Publishers say it’s almost entirely impossible to get local WA authors into mainstream bookstores across Perth. 

WA publishing companies are struggling as production costs soar, while retail prices stay almost identical to 15 years ago. 

Dr Linda Martin from independent publisher Night Parrot Press says the general public aren’t aware of the resources that go towards the publishing of books.

“People aren’t aware of the cost to make a book. It’s not just the writing and printing, but also structural editing, copy editing, design, typesetting, proofreading, printing, marketing, and distribution,” she says.

Night Parrot Press is a not-for-profit publishing company, identifying and supporting new authors in WA, with funding provided by the government. 

“We can’t publish commercially, it’s not sustainable at all. We have to apply for grants for funding, which is essentially the only way we can afford to publish books,” Dr Martin says.

The Creative Australia amendment Implementation of Revive is a strategy hoping to reinvigorate the writing industry through funding that’s due to begin July 1. In it, Arts Minister Tony Burke said Australian writers have been “historically overlooked and underfunded”.

Dr Martin says applying for funding is hard work, and always a gamble. 

“We’ve put in grants to cover some of our core costs, because all of our work is volunteer. We put that application in twice and then didn’t receive funding,” she says.

Dr Martin says the whole community is grateful to independent booksellers, and that without funding they would be lost.

Getting local authors into mainstream stores seems to be an unachievable feat, factoring in cost difference. Larger companies like Big W can afford to print thousands of copies of mainstream titles for a fraction of a price some books sell at independent stores. 

Dr Martin says because their printing run is a lot smaller than most publishing giants, they rely on local printers which are unfortunately more expensive.

“We can’t actually sell our books for the regular trade price until we’re more established, so our books are more expensive to print, and less expensive to buy,” she says.

Dr Per Henninsgaard, senior lecturer for publishing and writing at Curtin university reflects on the difference between the publishing industry twenty years ago compared to today:

“There needs to be systems in place that support and uplift local voices, otherwise they’re not going to be heard.”