The news that various Canadian publishers have banded together for a pilot project to showcase select titles only at the country’s largest bookstore chains, Chapters & Indigo, hasn’t exactly been met with praise. “If this deal goes through as is I will no longer buy books from Chapters,” says one 23-year-old Canadian book lover, and much chatter about the proposed deal is ensuing at Bookninja. “There is a whiff of desperation about it. And on the part of Indigo, pure greed,” wrote in a high-ranking publishing official, who also gave necessary perspective from working both sides of the border over a lengthy career.
“What is frustrating in Canada is not necessarily the smaller market but the degree to which accepted publishing practices in Canada tend to reinforce that mindset,” he said. “Trying to sell books in Canada is at times very much like a salmon upriver, it is true. Books pour into Canada from the US and trying to reverse that flow is difficult-if not impossible. This latest scheme, however, seems more a clever tactic by Indigo to extort yet further co-op dollars from publishers to sell Canadian. Isn’t this basically an end-around taxpayer handout to Indigo? Look, let’s face it: it is a really sad commentary on the state of culture in Canada when a Canadian-owned chain of bookstores feels it can demand $120,000 from a consortium of six publishers to do nothing more than feature Canadian backlist. Why does Indigo need to be paid to carry Canadian backlist?”