My writing week 2(29)

Hi all,

Two weeks into my first deadline period and I have an awful lot of editing to do in the next 12 days to achieve my current deadline. I am a third of the way through editing chapter seven of Stalking Tigers. Chapter six was the first chapter that actually decreased in size, by about 450 words, while being edited. It's unfortunate that I seem to have so little time to work on it as I am enjoying it when I do.

For the second week in the past four weeks I failed to make the deadline for a critique that I was working on for critters. I had read the story twice and written comments all over it, but I only had half an hour to write it up. I think, as with the other story, a part of me was wary of destroying the confidence of its writer by pointing out every thing I considered needed fixing.

I actually read some fiction, while sitting in a waiting room, I've am still too tired to read at night.

I got angry when I heard that the Productivity Commission have recommended, with little evidence of its benefits to consumers, the removal of copyright import laws (with three years grace between the passing of the law and it coming into effect). This will mean the bookstores like Dymocks and chain stores like Big W will import copies of books from overseas rather than wait to see if an Australian printed and published version is put out. So Australian publishers will not get the profits of selling Australian versions of overseas authored books. Less profits, means less money to take a chance on new Australian authors, and less money to spend promoting them. It will also mean that any Australian author who signs a contract with an overseas publisher risks the oversea's version being imported and competing against the Australian version (assuming they also have a book contract here). Usually overseas versions attract less royalties for an author. Dymocks and Big W may bring in remaindered overseas stock for which the author will receive nothing.

The Productivity Commission wants to do this because it thinks, having no data to prove it, that books might become slightly cheaper in Australia - that's if Dymocks and Big W don't just pocket any difference. Australia's number one selling bookstore, Angus and Robertson/Borders, disagrees with changing the current laws. Yaa for them. Similar changes to copyright were introduced in New Zealand, destroying their publishing industry. If the Rudd Government introduces laws to implement these changes I will be voting Green in the next election. I will also never set foot in Dymocks again.

Graham.