If you’re looking to find a copy of Alexis Wright‘s novel CARPENTERIA, winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Prize, don’t expect to find it in any Angus & Robertson shops. That’s because, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports, Tower Books (which published Wright’s novel) is among the smaller Australian distributors and publishers which have received a letter from A&R demanding a payment if they want their books to be sold by the company’s 180 bookstores around the country.
The letter from A&R Whitcoulls Group‘s commercial manager, Charlie Rimmer, said “over 40 per cent of our supplier agreements fall below our requirements in terms of profit earned” and “invites” recipients to pay amounts said to range between $2500 and $20,000 by August 17. “The payment represents the gap for your business and moves it from an unacceptable level of profitability,” Rimmer wrote. “If we fail to receive your payment by this time we will have no option but to remove you from our list of authorised suppliers and you will be unable to complete any further transactions with us.”
Not surprisingly, publishers are furious. “It came as a bit of a shock,” said Sarah Foster, the managing director of Walker Books. “I’ve been running this company for 14 years and I’ve never had a letter like this. It is a big disappointment: we can’t afford not to be in 182 bookshops.” Michael Rakusin, director of Tower Books, said, “It is incredibly hard to know what the corporate strategy is but there had to be a more polite, more constructive way of discussing it.”