I’ve been too busy doing “pay-the-mortgage” writing recently to get back into fiction, but after what I heard today there might be little point: the book chain I loved as a kid, Angus & Robertson, has asked small Australian publishers to pay a fee to have the chain stock their books.

When I publish a novel in the future (notice I say when, not if) the chances are good that a small Australian publisher will pick it up; does this mean my childhood dream of seeing my book in an A&R store will never come true? Or will the publishing companies go broke paying fees to them? Admittedly, my loyalty has long since switched to small independent bookstores like Planet Books in Mt Lawley and Oxford St Books in Leederville means that I’m not as sad as I could have been, but I certainly am angry.