MILES FRANKLIN WINNER NOT AVAILABLE FROM ANGUS & ROBERTSON STORES !!

The following story from the Sydney Morning Herald, will Whitcoulls be next?:

THE 2007 Miles Franklin Award winner will be among hundreds of books no longer stocked by Australia's biggest bookstore chain, Angus & Robertson, from the end of next week.

Tower Books, which distributes Alexis Wright's novel Carpentaria, 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," Mr 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."

The letter implied that A&R would require a bigger discount on books than the current standard of about 45 to 47 per cent off the retail price - probably closer to the 50 per cent given to the discount supermarkets such as Big W and Target.

Outrage spread through the book industry yesterday as suppliers said they would reject the demand.

"It came as a bit of a shock," said Sarah Foster, the managing director of Walker Books, which publishes children's books such as Where's Wally?, Guess How Much I Love You and local authors including Libby Gleeson.
"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."
A&R has requested $20,000 from Tower Books, which distributes quality European books and Australian titles such as Carpentaria from the award-winning small publisher Giramondo.

In a heated reply to Mr Rimmer, Mr Rakusin wrote: "We have watched our business with Angus & Robertson dwindle year upon year since 2000." He blamed A&R's "sub-economic ordering" on changes including new ownership and new management.

A&R accounts for 20 per cent of the local retail market. Its owners, Pacific Equity Partners, are considering a public float of the A&R Whitcoulls Group.