It hasn't been the best of years in Canada, what with the continuing fallout from the collapse of General Publishing, its impact on a number of smaller publishers, the store closings by Indigo/Chapters and an unexpected rush of pre-Christmas returns; so the addition of an—admittedly brief—quarantining of Toronto by the World Health Organization because of SARS was just about the last thing Canadian book people needed.
Although the travel advisory was swiftly lifted, a shadow had been cast on plans for two major conventions in the city in coming weeks—the American Library Association meeting and Book- Expo Canada—and the problem caused at least one publisher sales convention, that of HarperCollins, to be conducted by video-conferencing rather than in person. Harper president David Kent said they had been getting anxious calls from colleagues around the world asking "Are you O.K.?" and he decided he had to make a judgment call on having people come into the city for the meeting. "There was so much anxiety around that I thought it would impact the effectiveness of the conference, so I removed the need to add the decision whether to come or not from their concerns," he said. He joked: "Maybe these conferences by remote control are the shape of things to come—but I still think it's better to have people meet face to face."
As to the impact on book sales, it had been considerable in the six weeks or so the crisis had lasted as of this writing. The Toronto book market represents 20% of the country's sales, Kent said, and the city's retail business had been down 30% in recent weeks. "Everything's getting clobbered," he said, with people staying away particularly from shopping malls, and he was afraid it might have "a domino effect." There would also be a psychological effect, he predicted, which might take longer to affect the book business.
Interestingly, the epidemic, and fears thereof, seem to have caused a spike in book sales at the recently-established Amazon Canada, which is currently involved in a battle with Chapters/Indigo over its online selling policies, with the chain claiming it is infringing Canadian ownership regulations (more on this later in the report).
'Not a good fall' at M & S
Meanwhile, most of the publishers we talked to found the past year's sales to have been disappointing, in varying degrees. Douglas Gibson at McClelland & Stewart, for instance, said sales had been "below what we expected," with big coffee table books—a genre the house has done well with in the past—particularly hard hit. "It was not a good fall for us," he said. Part of the problem lies with what he calls The Chain (Indigo/Chapters dominates the Canadian business like a combination of B & N and Borders would in the States). It has been consolidating and closing mall stores, and "we should all have seen the cumulative impact coming," Gibson said, as an operation that at its peak embraced 450-500 stores shrank to not much more than half that total.
The impact had not been so much on returns, though these had been bad enough, but on the buying habits of the customers. "We had thought that customers at the closed stores would go elsewhere but found that when you take bookstores out of their habitual walks, they won't seek them out in other locations," Gibson said ruefully. Another change that had impacted publishers adversely was the distinct signs of pulling back on book coverage at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which has traditionally been a major source of news and views on new books comparable to the role of PBS in the States. "They were seeking new demographics, a younger audience, and book coverage suffered as a result," said Gibson. "That's been very bad for us all—publishers, booksellers and the trade in general." He had hopes, however, that CBC might revert to its previous level of book interest now that an architect of the new policy had left.
One of M & S's great sadnesses in the past year, said Gibson, had been its failure to find a buyer for its award-winning nonfiction imprint Macfarlane Walter and Ross, run by three notable journalists. They had originally found a home for their imprint, which had some strong political bestsellers, at Stoddart's General Publishing, which gave them distribution and also some government support. When they left in 1999 for M & S, however—three years ahead of General's catastrophic collapse—they had to leave some of their most valuable titles behind, and had not really yet got back to speed at M & S and, according to a recent article in the Toronto Globe and Mail, "M & S could no longer cushion MWR after a particularly bad retail year." Gibson said the MWR principals had to agree to "look for a new partner," but in the end there was no sale. The principals are "reconsidering their role," which means they will finish editing the books they had signed and then return to their journalistic lives. The authors, said Gibson, "will continue to be cared for by us."
As Canada's largest remaining independent publisher, M & S itself is going through worrisome times. "It's been a disappointing year, with sales below what we expected," said Gibson. He's trimming the list—this fall's titles will be down 15-20% over those a year ago—and "we're trying to give ourselves more time." He's hearing from printers too about growing caution on numbers: "They say they're hearing concerns about the number of titles, and about print runs." And he remains aghast at the extent, and impact of the General Publishing collapse. "It was awful, it's been bad for the whole industry, it's given the whole Canadian book business a black eye."
Still, optimism is endemic to publishers, and Gibson sees some bright spots. One was the serendipitous signing of a book about Canadian golfer Mike Weir, who had just dramatically won the Masters in Georgia and catapulted himself into the big time. It was Gibson's idea to commission Globe & Mail golf writer Lorne Rubenstein to follow Weir around as he embarked on his American adventures—"he would represent the good, solid golfers who have never won a tournament." As it turned out, the author was in the catbird seat for what has turned out to be a great moment for Canadian golf, and M & S will have a book on the man and his big win out this fall. Another gamble that paid off was the signing of a book by Canadian military historian Gwynne Dyer, who had told Gibson in December that there would be a Bush-led war on Iraq, and it would be a mistake. He sat down to write, and rapidly produced Ignorant Armies: Sliding into War in Iraq and Gibson had the manuscript in early March. "We had the book; now we needed the war," he quipped. "But how to do flap copy?" The war arrived soon enough and Dyers's paperback book, which outlines the various problems the Western allies will face in a conquered Iraq, is about to go into stores.
Another source for optimism at M & S is, of course, their long-standing relationship with Margaret Atwood, whose latest novel, Oryx and Crake, was published the day of our interview. Would this be her biggest book yet? "Every one is a major one," said Gibson. "But yes, I think it will do wonderfully well." A first novel just out on which he also pins high hopes is Twenty-six by Leo McKay Jr., a novel inspired by a Nova Scotia mining disaster that killed 26 miners; the author's father was a labor leader at the mine, and the book will tell of the political opportunism that helped create the disaster. "It's quite extraordinary," said Gibson. Other future fiction on which he places great hopes includes The Island Walkers by John Bemrose, a family story set in 1960s Italy, and A Student of Weather by Elizabeth Hay, author of the hit Garbo and Me. In nonfiction, there is a collection of essays by popular CBC-TV commentator Rex Murphy, a book called Thunder and Lightning by ice hockey's Phil Esposito, and which Gibson said could be "a Ball Four for hockey, a no-holds-barred account complete with locker-room talk," by a former player for the Boston Bruins. And, more reconditely, there will be a history of Canadian book publishing by Roy McSkimming, called, rather appropriately for this moment, The Perilous Trade.
CPC Sees 'A Tough Year'
The people at the Canadian Publishers Council are trying to make it a little less perilous, led by veteran Jackie Hushion, who acknowledges it's been a tough year, with returns last fall and winter that were "horrific," but insists that CPC has an effective working party that meets regularly with executives at Indigo/Chapters to "work through the issues."
"They acknowledged that returns had been too high, and they'd got behind in them, even in the Christmas season," said Hushion, but "both sides are working on it." They are hoping to put an SAP system in place next year, and a lot of "education" is going on at the store level. "I think right now they're running as fast as they can." Her associate, Colleen O'Neill, adds that she is seeing a resurgence now in independent booksellers as customers are less inclined, because of the SARS scare, to venture into crowded malls and superstores. The airport stores have been hardest hit by the scare so far.
Hushion's final verdict was more optimistic than might have been expected under the circumstances: "I think things are settling down and evening out. All in all, the book business is much healthier now than it was at this time last year."
Harper: Trying to improve on the best
That optimism was matched by that of David Kent at HarperCollins, who acknowledged that whereas last fall, "as for everyone in North America, I suspect," had not been great, the year overall will turn out to have been a good one. It would not, however, be as good as last year at Harper, which had been spectacular—chosen as publisher of the year, winning some big awards, and with huge sales from the Tolkien books. It was a sort of double bind: "If we hadn't had last year, this would be the best year we've had." But like all corporate-owned publishers, he is expected to improve results every year, and is aware that Tolkien sales this year will be nothing like those in 2001-02.
Still, he notes that in contrast to some other publishers where there have been layoffs, HC Canada is actually hiring, and has a strong publishing program for the rest of the year. This includes what he calls "a fine blend of Canadian and international authors," among which he is especially keen on Deafening by Frances Itani, which will be published in August simultaneously with Grove/Atlantic in the U.S., and which has already racked up rights sales in 10 countries, many of them at the London Book Fair; A Blade of Grass by South Africa-born Louis de Soto, about which they were so enthusiastic that Harper in Australia bought it sight unseen; new books by Janette Turner Hospital, Due Preparations for the Plague (Norton in the U.S.) and Sally Vickers, Mr. Golightly's Holiday. In nonfiction, there's Conrad Black's bio of FDR, the first major book on him in a long time, and particularly piquant because of the author's thoroughly conservative viewpoint, though it turns out he was a great admirer of the late President; this is being done in the U.S. by PublicAffairs. And there's also a dual biography of two battling queens, Elizabeth and Mary, by Jane Dunne (Knopf here).
Harper also has some notions on format, doing Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, for instance, in a second paperback version in a different shape and size than the standard Perennial. Kent is convinced that in the standard trade paperback, where the same plates are used, but the book is brought down to smaller page size, some people, particularly older ones, find the print hard to read, and will be willing to pay a bit more for a reset book with better paper, bigger type and wider margins—"a more pleasurable reading experience."
The Zondervan religion line, he says, has increased its sales 50% in Canada in the past year, with The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren proving to be a major seller north of the border as in the U.S. And he also rejoices in a strong children's list.
Enter S&S Canada
A new face on the Canadian scene, corporately speaking, is that of Simon & Schuster, which last year took over its former distribution arm, Distican, and now operates it under the name Simon & Schuster Canada. Many years ago, before its current ownership, S & S had its battles with the government over its ownership of Canadian subsidiaries, but those are long gone.
The new S&S Canada, says S&S president Jack Romanos, is "a full-scale extension of our sales operation, complete with its own warehouse and sales force." There is no editorial presence, however: "When we acquired the company, we agreed we wouldn't go into acquisition." It is a "complete subsidiary, with access to all our publishing output from the U.S. and U.K., outside of whatever is covered under different rights arrangements."
The buy, said Romanos, was "good timing—we wanted to sell more into the Canadian market; the operation will grow as we grow." There is no distribution of Canadian titles involved, but otherwise the Canadian link is close. "These are actual employees of ours now, not one step removed, as formerly, so we have the benefit of a closer relationship with the Canadian sales team." His experience so far of Canadian returns: "We hear they've been accelerated rather than just that they're heavy." (This ties in with reports from other sources that suggest returns are being made to lower debt, because the same titles are often swiftly re-ordered, suggesting that the real driving force behind them is a wish for more extended payment terms.)
Random: Brighter prospects ahead
At Random House and its various imprints it has been, says president John Neale, a "very successful year," with an important caveat—"considering the difficulties we've all experienced." These included an unprecedented level of returns shortly before Christmas, "the most challenging we've had." But he sees brighter prospects ahead, including anticipated improvements in the supply chain and, beginning next year, much improved sales information from a new agency that is working with both sides, publishing and retail, on better sales reporting.
"In many ways," says Neale, "things have never been more difficult, with the economy, the war and the SARS scare, and the first-quarter results will reflect that. Right now we're holding our own, but if all this continues we'll all be in trouble." Sales director Brad Martin chimed in to say that "our problem is how to get more people into the store. April has been a soft month, but Mother's Day is coming up and I think we can look forward to a better summer.
"We have to be more proactive," adds Neale, noting that Random has closed its Canadian customer service operation, with the loss of some jobs, and moved it down to the main warehouse in Westminster, Md. "We can do it more efficiently from there with improved EDI." There had also been a few job losses in editorial, but he was not specific.
Louise Dennys, who heads trade publishing at the Random imprints, was, as always, eloquent in her enthusiasm for the authors and books on hand, and also alone in expressing her unhappiness at the impact of the Stoddart/General collapse on many small publishers. "We've had a good year, but it's been one where we've been deeply affected by the losses of friends and colleagues in the small publishing industry," she declared.
As for Random/Knopf/Doubleday titles, Nino Ricci's The Testament had just won the prestigious Trillium Award, the nationwide Canada Reads program had given huge impetus to Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of the Lion, and Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees had been one of Oprah's last book choices; meanwhile they're looking forward to the author's new The Way the Crow Flies. Life of Pi continues to be the success in its native land it has been everywhere else, and Mary Lawson's Crow Lake and Carol Shields's Unless, both strong performers in hardcover, would be paperbacks this year.
New titles of interest, some of them as yet unsold in the States, include a novel by French Canadian Gil Courtemanche, set in Rwanda, A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (Knopf in the U.S.); Rick Gallop's Living with the GI Diet, a follow-up to an earlier highly successful diet book (this one with recipes; Workman in the U.S.); a memoir by NHL's Mark Messier; a frank book about her religion by a young Muslim woman, Irshad Manji, called The Trouble with Islam; a book called The Human Factor by M.I.T. "human factors engineer" and lecturer Kim Vicente, a study of the impact of technology on the human spirit; and Epic Wanderer, a book by historian D'Arcy Jenish of William Thompson, an almost forgotten explorer along the border between the fledgling U.S. and British North America, as it then was, in the late 18th and early 19th century. And talking of that border, James Laxe's The Border is a documentary history of the longest undefended frontier in the world.
Penguin: 'Room to grow and change'
At Penguin Canada, Ed Carson, who came over to head the company from Pearson 18 months ago and integrate it more closely with its parent, is looking for a publisher to replace the much-admired Cynthia Good, who resigned late last year. Right now Carson is acting in her role, but expects to announce a replacement in the next couple of months; meanwhile two joint editorial directors, Andrea Crozier and Diane Turbide, are handling acquisitions, and, says Carson, "have done a wonderful job of marshaling the list—we haven't lost a single author since Cynthia left."
Penguin is now, he says, more proactive in acquisition, sending editors into New York and the U.K. to buy as well as sell rights, and try to create more international impact for their authors. "I think we're now on freer terms with agents here and in the U.S., and we're acquiring aggressively," said Carson. "We feel there's plenty of room to grow and change."
Carson feels the Canadian scene is "relatively stable now after a rather tumultuous year" that has made year-on-year sales comparisons difficult. "After a series of great shifts, I think we'll now be able to begin having a better year-on-year sense." He senses the economy, lagging last fall, has grown stronger in the past six months, and general trade is now quite buoyant, though computer books, an important element in the Pearson mix, are struggling. Still, it's been "a good first quarter, with returns not beyond the range of what we had anticipated."
What Carson calls the "indigenous list"—Canadian authors and Canadian subjects—is especially strong for next fall, he says. One of its big features will be a series of reissues of key books or collections by the media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, many of which are out of print. These will include The Book of Probes, Counterblast, Understanding Media and Multimedia Unbound, their appearance designed to coincide with a big McLuhan symposium in Toronto in the fall. Stuart Mclean is a popular Canadian broadcaster and humorist whose books about the Vinyl Café and its denizens have been bestsellers, and the latest will be The Vinyl Café Diaries. Lawrence Martin will have a major bio of about-to-retire Premier Jean Chrétien, called Iron Man and business writers Don Tapscott and David Ticoll will offer The Naked Corporation, in joint publication with Penguin here; another joint, and current, co-publication is Christopher Hitchens's polemic A Long Short War about the Iraq conflict. Novelist Peter Unwin will have Wolf Head: Writing Lake Superior, a lyrical mixture of stories and meditations set around that huge body. And local philosophy professor Mark Kingwell will publish Catch and release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life. All in all, said Carson, there will be about 130 titles this year from Penguin—a slight decline, "but we expect revenues to increase."
Children's Books: Looking to U.S. Libraries
Several Canadian children's publishers interviewed offered similar findings: they all agreed the American library market was an important one for them, they lamented the disappearance of many children's or independent bookstores in Canada, and they found retail sales essentially flat, while all-important library funding was in decline.
At Groundwood Books, publisher Patsy Adana felt Chapters/Indigo was "not especially effective at selling children's books, particularly high-end ones; we do very well in children's-only and independent stores, but so many of those have closed." As much as three-quarters of her library sales were to the U.S., and the number is growing. Groundwood used to sell rights to some of its books in the U.S., but six years ago went to Publishers Group West for U.S. distribution, and now sells no rights. Its American bestsellers are the Stella series by Marie-Louise Gay and The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis, which has done well on both sides of the border.
At Tundra, Canada's oldest children's publisher at 35 (and now part of McClelland & Stewart), publisher Kathy Lowinger described a "boom year," based on some strong titles and profitable foreign rights sales (e.g. for the picture book Gilgamesh) and an expansion of the publicity and marketing staff. Other strong titles currently are the Jacob Two-Two books by the late Mordecai Richler, books by Richard Scrimger and Building America by Janice Weaver.
She too lamented the fact that there were "so few stores" interested in children's books—and further that returns, traditionally lower than for adult books, were now climbing. For Groundwood, U.S. sales represent about half their market and "for now, it's hard to tell if it's growing." Library sales in Canada have not been strong, but sales are now specifically targeted to that market, "so hopefully this will pick up." She feels Canadian literature has blossomed in the last 20 years, and now children's books are doing likewise: "We've never put out better books."
Red Deer Press, based in Calgary, places special emphasis on Western subjects. Managing editor Dennis Johnson said their Canadian business had been "very flat" over the past year, and described particular difficulties at getting books into the Indigo/Chapters stores. Library sales have suffered from lower funding, but although the American library market is down it's still "a very significant outlet for us." He estimated the split between retail and library sales as about 70-30 in Canada, more like 50-50 in the U.S. Returns are "a massive problem" in Canada, much less in the U.S.
Red Deer has made strong efforts, beginning about four years ago, to sell more strongly in the U.S., and predicts that within the next year it will account for 25% of sales; the ultimate aim is to sell half their books to the States. This was one of the publishers that suffered from the Stoddart/General collapse, so for the latter half of the year there was no American distribution, though up to that point sales there had been increasing. "We've only relaunched our list in the U.S. in April."
For a look at the Francophone side of Canadian children's publishing, PW talked to Lise Clenier, v-p of sales and marketing at Montreal's Chouette, which banks on sales of its books about Caillou, a four-year-old boy who is the center of a series of TV shows shown by PBS, for an English-language readership. Because of the extra degree of recognition afforded by the TV show, business in the past year, said Clenier, has been "just great," selling strongly into a mass market.
Library sales are quite insignificant for this house, which began to sell into the U.S. only in late 2000; the next two years were very strong, reaching 60% of company sales, but that has slackened off so far in 2003.
At Toronto's Kids Can Press, president Valerie Hussey is alarmed at the state of the children's market in Canada. "What we have had is a serious reduction in support, both monetarily and philosophically, of libraries," she said. "Canada was at the forefront of school and children's librarianship. That has completely gone by the wayside, and librarians everywhere are being phased out and, more ominously, being generalized." She laments the lack of adequate staffing levels and support, and wonders where are the librarians who can really sit down with children and build an enthusiasm and love for reading and books.
Despite such challenges on the library side, the press continues to flourish. "We have stuff that's very commercial," Hussey observed, noting not only the popular Franklin series but individual titles, like a recent Einstein biography that aims to capture the attention of the elementary school student. "We tend to do pretty sophisticated 12—15 YA, some Canadian history, and we are just now looking at topics that were popular here, translating them to U.S. markets with an American approach." She cited books like the upcoming All-American Quilts and a version of a book called Canada Votes that will instead explain how a American presidential elections work. In view of her efforts toward the U.S. market, she added, she would welcome more coverage of her books in American magazines.
The press is currently doing about 60 books a year, and Hussey points to such recent awards as a Governor General's last year for illustration for Alpha Beasts and several nominations already for this year's titles.
H.B. Fenn: A Distribution Giant
H.B. Fenn & Company, now in its 27th year, is one of the top 10 trade-book distributors and suppliers in the country, and president and founder Harold Fenn said it has been "fortunate to build relationships with many of the major publishers, like Disney, Little, Brown, St Martin's and Macmillan U.K. Altogether he handles over 50 publishers, and business in the past year has exceeded expectations. This might be attributable to his diversified approach to retail. "I have always looked at the Canadian market as being more than just bookstores," said Fenn, "and we have always had lines that have allowed us to move into the toy market, department stores, mass merchants, the home improvement area. So if things get tough, you just open your markets!"
While the company didn't pick up any new Canadian publishing houses after the GDS debacle, Key Porter had signed last April, just prior to GDS filing for protection. "We have represented some small Canadian publishers, but KP is certainly the largest we have ever represented. It's been fun, it's been educational," he added, "and having your publisher in your own hometown, there is great communication." Another publishing feather recently in Fenn's cap is Microsoft Press (since May 2002). While the computer book business in general isn't at the level of strength that it was two years ago, with ever-changing new technologies come new books, and Fenn says they are happy with their share of the market.
Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones keeps hitting the bestseller lists, in the thousands of copies, according to Fenn publicity manager Heidi Winter. "And Queen Noor's book Leap of Faith has recently, and quietly, been picking up a lot of momentum." (Her Majesty's appearance on the inaugural episode of Tina Brown's talk show can't have hurt, either). "This is also really James Patterson's year for Canada, and so we are bringing him to Book Expo Canada," she continued. On the Canadian side, Fenn is looking forward to Robert Sawyer's Hybrids, the final installment of his popular sci-fi/ fantasy trilogy. Expectations are also high for Vancouver author Maria Coffee, with Where the Mountain Casts its Shadows—an exploration and analysis of extreme adventurers and the people they leave behind. And with bikini season just around the corner, orders just keep pouring in for Atkins for Life.
Looking to fall, one highlight will be the new Michael Moore hardcover from the Warner list, with the working title Call Me American. Reinvigorated by the media frenzy after Moore's Academy Award win, Stupid White Men continues to sell exceptionally well in Canada. Fenn is also looking forward to the new Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie) hardcover, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, from Hyperion.
Although it comes as no surprise, English chef Jamie Oliver's Happy Days with the Naked Chef was a huge hit last season. The outrageously popular kitchen heartthrob's Toronto appearance was a mob scene reminiscent of the Beatles' 1964 landing at JFK, and by all reports, the biggest author event Indigo has ever had. The fourth Oliver title, Jamie's Kitchen, will be out in September, and Fenn expects similar, if not dramatically increased, fanfare.
The Fenn Publishing division is also well on the road to establishing itself as something of a sports publisher, with a recent alliance with the Hockey Hall of Fame. An eagerly anticipated launch at BookExpo Canada is Brian McFarlane, an author who was for years has been the voice of that staple of Canadian television, Hockey Night in Canada. On the Hockey Highway and Fire in the North are the first titles in McFarlane's new Mitchell Brothers YA series, and Fenn has them tipped to be the hit of the 9—13 set this fall. The idea? Two boys solving crimes, figuring things out and playing hockey along the way. Coincidentally, McFarlane's father, Leslie, wrote the first 21 books in the classic Hardy Boys series.
Drawn but Not Quartered
After the American distributor LPC went bankrupt, Montreal publisher Drawn & Quarterly had a long, nebulous shopping period before it signed on with California's Chronicle Books, and now has representation through PGC sales force and Raincoast distribution in Canada. D&Q is one of the world's most respected English-language comics publishers, with spring titles that include Waiting for Food, a volume of underground comix legend R. Crumb's place-mat drawings, and Quebecois cartoonist Michel Rebagliati's tale of 1970s coming-of-age, Paul Has a Summer Job. Though one might argue that the Chronicle deal will open up the world of mainstream booksellers to the respected niche publisher, editor and publisher Chris Oliveros is optimistic, but cautiously bullish. "It's perhaps too early to tell, because so far the only new books have been the Crumb and Michel, and they are pretty recent," he says, though he admits that two of D&Q biggest hits, Summer Blonde, "by our most popular author," the wunderkind Adrian Tomine, and Seth's It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken, are both expected to do well in softcover releases this season.
Modesty aside, D&Q has exclusive Canada/U.S./U.K. rights to Acme Novelty Datebook, due in August. Acme is the hotly anticipated new tome by American cartoon genius Chris Ware. Tipped to be the must-own item of the season, the 200-page full-color hardcover contains work from an 11-year period beginning in 1985 (when Ware was 18), including early sketches for Quimby the Mouse and Jimmy Corrigan. Oliveros also expects Eisner and Harvey Award—nominee Chester Brown's historical work, Louis Riel, to be a strong title when collected in hardcover for fall, along with another major title, The Fixer by Joe Sacco—one of the world's only war correspondent cartoonists. The 120-page hardcover is a character study of Sacco's Bosnian contact, so-nicknamed because he set up all the interviews between journalists and locals.
Oliveros is also hopeful that the upcoming BookExpos, in Los Angeles and Toronto, will properly educate booksellers on the often misunderstood medium that has historically been lumped with sci-fi. "BEA and BEC will be the big test for the new BISAC categories," said Oliveros. "There will be spotlights on graphic novels, with panels and seminars on how to properly sell them. Hopefully things will shape up at BEA." Oliveros went on to explain that for the majority of retailers, this will be a first introduction to these books beyond Jimmy Corrigan: "A lot of them have done really well with Jimmy." Word is that in addition to independent bookstores learning the category, Chapters/Indigo will come through with improvements on "otherwise woefully inadequate" graphic-novel sections in May or June.
Born-again Distribution
For the many smaller presses left in the ashes of the GDS bankruptcy, the newly formed Literary Press Group has been the proverbial phoenix. Of the 40-plus Group members, nine of the GDS orphans signed up with UTP for distribution, others like Anansi went to PGC, and last summer, 18 LPG member publishers created L-Disco, as the distribution collective is known. Now L-disco contracts out to an existing supply-chain operation for order fulfillment on behalf of members, and the discount schedule, freight and returns policies are decided in-house by committee.
Members agree that it was an important symbolic and financial act of reclaiming power by small publishers, giving them more control over terms, and the freedom to fine-tune as they go along. "We can actually speak to the head of the company—and it gets done!" marveled Kitty Lewis, general manager of Brick Books, a 27-year-old poetry press from London, Ontario that publishes six books a year. Lewis said that it's one member association that really works, and even goes one further: she credits LPG sales force and now L-disco with 50% of Brick's success.
"The role of the LPG in our lives here at Brick Books is crucial," said Lewis. "With few personnel, having a central agency is extremely important, and the sales reps are what really got our books into stores all across Canada. The advertising project is also wonderful: they negotiate the best rate, a bulk rate with the venues, and all we do is send our information and LPG creates the ad." LPG will continue building on its successes, increasing penetration, and encouraging booksellers to try new things—"with projects that matter and affect the bottom line—things that result in direct sales and profiles," added Lewis. In Canada, L-disco has gained the respect of stores, who were initially cautious.
The U.S. initiative began barely a year ago, again with a different approach. In lieu of engaging U.S.-based sales reps, L-disco sent its own sales force, already familiar with its books, to the regional book fairs south of the border. "Our reps not only know the books, but they are also the best advocates for Canadian literature, which is what we're all about," said David Caron, LPG's executive director.
Admittedly, L-disco does not yet have as much penetration in the U.S. as it would like. Though most of the collective's titles are available at Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Caron is discovering that while local reps reap success and strong orders with independent bookstores in the cross-border territories like Seattle/Vancouver, there are certain advantages to having U.S. sales force: like understanding the complex systems involved in the larger companies. "So what we will do in the next season, for fall," said Caron, "is bring aboard someone from the U.S. who can teach us how those systems work, and then approach libraries, etc."
For the moment, much of L-disco's U.S. focus is on getting books into the system with the bigger players like Ingram, and individual orders for low quantities are being directed toward the wholesalers and to Amazon. "We have shipped to some individual bookstores, but they are primarily academic bookstores," Caron said.
BookNet Canada: Improving Supply Chain
BookNet Canada was born out of an effort by publishers, book retailers, wholesalers and distributors working together to standardize and improve the industry's supply chain. Its president and CEO is Michael Tamblyn, a former v-p of Online Operations at Indigo Books & Music, and it boasts a board of like-minded industry execs who hope to emulate and perhaps even improve upon Britain's BookTrack system. In an industry where U.K. return rates have been known to dip as low as 12% , compared to Canada's decidedly less glamorous 30%-plus, BNC's mandate includes an effective and affordable electronic ordering (EDI) service, a complete bibliographic database of titles and a POS sales-tracking system that, for the first time, will provide the industry with meaningful title sales information.
For many booksellers, point-of-sale will be the meat of the initiative, giving publishers direction on all the other considerations—everything from reprints to INPs. "I think we are all anxious to see this come to fruition, and find better ways in the supply chain," said industry veteran Harold Fenn. "In general, returns are not where I would like to see them. We have to be responsible and intelligent about what we put out. Why put out 10,000 copies if you are only going to sell 6,000? It reminds me of years ago when people typed invoices on typewriters, and now, orders are filed in the middle of the night and when you come in the morning, they're already in the system!"
The Rescue of Anansi
Around this time last year, House of Anansi Press —the legendary publisher founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish only Canadian authors—almost ceased to exist. In the year that could have been its last, Anansi had a fairytale year, complete with a white knight in the form of venture capitalist (and poetry aficionado) Scott Griffin.
Last June, Anansi was the first of bankrupt General Publishing's companies to be sold. Management at Anansi combined with Griffin, the founder of the lucrative Griffin Poetry Prize, and bought the company's assets, including the culturally significant backlist that includes titles by Northrop Frye, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. While General's collapse was looming, Anansi released only two poetry titles and Open, a collection of short stories by newcomer Lisa Moore. The latter became a critical hit and a bestseller, and received a nomination for the Giller Prize. Everything else was delayed until the fall because of the circumstances around the Stoddart collapse. Anansi then moved to the PGC sales force distributed by Raincoast in Canada and IPG in the U.S. Surprisingly, Anansi also sells a fair number of books directly from its Web site into the U.S.
By comparison with its shaky 2002, Anansi had a big spring this year, releasing the trade paperbacks of Open and Ground Works, edited by award-winning poet Christian Bök with an introduction by Margaret Atwood, as well as three new works of poetry—a book by Dennis Lee, one of the founders of the house, was among them. Anansi also continues its tradition of strong nonfiction with The Myth of Ability by John Mighton. It's the story of how he founded JUMP, an innovative inner-city volunteer tutoring organization. Mighton will be at BookExpo Canada offering demonstration tutorials. Publisher Martha Sharpe and co. are also backing a paperback bind-up of celebrated writer Anne Hébert's last four novels, and the inaugural title in their new Ingenuity Talks series called Feeling the Future—energy essays from international writers that are solution-based rather than diagnostic.
Hopping with McArthur & Company
McArthur & Company just celebrated five prosperous years of business with a big party. The star performer continues to be Maeve Binchy (Quentins did 200,000 in hardcover, another 200,000 in mass market in the fall), and the sleeper hit The Pianist, the now-famous memoir of Holocaust survival in Warsaw by pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, has been a McArthur title for several years. "It's a real surprise the movie got made," publisher Kim McArthur admitted, "but thank God it did!" Since director Roman Polanski's film version was released last year (and won the Best Actor and Best Director Oscars), over 5,000 copies have been sold in Canada. Ex-Python Michael Palin's tour promoting his Sahara was also one of the highlights of the past season, and a BEC visit by #1 British crime writer Ian Rankin for fall's A Question of Blood will fulfil this season's star quota.
This spring, the ever-effervescent McArthur will likely have a bestseller on her shelf with Ten Thousand Lovers, a love story peppered with Israeli and Palestinian linguistics, set in 1970 Israel. Lovers is just one of the titles that came along when McArthur picked up Canadian distribution of Hodder Headline books in September after Stoddart went down. "Although it's a century-old conflict, given everything going on in the world, the timing was unbelievable," she muses. The tipping point for the debut novel (with rights already sold in seven countries) was being anointed one of Heather's Picks, which meant pride of place in Chapters and Indigo stores across the country. McArthur is also publishing Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose, a novel based on cryptic crosswords that she's confident will appeal to the inner-clue geek, and A Cook's Garden, a collection of recipes and gardening tips from Canadian Gardening magazine.
For fall, McArthur is looking forward to Giller nominee Nancy Huston's The Adoration, and a mystery by Leslie Forbes, Waking Raphael, set in the Florentine art world. The nonfiction star will be Cuba: Grace Under Pressure, an exploration of the lively cultural life in that beleaguered country, captured in dramatic b&w photos by Malcolm Batty with text by Rosemary Sullivan.
An Impressive Arsenal
It's been a thrilling year for Arsenal Pulp Press, a Vancouver independent building on its reputation for edgy titles that pack plenty of attitude. Founder and publisher Brian Lam was named one of Business in Vancouver magazine's top "40 Under 40" for taking annual revenues of CN$40,000 to present sales in the English-speaking world and Europe of more than CN$500,000—and collecting nominations and awards along the way. This year, they will publish 22 books.
Arsenal has a reputation for creating alternative books and truly eclectic series about cities, culture and cooking. Two of its biggest sellers are the punnily-titled cookbooks How It All Vegan and The Garden of Vegan. The first has sold over 75,000 in Canada to date, and the followup is already over 20,000 since fall 2002. Where Fire Speaks, about the African Himbi tribe, won the Hubert Evans Prize at the British Columbia book awards. The title is part of the photo-journalism Parallax series about "the nature of looking" that pairs glorious photos with analytical essays (the other title is One Ring Circus, about minor-league professional wrestling).
Arsenal has also developed a strong gay and lesbian book list, including the What's Right? and What's Wrong?, fund-raising collections of "explicit graphic interpretations against censorship" in aid of a local gay and lesbian bookstore's legal defense fund. Out/ Lines: Underground Gay Graphics from Before Stonewall and Queer Fear II were singled out, along with the anthology Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity, for four nominations for the 2002 Lambda Literary Awards—the first time any Canadian publisher has been nominated.
Though not yet on complete simultaneous release with the U.S., this is merely a logistical distribution issue, for by happy accident Arsenal moved to from LPC Inbook to Consortium for both sales and distribution in the U.S. last year, just before the former filed for Chapter 11. Consortium is becoming a bigger force in the U.S. and Arsenal Pulp sales there are growing accordingly.
Ever ambitious, the fall catalogue has managing editor Blaine Kyllo hoping to better last season's successes. Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping, dissects the origins of currency, bartering and the influence of everything from the Sears catalogues to Woolworth's on shopping. The tongue-in-cheek style is decidedly un-academic or technical; instead, it will have sidebar information and fun factoids. And there will be two more installments of the popular Unknown City guides (available in the U.S. next spring).
Arsenal has also been setting new sales records, and there are no signs of a slowdown. "Preliminary numbers suggest a 50% increase over last year," said Kyllo, "not bad, for a four-person operation!"
Tough Times for Cormorant Books
Cormorant Books is not a big press, but it is a well-respected one with a strong trade list; and this year, its marketing and distribution became more dynamic and active, especially in the U.S. Among its luminous backlist is Nino Ricci's emigrant epic Lives of the Saints, currently in production as a television miniseries starring Sophia Loren and Kris Kristofferson.
But 2002 hit the small publisher hard: "a horrible, horrible year for returns, and especially extremely high returns from Indigo," which publisher Marc Coté contended returned books "ordered over two or three years ago" in November. "Even if [Heather Reisman] does not return a single book more this season," he continued, "she is already well over the June 8 Code of Conduct deadline for 30% returns." Budgets have been tight: Coté himself firmly believes he is still owed over CN$25,000 by the country's largest bookstore chain for Cormorant books GDS delivered in trust from May 1 to June 30, 2002.
Cormorant is one of the very few publishers who will go on record with such allegations against Indigo for fear of reprisal and punishment, in the form of reduced orders, or worse ,returned books. "But at this point, I don't care anymore," said Coté, adding that he would rather save the expense of lawyers and concentrate cash flow on new titles.
"Through sheer bloody-mindedness, we published nine books in 2002, eight in the previous year, and in 2000 we did seven." But he prefers to get back to the business of books, notably, one of which he is particularly proud, Cumberland, which was on several award lists. This season, Cormorant's big book is Streak of Luck, a second novel by Richelle Kosar, "closer to Steinbeck than Nora Ephron," and a poignant but unsentimental novel called Still Life with June.
For fall, Cormorant has a powerful historical novel about a psychic in the Victorian era who is a spiritualist with the Brownings, and is hired by Mary Todd and President Lincoln because of their loss of two children. They are also betting heavily on popular culture columnist Sky Gilbert's Neverland. "It's three stories, and the center story is the letters between J.M. Barrie and his godson; the next is a fake academic dissertation examining the letters, and then there is the story of the man who wrote it."
UTP distributes Cormorant titles in the U.S., and Coté is happy with the level to which they are listed with Ingram, Baker & Taylor, and on the Barnes & Noble database, because these can be easily accessed by independent booksellers through the major wholesalers.
A Down East Sleeper
Over in Huntsville, Nova Scotia, founding publishers Gary Dunfield and Andrew Steeves are turning five-year-old Gaspereau Press into a new Canadian classic, each year getting more books, more recognition and more praise. In 2001, their original vintage letterpress print run of 60 copies of new work by a poet named George Eliot Clarke won the Governor General's Award for poetry; the collection, Execution Poems, is now in its sixth printing.
Like Coach House, Gaspereau does everything in-house, and concentrates on poetry and eclectic regional titles with an often-surprisingly broader appeal—like Don McKay's naturalist musings in Vis a Vis, or Postcards from Acadie, about Grand-Pre, Evangeline and Acadian identity. They have four books this spring, one of them Alison Smith's next book, with about a 600-copy initial press run, and Would You Hide Me? by J.J. Steinfeld, the third collection of the Prince Edward Islander's short stories. There is also Ursa Major by Robert Bringhurst, interesting because it was originally a performanc e piece, a polyphonic masque for singers and dancers done in Saskatchewan for four voices in four languages, English/Latin/Greek/Cree, telling the different versions of the myth of the titular constellation The Bear according to each linguistic and cultural group.
Dunfield is planning for a slow increase until Gaspereau reaches 12 titles per year, and is also doing "a number of letterpress projects that are very short run." One such project, the Devil's Whim chapbook series, will resemble in craftsmanship their early titles, and will be hand letter-press printed on antique equipment and hand-bound. "And we are in an unusual position this year that we are only just now becoming fully eligible for grants, so we are receiving more money this year," said Dunfield.
Gaspereau is also focusing on sales and distribution beyond its natural territory. Because it does its own distribution, after GDS "we didn't have any of that nonsense and didn't lose thousands of dollars. But that has its downside, in that we are sometimes told our books are harder to find." To remedy this, Dunfield says that Gaspereau is presently in discussions with Amazon Canada and hopes to have more presence there. "We sell a bit into the U.S. The difficulty is that there isn't a massive interest in the types of books we do, sight unseen." But people do visit the site from outside Canada and order books.
The Imponderables: Indigo and Amazon
Two retail giants, one largely bricks-and-mortar, the other online, holds the Canadian business in thrall--and they're not exactly friendly.
From June 2001 to June last year Indigo had to bring its returns, by the government-established Code of Conduct that approved its merger, down to 42%; by next month the decree is for an improbable 30%. Many publishers, particularly the smaller ones, are waiting with bated breath to see if the numbers add up--and wondering what recourse they have if they don't. To refuse to ship to Indigo, which accounts for as much as 60% of the market, could be suicide. So, despite hiccups with ISBNs and discount pricing, they are welcoming the arrival of Amazon.ca as an alternative sales outlet.
Indigo/Chapters, on the other hand, feels threatened, particularly in its online operations, and has complained to the Canadian Heritage Department that Amazon's presence contravenes its Candian ownership policy. A judicial ruling is expected later this summer.
