Indigo president resigns as profits fall in third quarter

After less than a year in the role, Tedford G. Marlow has resigned as president of Indigo Books & Music and resumed a senior position with U.S.-based retailer Urban Outfitters, where he has been named CEO.

The move, reported by U.S. business media last week, was confirmed by Indigo in its third-quarter results, which saw revenues increase slightly for the period ending Dec. 31 (to $353 million) and profits decline (to $24 million, down from $27 million for the same period in 2010). Marlow assumed the role of Indigo president in April, replacing Joel Silver, who now leads Trilogy Growth, an investment firm affiliated with Indigo’s majority shareholder, Trilogy Retail Enterprises.

Marlow’s tenure at Indigo was brief but controversial, at least among members of the book trade. Under his stewardship the retailer introduced a new line of lifestyle products that competed with books for floor space. Behind the scenes, Indigo imposed new terms that many publishers have struggled with, including a 4 per cent co-op surcharge on all books sold through the chain and a shorter turnaround time for returns.

Marlow also oversaw the sale of Indigo’s ebook division, Kobo, to Japanese software firm Rakuten, a deal that netted Indigo $146 million (U.S.) when it closed last month.

In its Q3 report, Indigo reported double digit increases in its gift, lifestyle, and toy lines, as well as marginal revenue increases at its Chapters and Indigo superstores (up 1.8 per cent) and its small-format IndigoSpirit and Coles locations (2.5 per cent). Online sales increased by 9.3 per cent compared to last year.

Indigo CEO Heather Reisman attributed reduced profits to “lower gross margins as a result of increased promotional discounts to drive print sales and increased sales of low margin e-readers.”

She added in a press release: “This margin impact has not yet been offset by expected growth in the gift, lifestyle, and toy businesses. The Company also recorded a $4.0 million non-cash asset impairment charge during the quarter. Excluding this charge, net profit increased $0.7 million.”

Best publicity stunt of the day: Lemony Snicket and Seth collaborate on new series

Quill & Quire is not in the habit of publishing emails, but this one demands sharing.

This afternoon, Q&Q was blind-copied on a correspondence between Vikki VanSickle, marketing and publicity coordinator at HarperCollins Canada, and the curmudgeonly children’s author Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. The email revealed the “confidential” news that HarperCollins Canada is publishing a four-book series by Snicket, with illustrations by Canadian artist Seth.

From Lemony Snicket:

From: LemonySnicket
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 11:43 AM
To: Vansickle, Vikki
Subject: RE: Lemony Snicket Announcement – CONFIDENTIAL

My Dear Ms. VanSickle,

As I have already explained at length to you and others in this publishing conspiracy: no.

Take this press release back, please. I have attached it here. I have sympathy for anyone wanting to promote my work, but none of this information can be released.

In particular, I do not want to see this press release distributed to the list of people I’ve taken care to blind copy above. May they remain forever blind to any information about myself or my work.

These books are questionable and contain questions. I, for one, question why anyone would be interested in reading them.

And have the decency to leave Seth out of it. He has enough trouble as a celebrated artist imprisoned in a basement studio in some wretched university town, not to mention the fact that he’s Canadian.

I would appreciate it if you didn’t contact me again. I’ll be in my office until 4.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket

The email was accompanied by a “press release” with a placeholder for a quote from Seth (“if and when he recovers from the trauma of your last encounter”), and a marked-up version of the cover.

The official press release, which arrived 15 minutes later, confirmed that the first book in Snicket’s series, Who Could That Be at This Hour?, will be available in ebook and print formats on Oct. 23.

Slideshow: George Stroumboulopoulos and celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl at the OLA Superconference

More than 4,700 library professionals, authors, and exhibitors descended on the Metro Toronto Convention Centre last week for the 2012 Ontario Library Association Superconference – the largest library conference in Canada, which ran Feb. 1–4.

Innovation was the theme for this year’s gathering, which featured more than 200 sessions and presentations by special guests such as Guy Gavriel Kay, Jonah Lehrer, Catherine Gildiner, Neil Pasricha, Nora Young, George Stroumboulopoulos, celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl, and Ontario Minister of Education Laurel Broten.

Click through the slideshow for a peek at what professional development and partying down look like in “library-land” (as one speaker put it).

Canada Reads day three: On a Cold Road is frozen out, more protests

Canada Reads author Dave Bidini performs with the BidiniBand at the Toronto Reference Library (Photo: Tanja-Tiziana Burdi)

Dave Bidini’s rock memoir, On a Cold Road, is the latest title to be voted off CBC’s Canada Reads.

Although the book was overshadowed all week by discussion about the other four titles, On a Cold Road’s demise was met with an emotional response. During a post-show Q&A, celebrity defender Stacey McKenzie broke down while reading a passage from the book in which Bidini’s hardworking band, the Rheostatics, fulfills a dream of performing at Maple Leaf Gardens.

While the panelists were on their best behaviour today, this morning Q&Q received a press release from Gabriel Fritzen, a German-Canadian who is demanding an apology from panelist Anne-France Goldwater and the CBC for “libelling survivors of Iran’s holocaust,” after Goldwater suggested on Monday’s show that Marina Nemat’s memoir, The Prisoner of Tehran, was not a truthful account of her experiences in an Iranian prison.

Fritzen, who lives near the Bergen-Belsen concentration camps in Northern Germany, is supporting Nemat by inviting a group of high school students and teaching staff from Aurora, Ontario, to attend a live taping of Canada Reads at his expense, and by attending the event himself carrying a poster of Nemat. “I owe it to the memory of those who were brutally murdered an hour’s drive from my home to show tangible support to the victims of the ongoing holocaust in Iran like Ms. Nemat,” Fritzen writes.

Tomorrow is the final day of what has become the most controversial edition of Canada Reads, which has been airing annually since 2002. Actor Alan Thicke will play defense for Ken Dryden’s The Game against hip-hop artist Shad, who is representing Carmen Aguirre’s Something Fierce.

Book links roundup: Top 10 literary frenemies, librarians in pornography, and more

• Cervantes’ Don Quixote and D.H. Lawrence’s Gerald Crich among top 10 literary frenemies
• The Paris Review on librarians in pornography
• The Globe and Mail explores life between the bookshelves
• Terrible Minds gives “25 reasons writers are bug-fuck nuts“
• Loud Poet offers career tips for surviving publishings’ digital shift

Marina Nemat: “Bullying hurts and it’s a crime”

Although CBC Canada Reads celebrity defender Stacey McKenzie shed a few tears, day two of the book contest was a more civilized affair than yesterday’s bloody match. But the fisticuffs are ongoing outside of the CBC studio.

Yesterday on Facebook, Prisoner of Tehran author Marina Nemat asked panelist Anne-France Goldwater to apologize for calling her book untruthful. Goldwater, who was no less animated today (even as the book she was defending, John Vaillant’s The Tiger, was put down), didn’t respond to Nemat’s demand.

This afternoon, Nemat posted a new profile photo on Facebook. She doesn’t mention Goldwater or Canada Reads, but the photo speaks for itself:

The photo was taken from a shoot Nemat did for Calgary photographer Catherine Oshanek’s anti-bullying website. Although it was taken before Goldwater’s accusation, Nemat has made her point.

Book links roundup: Dickens’ day, analyzing writers’ handwriting, and more

• In celebration of his 200th birthday, a remembrance of Charles Dickens’ visit to Niagara Falls
• Flavorwire analyzes writers’ personalities by their handwriting
• Russell Smith asks: fiction or non-fiction, does it matter anymore?
• Timothy Donnelly wins $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
• The Underground Literary Alliance: prescient revolutionaries or scary stalkers?

Marina Nemat demands public apology from Anne-France Goldwater

Jian Ghomeshi, Marina Nemat, and Arlene Dickinson during happier times at the Canada Reads launch event in November

When Canada Reads resident blogger Terry Fallis (who won last year for his novel The Best Laid Plans) accidentally posted a spoiler on Twitter that Marina Nemat’s Prisoner of Tehran was the first book to be voted off the 2012 competition, little did he know the drama was just beginning.

Selected earlier as the readers’ favourite in an online poll, Prisoner of Tehran was voted off in a tie-breaker by model Stacey McKenzie, and actor Alan Thicke dismissed the memoir for not being Canadian enough (“This is not called Tehran Reads”). Still, it was Quebec judge Anne-France Goldwater who was quickly vilified on social media by Nemat supporters. Goldwater suggested that while she believes books about human rights are important, she would have “preferred truer stories” that are “better representative of the people.” (She also referred to Something Fierce author Carmen Aguirre as a terrorist).

The drama continued on Facebook, where Nemat posted a defence of her book:

Prisoner of Tehran was just voted off Canada Reads simply because it is the most popular in Canada according to the polls. Thank you Canada for your vote of confidence, which is what really matters to me. The judges seemed to be interested in winning only and not in which book actually has more merit. Very disappointing and irresponsible I think, but I will survive and continue speaking out. Thank [sic] again for your support!

In the comments following her message, Nemat says her supporters will attend the rest of the debate, which ends on Feb. 9, and will hold up copies of her book in protest.

Later in the afternoon, Nemat posted a second Facebook message, this time asking for a public apology from Goldwater:

Please let me be clear that I have no problems with being eliminated from Canada Reads. What I have a problem with though is that Ms. Goldwater, one of the panelists, called me a liar and called Carmen Aguirre a terrorist! That is not okay. I hope she can produce evidence to back up her claims. If not, I would like to receive a public apology from her.

But regardless of what was said during the competition or how high the books are held, nobody can argue that Prisoner of Tehran is not on this week’s Canadian nonfiction bestsellers’ list.

Here are just some of the reactions from Twitter about today’s show:

BookNet bestsellers: Canadian non-fiction

Even though Marina Nemat’s Prisoner of Tehran was voted off CBC Canada Reads today, it still charts on this week’s Canadian non-fiction bestsellers’ list. For the two weeks ending Jan. 29:

1. The Looneyspoons Collection, Janet and Greta Podleski
(Granet Publishing, $34.95 pa, 9780968063156)

2. The Wealthy Barber Returns, David Chilton
(Financial Awareness Corporation, $19.95 pa, 9780968394748)

3. Meals that Heal Inflammation, Julie Daniluk
(Random House Canada, $29.95 pa, 9780307359988)

4. Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood, Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming
(Whitecap, $29.95 pa, 9781552859940)

5. Retirement’s Harsh New Realities, Gordon Pape
(Penguin Canada, $24 pa, 9780143179221)

6. It’s Your Money, Gail Vaz-Oxlade
(HarperCollins Canada, $21.99 pa, 9781554688678)

7. Debt-Free Forever, Gail Vaz-Oxlade
(HarperCollins Canada, $21.99 pa, 9781554685912)

8. The Book of Awesome, Neil Pasricha
(Berkley/Penguin $17.50 pa, 9780425238905)

9. Maya, Justin Jennings
(Royal Ontario Museum Press, $5.05 pa, 9780888544872)

10. The Supercharged Hormone Diet, Natasha Turner
(Random House Canada, $32 cl, 9780307356512)

11. Lynn Crawford’s Pitchin’ In, Lynn Crawford
(Viking Canada, $37 cl, 9780670065936)

12. Canadian Living: The One-Dish Collection
(Trancontinental Books, $26.95 pa, 9780981393896)

13. The Tiger, John Vaillant
(Vintage Canada, $22 pa, 9780307397157)

14. Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen, Michael Smith
(Penguin Canada, $32 pa, 9780143177630)

15. Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat
(Penguin Canada, $18 pa, 9780143052173)

16. Money-Smart Kids, Gail Vaz-Oxlade
(HarperCollins Canada, $6.99 pa, 978-1443412292)

17. Cold Hard Truth, Kevin O’Leary
(Doubleday Canada, $29.95 cl, 9780385671743)

18. The Ice Pilots, Michael Vlessides
(Douglas & McIntyre, $21.95 pa, 9781553659396)

19. Never Too Late, Gail Vaz-Oxlade
(HarperCollins Canada, $21.99 pa, 9781554688685)

20. Persuasion, Arlene Dickinson
(HarperCollins Canada, $32.99 cl, 9781443405966)

Indigo boycotts books published by Amazon

What began as a “simmering feud” during the Christmas selling season, when Amazon launched a promotion offering users discounts for purchasing products scanned in bricks-and-mortar stores, has escalated into “full-scale war,” according to an article in The Globe and Mail. Late last week, news broke that Indigo was joining the U.S. chains Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million in refusing to stock books put out by Amazon’s burgeoning publishing arm. Those books include new work by heavy hitters like James Franco and Deepak Chopra, as well as a memoir by actor and director Penny Marshall, which Amazon acquired for a rumoured $800,000 advance.

The boycott is in response to what many considered to be predatory practices on the part of Amazon. The Globe quotes an email from Indigo vice-president Janet Eger, who writes that “Amazon’s actions are not in the long-term interests of the reading public or the publishing and book retailing industry, globally.”

Today, The Bookseller published an article providing more detail about Barnes & Noble’s reasons for implementing their boycott:

In a statement, B&N chief merchandising officer Jaime Carey said: “Barnes & Noble has made a decision not to stock Amazon published titles in our store showrooms. Our decision is based on Amazon’s continued push for exclusivity with publishers, agents and the authors they represent. These exclusives have prohibited us from offering certain e-books to our customers. Their actions have undermined the industry as a whole and have prevented millions of customers from having access to content. It’s clear to us that Amazon has proven they would not be a good publishing partner to Barnes & Noble as they continue to pull content off the market for their own self interest.”

In her email to the Globe, Eger states, “Indigo Founder and CEO Heather Reisman has congratulated Barnes & Noble for taking a leadership stance on the matter, and offers kudos.”

The latest front in the bookselling wars comes amid rumours that Amazon may be planning to open a bricks-and-mortar store of its own in the not-too-distant future.