reading materials, not knowing when lockdowns might start in Hobart or how long they might last. We were extremely busy supplying books for customers both in the shop and (primarily) those ordering by phone or email -- this was definitely at unusual levels for us (as our sales normally are primarily in-shop). As the weeks have gone on, business for us has dropped dramatically and things are very quiet. This has appeared to coincide with relaxing of restrictions here in Tasmania - the diminished business has been drastically compounded by the extreme reduction in tourism which is normally a significant proportion of customers at this time of year, especially during our winter arts festivals such as Dark MoFo and the Festival of Voices.”

In a lengthy article exploring the financial effects of the pandemic on bookstores across Australia Books + Publishing quoted Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) CEO Robbie Egan, who estimated that across the board bookstore sales are down 25% as a result of the pandemic, but some ABA member stores are ‘actually up 200%’. 

We are aware that some of these sales will be held up by overseas titles and want to take this opportunity to remind everyone in the industry to please keep promoting and supporting Australian authors and illustrators. The “support local” message is vital to assist authors to recover from lost promotional opportunities and cancelled events over the last few months, and to ameliorate reduced consumer spending as we face a recession.  

In that spirit, we have been buoyed by the latest Civica 2020 Libraries Index reported by the Australian Library and Information Association showing an increase in borrowing Australian titles compared to this time last year.  Australian authors now make up more than half of the top 20 borrowed books across Australia and New Zealand. This is a trend we are hoping will continue as libraries start to open their doors across the country.

Although these reports are encouraging, our Annual Survey and the data we collect from members will be absolutely crucial this year for determining the real impact of the pandemic upon writers and illustrators who are paid last in the publishing supply chain and who are vulnerable to cash flow problems experienced by small publishers particularly. The survey will be run in early October, and we will rely on your feedback to inform our advocacy. If any of our members have reports from Nielsen Book about your book sales which you would be willing to share with the ASA (on a confidential basis, if you’d prefer) as a case study, we’d be grateful to hear from you.