Books are not expensive. Our wages are low. If publishers sell at $20 (the price of two meals in U.S.), no way our local bookstores can sell lower than RM80 (price of 10 meals in Malaysia) without incuring a loss. Which brings me to BookXcess. https://twitter.com/cookiemonstaly/status/1274587856724357120

BX buys excess books that publishers want to get rid of. They are older books taking up space in warehouses. Can you imagine if everyone adopts this model? Who's gonna publish? How would writers and editors get paid?

Local publishing scene: Most writers based in Malaysia (locally published) cannot make a living by writing full time. They freelance, take part-time jobs, or have supportive family with a stable income.

In US/UK, it's a common practice for some publishing houses to offer advance payment for a writer to spend months/years to work on a book. That's how you invest in writers. Nak dapat advance 20k in Malaysia memang tak lah. Advance 5k pun susah. Many writers are even owed royalty

The problem is not just the 'exploitative' publisher. That will be easier to solve as it is just that one individual publisher. Many publishers are always at risk of going under. So you can imagine how that affects their business practices, choice of books published/not published

The larger problems are 1) our wages have been stagnant for a long time. Median wage kat Malaysia RM 2.3k. It's ridiculously low for the current cost of living.

And 2) We lack the ecosystem to support publishers and writers. Grants, residency, recognition, freedom. Sang penguasa sembang kencang nak menang Nobel, Oscar, tengok dulu how we are treating our writers and filmmakers. Macam pengemis picisan yang dirantai

Tldr: Cheap books are not the solution. Cheap undermines the already dreadful ecosystem. Wages must rise, we must recognize and reward good writers, and buy direct from local publishers/writers whenever possible.

Cc those who know better and might have more to share. @fahmimustaffa @yesitshanna @tinta_budi @GerakBudaya @amirmu @EzraZaid @SilverfishNews