Undercover
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday February 26, 2011
THE WRITING WAS ON THE WALLAnyone could tell the Borders bookstores were in trouble when they started selling frying pans. But the problems started much earlier. The US Borders chain of superstores launched in Australia in 1998 selling books, music and coffee. In 2007, its 24 struggling stores in Australia and New Zealand were bought by the private Pacific Equity Partners, which already owned the old Australian Angus & Robertson chain and had shocked the industry by demanding smaller publishers pay to keep their books in stock. (A&R later backed down.)Bookshops have suffered as the economy slumped, internet sales and e-books took off and the Australian dollar boomed. But most are hanging in while Borders and A&R went into voluntary administration last week. What's the difference? As Henry Rosenbloom of Scribe Publications writes on his blog: "PEP deliberately created a brutalist regime: they installed bovver-boy managers who alienated all their inherited knowledgeable staff (who left), made appalling decisions about stock selection and presentation, and tried to treat books like potatoes. They were focused on fluffing up the business so it could be floated, so all they seemed to care about was inventory control and their cash position."In the past two years Borders/A&R company stores (not A&R franchises) reduced stock, introduced homewares and raised prices on many backlist books above the recommended retail price. Some publishers stopped supplying them as they breached trading terms. Stock became so patchy that even a bestseller such as Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was missing from some stores. The end was inevitable. Jobs will disappear and publishers will lose more in unpaid-for stock. But let's hope well-run, customer-friendly bookshops will pick up some of the business and perhaps some of the stores.BERYL GETS A PRIZE, BELATEDLYThe "Beryl Booker" or "Best of Beryl" is causing a stir among the literati. Beryl Bainbridge (pictured), who died last year, was shortlisted five times for the Booker Prize but never won and was unkindly tagged the "Booker bridesmaid". So the Booker Prize Foundation is asking the public to vote (at themanbookerprize.com/news/vote) for the best of her shortlisted books for a posthumous award: The Dressmaker (1973), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), An Awfully Big Adventure (1990), Every Man for Himself (1996) and Master Georgie (1998). The winning title will be named in April. It seems a patronising publicity stunt to boost the prize and, yes, Bainbridge's book sales but too late to do her any good. In the British press, Robert McCrum said "to memorialise her in this tacky way as the eternal runner-up ... strikes me as a sick joke" while Michael Holroyd said: "It is as if she is to be translated into a brand name for the further publicity of the company." But A.N. Wilson argued: "Let posthumous justice be done." Bain-bridge's final novel, a double murder mystery called The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, will be out in June.IT'S A MAN'S LITERARY WORLDA revealing study of gender bias in literary pages has been published by VIDA, a US organisation that examines critical reception of women's writing. It found that all US and British publications from The New York Times and The Guardian to The Times Literary Supplement and Slate published far more reviews by men than women, more reviews of books by men and more interviews with male authors. When Sarah L'Estrange interviewed me on the topic for Radio National's Book Show, along with Jason Steger from The Age and Stephen Romei from The Australian, we all had to admit our pages followed a similar pattern (as does The Book Show). We also agreed you can't edit by gender but speculated that men pitch more reviews and tend to review books by men, while lighter women's books such as chick lit don't often get reviewed. Given that most readers and many authors are women, perhaps we have to try harder. See vidaweb.org and blogs.radionational.net.au/bookshow.www.smh.com.au/undercover
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
