In which Tansy and Alex soldier on womanfully without their lost comrade, to catch up on three weeks of publishing news, the Nebulas, books, books, and more books, and tackle the crunchy pet subject of Australian SFF Publishing in its entirety: how do Australian specfic readers get their books?  Who publishes them and how do we buy them? (Realised too late this is a pretty massive topic – please email us to tell us what we got wrong and what we left out!) We can be downloaded or streamed from Galactic Suburbia, or through iTunes.

News
Bitchgate round up; also a Scott Westerfeld interview on the topic.

LJ Smith, author of bestselling 20 year book series The Vampire Diaries fired by her publisher, who will hire a new writer to continue the books.

Interesting post by Tobias Buckell on ebooks (love the bit where he zooms out on the graph).

Borders and Angus and Robertson go into receivership.

Nebula shortlist

RIP Nicholas Courtney!

What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alex: Life, Gwyneth Jones; The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin; Revelation Space, and Chasm City, Alastair Reynolds
Tansy: Debris (due Autumn (?) 2011) by Jo Anderton;
The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club, Kim Newman; Across the Universe, by Beth Revis.

Pet Subject: How do Australians Buy SpecFic Books?
This comes from a request by Niall Harrison to learn about the other side of Aussie specfic – the mainstream/Big Name Publishers, how Australians buy books, etc.

Big Name Australian Publishers (who handle SFF)
HarperCollins Voyager
Hachette Livre/Orbit (incl Gollancz, Picador, Little Brown etc)
Allen & Unwin
Random House
Pan Macmillan

The Cost of Australian Books/Australian editions – GST, the fight against parallel importation.

Chain Stores – Borders, Big W, Collins, ABC, Dymocks, Angus & Robertson (Borders & A&R now in receivership but not all shops company owned – many will close)
Online Shopping – local and overseas (Amazon, Book Depository, Fishpond, BetterWorldBooks)
Indie/SFF Specialist Bookshops
Hobart: Ellison Hawker
Melbourne: Minotaur and Swords and Sorcery (Reader’s Feast also has a well-picked if smallish selection).
Perth: Planet and Fantastic Planet, White Dwarf and a few more new and not so new
Sydney: Galaxy, Infinitas
Brisbane: Pulp Fiction Books
(who did we forget? Tell us!)

Feedback: Tehani from Perth, Cat from Wollongong & Shane from Redfern.

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