New website to sell books on Tasmania direct from authors

A new online bookshop selling print books about Tasmania directly from the authors has been launched.

Tasmanian Books, which was launched in January by local author Andrew Wilson, aims to ‘bring all of Tasmania’s beautiful publications under one digital roof’.

Authors who have written a book about Tasmania, including fiction set in Tasmania, can register to sell their book through the website provided they have retained the legal right to sell books direct to the public. Authors are responsible for posting the books to customers and receive 80% of the sale price, as well as being reimbursed for the postage cost.

Wilson told Books+Publishing he hopes the site will provide an additional avenue for book promotion rather than direct competition for existing booksellers. ‘Tasmania is a very rural place, and there’s plenty of people who would have to travel a long way to get to one of the bigger bookshops that stock a large range of Tasmanian titles,’ said Wilson. ‘There’s also plenty of people on the mainland that buy Tasmanian publications if you make it easy for them to do so.’ Wilson added that while many local bookshops sell books from their own websites, they are not dedicated only to Tasmanian content.

Wilson, who is also a web designer, said it was easy for him to set up a website to sell his book Old Sea Dogs of Tasmania (Tas Food Books), but realised this was a big cost for many authors. ‘Tasmanian Books gives every published or self-published author with a book about Tasmania the opportunity to sell their book online … without any of the cost of building a website.’

Category: Local news