An independent Australian publisher has challenged the assertions of a growing list of Australian literary writers that an open market will irreparably damage a robust homegrown literary culture, warning the book industry has a "price problem".

Chief executive of Hardie Grant, Sandy Grant, says authors had more to fear from overpriced books and a lack of respect for Australian writing among overseas publishers than the proposed axing of import restrictions.

The Man Booker prizewinners Richard Flanagan and Tom Keneally, Tim Winton and Magda Szubanski have joined national bodies representing publishers, printers, authors, agents and booksellers to express grave fears for the state of the publishing industry as a result of draft Productivity Commission recommendations affecting territorial copyright.

At a forum on the topic attended by industry figures and hosted by the Australian Booksellers' Association at its annual conference, Grant said the book industry had "a price problem".

"We had it 40 years ago and we still do today, but we have the added problem in 2016 that the public can use Amazon and the Book Depository to check prices and then vote with their feet," he said.

Grant supports the retention of parallel import rules, which give publishers with local rights effectively 14 days after publication to supply local books or else shops can source books overseas. "But we can't use old protectionism when it suits us," he cautioned.

In practice, the Australian Publishers' Association say most local editions are published within 10 days of international release, and even on the same day in the case of bestsellers such as the Harry Potter franchise. Industry negotiations are well advanced to bring that time gap down further. Book prices, too, have been falling in recent years.

The ABA released a price survey of new release books including data from the Melbourne independent book chain, Readings, and recent bestselling titles from Nielsen Bookscan.

It found that of 63 books with US and Australian editions, 54 were less expensive in Australia, and nine more expensive. Of 72 books with British and Australian editions 39 of the local editions were less expensive, 21 were within 10 per cent of the UK price, and 12 were much more dearer.

Some bestsellers were well priced but many other books were not, Grant says. When the Australian dollar was at parity with the US dollar, Australian-based multinational publishers didn't reduce their prices, he says, and were effectively "price gouging by as much as 30 per cent, simply because they could".

Some books on its own list were overpriced, Grant concedes.

British publishers are preventing their US counterparts from selling their books in Australia, and taking cuts on both sale and distribution. On top of these double-handling costs, the Australian public was paying for printer and booksellers' margins.

Professor Kathy Bowrey, from the University of NSW's faculty of law, has also questioned the authors' patriotic calls for retaining the status quo.

The writers misunderstood the history of the copyright laws, which were first introduced to benefit multinational publishers, not authors.

During the 19th century, she says, colonial editions of works were printed by British publishers for the so-called ill-educated colonies of South Africa, India, New Zealand and Canada.

As the publishing industry moved global, publishers in Australia were unable to compete abroad and had to accept price discounts for local books distributed overseas while the cut-price "colonial editions" disappeared.

The corrective step of restricting British and US editions into Australia served only to empower publishers with local and overseas offices.

Removing that colonial legacy would not affect the rights of authors or their value, Professor Bowrey asserts.

"And you never know," she says. "If acted upon these could force the multinational publishing houses to think more deeply about the role of their local branch offices and how they can better serve the interests and needs of Australians, instead of taking our authors and readers for a ride."

Grant suggests publishers, authors and booksellers should work together to lower book prices and set up a new working party to set faster standards of delivery and availability. Were Australia to continue to restrict imports, it should consider introducing an Australian version of Canadian law.

Those rules state that for publishers to license titles as protected, they must commit to a retail price within 10 per cent of the US price if it is American and within 15 per cent if it is European.

Linda Morris is on Facebook and Twitter @LindaMorrissmh