He begins:
If there was one industry you'd expect to champion the right to free speech it's the book trade. But this week even iconic Auckland bookseller Unity Books succumbed to the baying of the Facebook mob and slapped a ban on the yet-to-be-published book by the mother of the Kahui twins.
This came after a decision by leading booksellers Paper Plus group and The Warehouse not to stock the book, ghostwritten by Ian Wishart.
Both chains say the decision came after significant adverse comment from customers. Tens of thousands have also signed on to a boycott-the-book Facebook page.
He concludes:
Free speech is about publishing and, on occasion, being damned. But for that, you need a willing seller as well.
But this week, the booksellers seem to have just given up, resigned to their growing irrelevancy in the new world of electronic media.
By banning Wishart's book from their shops, they've hastened the day of their own demise by inviting a new exodus of customers to discover the ease of uncensored, online shopping.
It is tough stuff from Rudman but it needed to be said and I hope it is read by booksellers throughout the land. Once the Herald put the column on their website I will provide a link so that readers outside the Herald circulation area can read it in full.
5 comments:
A good article by Rudman but I question his description of the Warehouse as a Bookseller.Sure they sell books but so do most Service Stations these days.And I have yet to find a Paper Plus shop that I could describe as a good bookseller.Hopefully Whitcoulls and the large number of independent bookshops throughout the country will stock the book and give their customers the choice of whether to buy or not.
Graham,
I do understand the argument about freedom of speech and I think it is an important one, but I also think this may be a case of "willing buyer, willing seller": do booksellers have a right to say that they are not willing to sell, for whatever reason?
On the one hand, Ms King wishes to tell her side of the story; on the other, two defenseless children, of whom she was the mother, were brutally murdered after, it would seem, having been previously abused and their care & medical treatment neglected. Her side of the story, then--or the opportunity to make money from the tragedy that was her sons' short and brutal lives? Do booksellers as a group, as well as we as individuals, have a right to make a choice about that in a "willing buyer, willing seller" world?
I also saw the header about "Kahui twins 'mum' living in fear." While I do not condone threats of violence gainst her in any way, I do wonder what terror her infant sons lived in, in the period before their short lives were brutally extinguished?
As a bookseller, everyday I make decisions about what and what not to stock in my store as we can not stock everything, deciding not to stock this book is not an act of censorship as it can still be brought online and i assume in some book stores. I very much believe in the freedom of speech and believe that this has been blown out of proportion.
On TV last night Ian Wishart said that individual Paper Plus stores wanted to stock the book but were told by their Head Office that they couldn't. If this is true, it seems quite strange behaviour when all P+ stores are franchises. As a franchisee would you want to pay fees to a franchisor that makes prohibitions of this nature?
I agree with Alan Hudson - The Warehouse, Paper Plus and Whitcoulls are variety store chains that happen to sell a limited range of books.
It is Ian Wishart's book: it is freely available from his web site. I do not see ANY "censorship" or ANY matter concerning freedom of speech - it is merely a beat-up from a consummate self-publicist.
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