Negative talk is hurting Australian bookstores at a crucial time.Negative talk is hurting Australian bookstores at a crucial time. Photo: Jacky Ghossein

POLITICAL columnists frequently assert that Australians have stopped listening to their politicians. Well, this week they were all ears when Small Business Minister Nick Sherry predicted that bookshops would be dead in five years.
Within minutes, the Australian Booksellers Association started planning its counter-offensive, publishers rallied and bookworms expressed their concerns via social media and talkback radio. Even The Guardian in London took note. ''Australian minister predicts the end of bookshops,'' was its headline on Tuesday.
ABA president Jon Page was serving a customer in his Sydney bookstore when a colleague rang to tell him what Sherry had said. ''To say I was stunned was an understatement,'' Page says. ''Retail has been tough in the past 12 months for everyone, whether you sell books, clothes or shoes. I cannot understand why the minister would single out books as being under more threat than other retailers.''

The ABA and the Australian Publishers Association moved quickly to argue that bookshops will survive. But in terms of the community's perception, the damage had been done. Since Tuesday, customers have come into our shop to tell us they hope we won't close. When we say we have no such intention, they either look relieved or nod sympathetically as though we are deluded and naive.
Page has had the same response in his Mosman store, and says it started in February when RedGroup Retail, the parent company of Borders and Angus and Robertson, called in administrators. ''Ever since the collapse of the RedGroup, customers have been coming into my bookshop asking if I am going to close, too,'' he told me yesterday. ''The minister's comments have been very damaging because they have reinforced in some customers' minds the idea that bookshops are on the way out.''

In 2010 the number of books sold through Australian bookshops went up 0.5 per cent on 2009, though the value of sales was down 4 per cent because of cheaper prices. Compared with some other retail sectors, the book industry is coping.