Past Programs
Business, Economics and Finance - 2008
Corporate fiction
22/10/2008
When big companies alter their policies, they often call in 'change consultants' to help change the culture of the corporation.
We all know policy documents don't make for scintillating reading, so the difficulty is how to make these changes sexy.
Organisations like Telstra and Queensland Rail did quite an unusual thing: they commissioned a writer to write a novel set in their company, with characters and plot to make the policies come alive.
Steve Bright worked on these projects and recently wrote a story for the City of Melbourne to imagine how its policies for the city would look in the year 2020. He did this with a group of consultants who meet at a cafe every few weeks to come up with story ideas.
The Book Show's Sarah L'Estrange sat in on one of the fiction writing sessions.
A writer's guide to the marketplace
06/10/2008
Most writers want readers and therefore want to be published. But getting published is notoriously difficult, especially if you haven't done it before. So how to bring yourself to the attention of book, magazine or newspaper publishers? That's the question the Queensland Writers Centre tackles in The Australian Writer's Marketplace.
Parallel importing review - arguments for and against
31/07/2008
The Productivity Commission has been asked to review copyright laws which prevent booksellers from importing titles that are also published in Australia. Groups who are against change predict a gloomy future for local publishers, local authors and for small booksellers if restrictions are lifted. Those who're keen for protection to be removed say it will mean cheaper books. Tim Coronel from Bookseller and Publisher magazine joins us to tease out the arguments.
The future of public libraries Read Transcript
13/06/2008
Public libraries in New South Wales have threatened to charge for services if they don't get more funding. Library users continually say they want more books and more book-based programs, but would a fee-for-service be too high a price to pay for improved resources?
During the course of this week The Book Show asked for your thoughts on public libraries and why they are important - and we've been overwhelmed by the response. The majority view has been that libraries are an incredibly valuable community resource, that they deserve better treatment from government - and that forcing library users to pay for services would be a retrograde step.
Publishing prospects in India
25/02/2008
While the Chinese market seems be in everyone's sights this year, we look at the other economic powerhouse, India. Publishing industry insider Andrew Wilkins has been there recently and says that, for English language publishers, India has a decided advantage over China because it's an English-speaking democracy.
