Typical. We saw the same tired and inaccurate arguments from the music industry. Richard Flanagan? Really? He won the Man Booker prize in 2014, but I have not read any of his books. I am not therefore currently qualified to comment on the quality of his work. It is not particularly relevant, especially as he like other authors now has other options than selling his soul to a large publisher.
An excerpt from the article:
“If you were the Australian publisher of one of Flanagan’s earlier books then it may have meant you were less able to support the longer term investment needed,” the chief executive of the Australian Publishers Association, Michael Gordon-Smith, told Guardian Australia.
“It may make it harder for Flanagan to be discovered internationally.”
What a non-statement. I wonder just what "long term investment" Mr Smith is referring to. And one author may find it "harder to be discovered internationally". Even if true, it is hardly a good argument to continue the suffering and exploitation of the Australian book buying public which is fostered by these archaic and protectionist rules. Fortunately for many of us the advent of Amazon and EBooks long ago made this largely irrelevant.