As Toronto’s oldest independent bookstore, The Book Mark, announced it would close before the end of January, other independent booksellers across Canada seemed grateful to report Christmas sales that were generally on par with their previous year.
The Book Mark attributed its decision to close after 46 years in business largely to a dramatic increase in rent and high property taxes, but Canadian independents are all facing ongoing pressures. Steve Budnarchuk, co-owner of Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta says online retailers are the biggest competition. “Chapters [Indigo] retail stores, of course, are to an extent because they are a big entity in town and they have the big footprint, even if they don’t have the big book inventory… but online retailing is still been the single biggest factor.”
Indigo Books and Music, Canada’s largest book retailer, reduced the number of books it carries last fall to make room for new product lines of gift and lifestyle goods in a move its CEO Heather Reisman described as a strategy to survive the growth of digital books and e-readers. Budnarchuk said that in his business e-books “are starting to have an impact, but it’s hard really to quantify that.”
Ian Donker, general manager of the Book City stores in Toronto, agreed. “About 14 months ago, there were a few depressing months, but was that e-readers or was that when the economy took another plunge? I don’t remember exactly when that was, but it’s just something you have to ride out. I don’t think e-books are affecting us as much as people might think, but time will tell. A new load of e-readers were given as Christmas presents this year and sales could be affected because of that. We’ll just have to see over the next few months.”
Nicholas Hoare, who owns bookstores in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, said sales were up for his business by 20% or 25% for Christmas, but that was only because last Christmas was a disaster due to a huge snowfall. “I suffer no illusions, if we compared this year’s sales to two Christmases ago, they are probably flat as a pancake….We’re all on a one-way ticket down a dead end street, but I do think from a strictly short-term point of view from Nov. 15 and Dec. 31, we had the elements playing right into our hands and it was an absolute flaming god-send.”
It was a brown Christmas with no snow across most of Canada this year, and although snow sometimes puts consumers in the mood for Christmas shopping, some booksellers said they benefit more from mild weather. “Snow makes people think of Christmas, but cold keeps them home,” noted Paul McNally, co-owner of the McNally Robinson bookstores in Saskatoon and Winnipeg and New York.
Eleanor LeFave, owner of the Toronto children’s bookstore Mabel’s Fables, reported Christmas sales that were up over the last year, thanks in part to lots of special events in and out of the store and many loyal customers, but she noted that her store also gained new customers after another children’s store The Flying Dragon closed in 2011. Still, she said she thought “the general bookseller is under a lot more pressure than the specialists, like the children’s specialists.” Still, the e-book encroaches. LeFave recounted the way she guided one customer through purchases for three daughters but was shocked when the customer didn’t buy any books for the eldest daughter who the mother said had a Kindle. “She used our store as a showroom, got all the advice based on everything that we do and gave it to Jeff [Bezos]…She probably didn’t understand…[but] it was the closest thing thing, I felt, to someone shoplifting right in front of me. It was really hard, especially at that time of year when you are exhausted,” said LeFave. “I did say to her ‘I hope we’re here next year.’” Some retailers said it is common to see customers using their cell phones to record book information they will later shop online with.
But Jessica Walker, assistant manager of Munro’s Books in Victoria, B.C. says there are some hopeful signs. “We are finding customers who are doing both. People who say ‘I have this on my Kindle but I want to buy it for someone else, or I still want to own it.”
The big hits of the season included Esi Edugyan’s Half-blood Blues, (Thomas Allen Publishers) winner of the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Patrick deWitt’s novel The Sisters Brothers, (House of Anansi Press) which won the Governor-General’s Literary Award for fiction, Michael Ondaatje’s latest novel The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart), and the big nonfiction title was Walter Issacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster).
