The “agency” model for ebooks goes on trial

News broke earlier today that the U.S. Department of Justice is pressing ahead with a lawsuit against Apple and the five original “agency” publishers for allegedly colluding to raise the price of ebooks. According to early reports, some of the publishers are choosing to settle the case, while others will fight the charges in court.

A little background: the antitrust lawsuit centres on early 2010, when Apple was preparing to enter the fast-growing ebook market with the launch of the iPad. Book publishers welcomed the news, viewing the entry of a deep-pocketed competitor like Apple as an opportunity to stand up to Amazon’s virtual monopoly of the ebook market.

One strategy for combating that perceived monopoly was to adopt the so-called agency pricing model, in which retailers act as commissioned sales agents who receive a cut of the publisher-determined retail price. (Under the previous “wholesale” terms, retailers were free to discount from the publisher’s list price.)

The question at the heart of the current lawsuit is whether publishers acted in concert to adopt the agency model en masse, or whether they were simply reacting in parallel to a situation they viewed as untenable.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the lawsuit alleges that publishers began meeting privately no later than September 2008 for a period of at least one year. These meetings are said to have taken place in “private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants,” including in “‘The Chefs Wine Cellar,’ a private room at Picholene [sic].”

The U.S. publishers named in the lawsuit are Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, and HarperCollins. Of the Big Six U.S. publishers, the only firm not implicated is Random House, which held off for a year before adopting the agency model.

Three of the publishers have agreed to settle the case, the WSJ reports: Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins.

John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, explains why his firm has opted not to pursue a settlement, which would have avoided the expense (and unwanted public attention) of a drawn-out court case.

Sargent begins by noting that the charges against Macmillan are civil, not criminal, and that “Macmillan did not act illegally. Macmillan did not collude.” He goes on to note that “[i]t is … hard to settle a lawsuit when you know you have done no wrong.”

From Sargent’s response:

We have been in discussions with the Department of Justice for months. It is always better if possible to settle these matters before a case is brought. The costs of continuing – in time, distraction, and expense – are truly daunting.

But the terms the DOJ demanded were too onerous. After careful consideration, we came to the conclusion that the terms could have allowed Amazon to recover the monopoly position it had been building before our switch to the agency model. We also felt the settlement the DOJ wanted to impose would have a very negative and long term impact on those who sell books for a living, from the largest chain stores to the smallest independents.

A statement from Penguin is expected later today.

Babstock, Hall, Zwicky pick up Griffin nods

While this year may have seen more submissions than ever, the Canadian poets nominated for the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize all have established reputations in this country.

Two of this year’s three Canadian nominees have previously been nominated for the prize, one of the world’s richest for English-language poetry. Toronto poet Ken Babstock received his second Griffin nod for Methodist Hatchet (House of Anansi Press), the follow-up to 2007 Griffin nominee Airstream Land Yacht.

Phil Hall, who lives in Perth, Ontario, was nominated for Kildeer (BookThug), which won the 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry. Hall’s collection An Oak Hunch was shortlisted for the Griffin in 2006.

The other Canadian nominee, Jan Zwicky, is also a familiar name in the poetry world. Shortlisted for her eighth collection, Forge (Gaspereau Press), the B.C.-based poet and philosopher won the 1999 Governor General’s Literary Award for her collection Songs for Relinquishing the Earth.

Zwicky is the sole woman nominated for this year’s Griffin besides Joanna Trzeciak, the U.S. translator of international nominee Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Rózewicz (W.W. Norton and Company).

The complete international shortlist is as follows:

• Night by David Harsent (Faber and Faber)
• The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)
• November by Sean O’Brien (Picador)
• Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Rózewicz by Tadeusz Rózewicz; Janna Trzeciak, trans. (W.W. Norton and Company)

Each of the seven finalists will be awarded $10,000 for participating in a reading to be held in Toronto on June 6. The winners, to be announced the following day at a gala, will receive $65,000.

This year’s shortlists were chosen by a three-person jury comprising U.S. poet Heather McHugh, Canadian poet David O’Meara, and U.K. poet Fiona Simpson.

According to prize founder Scott Griffin, 485 titles were submitted for this year’s prize, up 10 per cent from last year. International submissions came from 39 countries and were translated into English from 19 languages.

West End Toronto neighbourhood says goodbye to Book City

A mainstay in Toronto bookselling has shut its doors for the last time after 20 years in business. Following a weeks-long closing sale, Toronto mini-chain Book City has shuttered its Bloor West Village location near High Park.

Ian Donker, the son of Book City founder Franz Donker, was not available for comment this week according to a Book City staffer, but the store confirmed the closure today on Twitter (see below).

Book City has four remaining Toronto locations, with stores on St. Clair Avenue and in the Annex, Danforth, and Beach neighbourhoods.

Joyce Carol Oates to attend Montreal’s Blue Met festival

Prolific U.S. author Joyce Carol Oates will be among the high-profile authors attending this year’s Blue Metropolis literary festival in Montreal. Oates will be in town to accept the Blue Met Literary Grand Prix, a $10,000 prize that recognizes “a lifetime of literary achievement by an internationally acclaimed writer.”

Winner of the National Book Award for her novel them, Oates is the author of more than 50 novels as well as a staggering number of short stories, poems, essays, and memoirs. In the late 1960s and ’70s, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Ontario, where along with her husband, Raymond Smith, she founded a small press and literary magazine, The Ontario Review. Oates writes about the experience in one of her most recent books, the memoir A Widow’s Story.

Also attending this year’s festival, which runs April 18 to 23, is Egyptian writer and journalist Ahdaf Soueif, author of the novel The Map of Love. A prominent female writer in the Arab world, Soueif is the winner of the 2012 Blue Met Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Prize.

The festival lineup also includes Canadians Esi Edugyan, Kim Thúy, Kathleen Winter, Tamara Faith Berger, and Nicole Lundrigan.

Nicholas Hoare confirms closure of Ottawa store

While an announcement regarding the future of Nicholas Hoare’s retail empire is expected Friday, the venerable bookseller (who lends his name to a three-store mini-chain) has confirmed that his Ottawa location will indeed close.

On Wednesday, Metro reported that, according to an unnamed employee, the Ottawa store, located in an historic property on Sussex Drive, would be forced to close due to a 72 per cent rent hike imposed by the building’s owner, the National Capital Commission.

Today, Hoare confirmed that report in an understandably indignant email to the National Post. Reporter Matthew Wright quotes from the email:

“Any landlord that has the temerity, in this day and age, to levy a 72% increase in rent on a bookshop (let alone anyone else) is not only unenlightened, ill-informed and blinkered to reality, but can only be employed by an equally unenlightened, ill-informed and blinkered government,” wrote Hoare.

“Typical Harper,” he continued. “The National Capital Commission may well be entrenched in their ivory tower, but they are so out of touch with reality (we’ve never even met them) they should all be summarily fired.”

Hoare is expected to confirm the fate of his two other locations, in Montreal and Toronto, following a staff meeting this evening in Montreal.

Random House of Canada launches lifestyle imprint under Robert McCullough

Random House of Canada is expanding its editorial presence beyond its downtown Toronto headquarters, launching what it describes as a “boutique imprint” under West Coast–based publisher Robert McCullough.

Appetite by Random House will publish about 10 lifestyle titles per year, beginning with the May release of Rob Rainford’s Born to Grill: Over 100 Recipes from My Backyard to Yours, by the Canadian chef and host of the Food Network’s Licence to Grill. That will be followed in the fall by Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi (author of Plenty); Modern Flavors of Arabia: A Food Journey Through the Middle East by Suzanne Husseini; The Soup Sisters Cookbook: Over 100 Recipes to Warm Hearts… One Bowl at a Time by Sharon Hapton and illustrator Pierre A. Lamielle; and Supergrains by nutritionist Chrissy Freer.

McCullough, the long-time publisher of Whitecap Books, joined Random House in June following the collapse of distributor H.B. Fenn and Company. Whitecap was the largest Canadian-owned publisher with distribution through the defunct firm.

In a press release, McCullough said the following:

“I am delighted to publish books that satisfy people’s appetite for life. Appetite by Random House operates as a boutique imprint which benefits from the expertise and resources of a large publishing company. As this list highlights, cookbooks are my first love, but Appetite by Random House will publish an array of lifestyle titles in the seasons to come.”

Lawrence Hill awarded Freedom to Read prize for his grace under fire

Lawrence Hill has been named the recipient of this year’s Freedom to Read Award for his “reasoned and eloquent response to the threat to burn his novel The Book of Negroes,” according to a statement from The Writers’ Union of Canada chair Greg Hollingshead.

Last summer, the Hamilton author’s best-selling historical novel was targeted by a Dutch activist who objected to the use of the word “negro” in its title. From TWUC’s press release:

Roy Groenburg of The Netherlands, finding the use of the word “Negro” in the title of Mr. Hill’s novel offensive, burned the cover and publicly threatened to burn the book.

In response, Mr. Hill offered to speak to Mr. Groenburg. He also wrote an op-ed piece in the Toronto Star, which said, in part, “Burning books is designed to intimidate people. It underestimates the intelligence of readers, stifles dialogue and insults those who cherish the freedom to read and write. The leaders of the Spanish Inquisition burned books, Nazis burned books.”

The annual prize coincides with Freedom to Read Week, which kicks off Sunday with events across the country. Last year’s winner, John Ralston Saul, will receive his prize on Feb. 28 at a Toronto event organized by the Book and Periodical Council.

Booksellers continue lobbying for lower book prices

Are Canadian book prices too high? This question was posed yet again in a CBC News report published earlier this week. The occasion for the story was the appearance on Tuesday of bookseller representatives before the Senate national finance committee, which is looking at price discrepancies between Canadian and U.S. consumer goods.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, the report contains a number of unfortunate inaccuracies. For one thing, it assumes without supporting evidence that shoppers remain “angry about the higher cost of books in Canada,” despite the fact that, from ebooks to steep online discounting, consumers have more options than ever when it comes to accessing inexpensive books.

A related readers’ poll erroneously attributes the price disparity between U.S. and Canadian books to “import duties,” when in fact no such tariffs exist. The policy on imported books is governed by the Copyright Act, which obliges Canadian booksellers to source from Canadian suppliers so long as a book is readily available and not priced to gouge consumers.

For instance, the allowed markup for books originating in the U.S. is 10 per cent, which many Canadian suppliers claim is necessary to cushion currency volatility. As Q&Q has pointed out before, this policy has actually had a deflationary effect on Canadian book prices in recent years.

That didn’t prevent booksellers present at the Senate hearing from taking a firm stance. Campus Stores Canada representative Chris Tabor, who runs the Queen’s University bookstore, characterized the policy as “a private tax established by public policy.”

CBA president Mark Lefebvre, who works for the ebook retailer Kobo, asserted that “books are often thrown in the face of booksellers,” presumably in protest over high prices. Lefebvre added: “Our members, who run, own, and manage local businesses in communities across our great nation, are tired of being  apologists for a policy that none of them have any control over.”

If some of this sounds familiar, that’s because the CBA took a similarly aggressive stance two years ago when it called on the federal government to end restrictions on “parallel importation.” However, the move was not universally supported by CBA members, and it prompted a rebuttal from Toronto bookseller Ben McNally.

Whether the more recent hearings will lead to concrete changes remains to be seen. At the moment, the Senate finance committee has not scheduled to meet with other representatives from the publishing or bookselling community.

National book count tallies Canadians’ love of reading

Canadians love to read, and now we have the numbers to prove it.

For the second year in a row, the literacy advocacy coalition known as the National Reading Council has tallied book sales and library loans for a typical week in January (which, it should be noted, is a notoriously slow month for the book trade). The group found that, across Canada, a total of 3.4 million English- and French-language books were bought and circulated from Jan. 23 to 29, up 26 per cent from a comparable period last year, when the figure was 2.7 million. (However, the NRC describes the count as offering a “snapshot” of the industry as opposed to systematic analysis and “cautions against over-interpretation” of the data.)

One reason for the increase is the fact that, for the first time, the count included sales of English-language ebooks, which totalled 111,053, or 10 per cent of overall English book sales. Other highlights from the report:

• 1,153,081 print books were sold by retailers including Indigo Books & Music, Amazon.ca, other national chains, and more than 260 independent bookstores. English-language print book sales for the week increased 4 per cent over 2011

• 2,141,553 print books were borrowed from 28 participating public library systems tracked by the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, with 63,196 ebooks downloaded. Canadian libraries saw an 8 per cent increase in print circulation and a 50 per cent increase in digital circulation for an overall increase of 9 per cent total circulation for libraries that participated in 2011 and 2012

• French-language print book sales increased 35 per cent over 2011, though the report cautions, “This number primarily reflects increased count coverage, not necessarily a surge in book purchases. No French language [ebook] sales were captured this year.”

The book count paves the way for the NRC’s third annual National Reading Summit, to be held in Vancouver May 2–4.

Charlotte Gill wins B.C. prize for non-fiction

Charlotte Gill’s memoir about tree-planting in the Pacific Northwest is the winner of the 2012 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-fiction. Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe, published by Greystone Books, was awarded the $40,000 prize at a ceremony in Vancouver on Monday.

Chosen as one of Q&Q‘s books of the year for 2011, Eating Dirt was also nominated for the inaugural Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction and is a finalist for the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction, the winner of which will be announced March 5.

The jury, which comprised former Vancouver Public Library city librarian Paul Whitney, former Vancouver Sun editor-in-chief Patricia Graham, and author and editor Shari Graydon, praised Gill for her vivid descriptions of the forest and for “using intelligence, verve, and humour to illuminate the dangers that live within, and threaten from without.”

Last fall, Q&Q’s Sue Carter Flinn sat down with Gill to discuss the book. You can listen to the interview here.