Last month the US publishing industry’s annual get-together, the BookExpo America (BEA), was held in the giant Javits Center in midtown Manhattan on the banks of the Hudson River. It’s an event I’ve been to most years; this time I was joined by my colleague, Angela Crocombe, a recipient of the Readings Scholarship – a program designed to give Readings staff the opportunity to explore bookselling and publishing trends in other markets. There was a buoyant mood on the floor. Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, pointed to increasing membership of his association. After years of decline, Teicher announced that the highest numbers of independent bookstores since 2005 now exist nationally in the US, and he was cautiously optimistic that the public were moving back to supporting local businesses. Teicher was hopeful that the current disagreement between Amazon and the publishing company Hachette would also help. Amazon is currently in dispute with Hachette, reportedly over terms. In an attempt to force Hachette’s hand, Amazon is discouraging shoppers from purchasing Hachette titles by imposing long shipping delays, delisting some authors, trimming discounts, and removing pre-order buttons on forthcoming titles. High-profile Hachette authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, J.K. Rowling, Stephen Colbert and James Patterson have condemned the move, with Colbert offering ‘I Didn’t Buy it From Amazon’ book stickers on his website. It’s hard to see how publishers can resist as, together with Amazon’s UK-based bookseller Book Depository, its market share for English language books is estimated to be around 40 per cent. Amazon’s actions over its dispute with Hachette do seem particularly unfair to authors and a bit strange for a company that is dependent on the work they create.

While the Hachette vs. Amazon debate certainly overshadowed the BEA, there was, of course, talk about books. The big political book was Hard Choices by Hillary Clinton and we were invited to a reception to hear her talk about the book and to meet her. We crowded together with 100 other booksellers in a small room overlooking the conference floor, and told there were to be ‘No questions, no selfies’. Clinton was impressive: articulate, passionate and funny. In writing the book, she was attempting to outline the successes and failures of American foreign policy under her watch. She remains convinced that the US needs to play a leadership role in the international community. The three big challenges facing the world, she said, were human rights, global poverty and climate change. It didn’t sound like she would have much in common with our PM!

I also managed to catch up with Peter Carey whose new novel, Amnesia, will be published in October. Carey was in the final phase of the editing process and upbeat about the book. ‘It’s mainly set in Carlton, in the 1970s, and although my memory of the place is really good, I’d forgotten little things, like the fact that Keppel Street does a sort of dogleg at Cardigan Street.’ The book is sort of about Australia’s relationship with the US and starts off with the Battle of Brisbane in 1942, when Australian and US servicemen fought for two days. The book is partly inspired by Julian Assange and Wikileaks, although the Assange-like character is a woman. Carey will be in Australia briefly to promote the book later this year.

Mark Rubbo