Anna Porter and Kevin Hanson have collaborated in the Canadian publishing industry for decades. Hanson joined Simon & Schuster Canada as president in 2005 and in 2013 was named publisher. Porter cofounded Key Porter Books, an influential Canadian publishing house, in 1979 and ran it until 2011. She’s also the author of 12 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including her memoir, In Other Words. The psychological thriller Gull Island, her sixth novel, is being published by S&S Canada this month.
PW talked with the longtime friends and colleagues about the changing nature of Canadian publishing and its evolution from a local industry to one that crosses borders.
Kevin, can you comment on how the market has changed in Canada since the early 1990s, when you worked with Anna at Key Porter?
KH The retail structure today would be unrecognizable to us at that time. This was before Amazon and Indigo, and Costco was just ramping up. The publishing ecosystem was a balance of small and midsized Canadian companies and the emergence of the larger subsidiaries of global companies. The economy was going through a rapid transformation with the North American Free Trade Agreement, and unemployment was high.
AP Publishing in Canada has always been a high-wire act; it’s challenging to stay the course in a small market dominated by the bestsellers from the U.S. and U.K. Even in the ’70s and ’80s, when Canadians were keen to read about themselves and you could sell more than 100,000 copies of a Canadian history or political book, it was never enough to support a list. There are simply not enough people here to give you a million-copy sale. I remember well that we found it impossible to survive by
publishing for the Canadian trade market alone. We sold co-editions of illustrated books and tried a variety of not-very-satisfactory distribution arrangements in the U.S. As Kevin knows, we started to sell books to non-book retailers and companies that specialized in the door-to-door market.
Are there other changes in the Canadian market that may alter how publishers today try to reach Canadian readers?
AP In the ’90s, you could still count on some coverage in newspapers, radio, and TV for Canadian authors—such as Farley Mowat, Allan Fotheringham, Conrad Black, and always Margaret Atwood, who gave Key Porter three of her children’s books—but as book media and local news began to disappear, it became even more difficult to make sure that buyers would know when our books were published. Consolidation in the book retail market did not help, as we watched three retail chains becoming one and Amazon entering the market.
KH Canadians are phenomenal readers, but their tastes have changed. Today, U.S. politics intrigues readers here more than our own. Celebrity memoirs from abroad carry more interest than books that reflect on what it means to be Canadian. I was involved in the publication of The Canadian Encyclopedia before joining Key Porter, and it was the largest publishing venture ever and was massively successful. It just would not fly today for many obvious reasons.
Anna, S&S Canada is publishing your novel this fall in both Canada and the U.S. How do you feel about this approach?
AP Canadian publishers have always exported some of their books to the U.S., but successes, except for children’s books, have been scarce. Needless to say, I am thrilled with the strong response to Gull Island in the U.S. Thank you, S&S, and you, Kevin. You’ve certainly learned a lot about publishing since those early days trying to interest McDonald’s in using books in their rewards programs.
KH Oh, I remember. I was hopeful that a Happy Meal might include a children’s book. I’ve turned away from that “hope” strategy to looking for a larger, more predictive market, and that is south of us. Canadian writers want readers, and our job is to look beyond our home market to find them.
