Toronto Women’s Bookstore anthology seeks contributors

Hot on the heels of its change in ownership, the Toronto Women’s Bookstore is celebrating its 40th anniversary in independent bookselling and feminist activism with an upcoming anthology edited by Tara-Michelle Ziniuk and published by Three O’clock Press under the Women’s Press imprint.

Ziniuk has sent out a call for contributions explaining the impetus for the book:

In light of the recent stresses at TWB, its upcoming anniversary and the current state of feminist book publishers and sellers, this is a pivotal time to talk about the importance of a place that’s very dear to many people, for many reasons. I am looking for love letters, historical documentation, writings about TWB from authors, artists, academics, readers and activists who have been influenced by the store. I am looking to speak with former staff, Board members, class instructors, students, customers and appreciators of all kinds. I am looking to get in touch with people who were involved in the bookstore’s earlier years … TWB has a rich history and I want to make sure to include as much of it as is accessible. I am looking for non-fiction, personal narratives, articles and interviews on a variety of topics.

The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2011, and Ziniuk asks that queries be sent in advance to twbanthology@gmail.com.

REDgroup insolvency a further challenge for Kobo

It’s been a dismal 24 hours for global bricks-and-mortar booksellers. A day after U.S. chain Borders entered bankruptcy protection, Australia’s largest bookstore chain, Angus & Roberts, entered administration, putting in question the future of its 180 stores. The Australian Borders (which is entirely separate from the U.S. Borders) and New Zealand’s Whitcoulls chain are also in jeopardy.

All three booksellers are owned by REDgroup Retail, which was placed into voluntary administration by the private equity fund Pacific Equity Partners, which has owned the retail conglomerate since 2004.

While the news is a further sign of instability for print books, it could also cause some disruption for Canadian e-book retailer Kobo. Both Borders U.S. and REDgroup are part owners of Kobo and sell the Kobo eReader in their stores; in the short term, it seems inevitable that the device will be sold in fewer physical retail outlets. Kobo, meanwhile, has assured customers in the affected countries that the insolvency of REDgroup and Borders will have no impact on the availability of Kobo e-books.

The Australian cites “a massive downturn in consumer discretionary spending” as the cause of REDgroup’s insolvency, but that isn’t the whole story. Tax-free e-retail and the search for cheaper online products – described by The Sydney Morning Herald as “the Australian consumer’s love affair with online shopping” – was also a major factor, with Australian Publishers Association CEO Maree McCaskill pointing to the impact of the strong Australian dollar. “While the Australian dollar is high, a lot of Australian consumers determine that they will buy whatever they need online and from overseas suppliers,” she commented in the Guardian.

REDgroup chairman Steven Cain also pointed to restrictions on parallel importation – the practice of retailers buying around local suppliers with exclusive territorial rights – as a cause. The Australian parliament recently shot down a proposal to lift restrictions on parallel importation, a move the Canadian Booksellers Association has also called for.

The insolvency of REDgroup does not come as a surprise to Australian publishers after the retail conglomerate reported a $43 million loss last year and laid off several senior staffers.

Borders on the brink, but Kobo continues to grow

A year ago, in the week following Christmas, Canadian publishers and distributors were greeted with the dismaying news that one of the country’s leading bookstore chains, McNally Robinson Booksellers, was significantly scaling back its operations, closing down locations in Toronto and Saskatoon Winnipeg. This year, a retail shakeup on an even bigger scale is taking place in the U.S., where the future of the bookselling chain Borders, which operates 676 bookstores across the U.S., is in question.

Late last week, the Ann Arbor, Michigan–based chain announced it is delaying payments to some of its vendors in an attempt to restructure its debt. The news set off investor panic, resulting in the company’s share price falling by 22 per cent on Friday.

Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that at least one major vendor, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group (which owns the distributor National Book Network) has temporarily suspended shipments to the retail chain. Other publishing companies, including Hachette Book Group and Sourcebooks, are also reported to be considering similar options. From the WSJ:

“When a customer of that size calls you up and says you aren’t getting a check, that’s a piece of information you have to act on,” said Jed Lyons, CEO of Rowman & Littlefield.

Mr. Lyons said he wanted more information from Borders and expected to learn more from the bookseller this week. “Up until now they’d been paying us like clockwork,” he said.

[...]

Mr. Lyons said that about a year ago, National Book Network approached its clients and said that if they wanted their books distributed to Borders, they would have to assume the risk associated with that business. Most clients, he added, responded by saying they wanted to continue shipping to Borders.

Borders is the U.S. retail partner for Kobo, the Indigo-owned e-book company, which nevertheless put a rosy spin on its holiday numbers. In a press release, Kobo reported that it had its best weekend ever on Christmas and Boxing Day, and that the number of registered Kobo users had nearly doubled since mid-November.

“Earlier this month we predicted that Christmas would be a record breaker for Kobo, and we have exceeded our expectations driving several ebook downloads per second since Christmas Eve, or an equivalent number hardcover books stacked as high as 50 Empire State Buildings [sic],”  Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis said in the release. Kobo also noted that it had experienced some of its biggest gains outside North America, in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

Daily book biz round-up: Borders closure; B&N closure; and more

Special death-of-bookselling edition:

• Borders closes major San Fran location!
• B&N closes major New York location!
• Borders cuts price of Kobo e-Reader to $129!
• Staples to start selling Kindle!
• And finally: Dick and Jane and Vampires

Google Editions delayed until fall

A Reuters story on the resurgence of U.S. independent bookstores contains an interesting piece of news: Google Editions, an e-book service that will compete head on with Apple’s iBookstore and Amazon, won’t launch until the fall. The service was originally scheduled to launch this summer, with Google hinting that it would appear sometime in June or July.

From the Reuters story:

The [American Booksellers Association] has reached a deal with Google Editions – Google’s digital bookstore, due to launch this fall – that would allow its 14,000 members to sell Google’s eBooks through their websites.

So far, Google itself has revealed few details about the service. However, the aforementioned partnership with the ABA is giving indies hope that they will soon gain a foothold in the realm of e-book sales. A New York Times story from earlier this summer has some of the details:

Google is promoting its e-book plan as a fundamentally different and more “open” alternative to its rivals’ stores. Though it will act as a retailer and sell books from its own site, it will also behave like a wholesaler and allow independent bookstores and other partners to sell its e-books on their own sites.

People who buy Google e-books will not be locked into any particular reading devices or book formats, the company said. Books bought from Apple’s iBookstore, by contrast, can be read only on Apple devices.

Ben McNally rejects CBA on parallel importation reform

As Q&Q reported on Friday, the Canadian Booksellers Association has asked the federal government to loosen the laws that limit imports of foreign books. However, not all independent booksellers agree that repealing the current restrictions on parallel importation would be a good thing. In a letter to Q&Q, veteran Toronto bookseller Ben McNally (of Ben McNally Books) expresses his opposition to such a move. The letter in its entirety appears below.

Dear Friends.

While there certainly is much precedent for the Canadian Booksellers Association to act in a short-sighted and self-defeating fashion, the news that the association has asked the Government of Canada to allow it to bypass Canadian agents and buy directly from the United States really has taken matters too far.

The Canadian book business is small and fragile. The only way it can hope to survive is for all the parties in it to recognize that we are in a partnership, not an antagonistic relationship. Anyone who thinks that the health of the publishing community is not the health of the bookselling community is seriously deluded.

When the dollar unexpectedly strengthened the last time we missed a glorious opportunity to stand together as an industry and explain to the people of Canada what a vital part of its culture we are, and that if we we’re to hope to maintain a publishing industry in this country, higher book prices are not only inevitable but desirable.

This time there is no excuse. If we turn our backs on our partners at this difficult time we will only have ourselves to blame if the Canadian publishing business withers on the vine.

In my opinion this is disgraceful behaviour. This is a selfish and short-sighted attempt to have the cake and eat it, and I am appalled that it has happened without consultation with the publishers, on whom we depend for all facets of our business.

The Canadian Booksellers Association does not speak for me. I have no wish to be a part of this organization.

ben mcnally

Amazon doesn’t want to get physical

Rumours that Amazon U.K. might be considering opening bricks-and-mortar stores have been greatly exaggerated, according to an Amazon spokesperson. Over the weekend, the Sunday Times published an article suggesting Amazon was “planning a surprise invasion of the British high street”:

Property landlords said that the American company, which has a market value of $59.1 billion (£35.6 billion), had launched a secret search for bricks-and-mortar stores to support its rapidly growing website. It is understood to be scouring the country for high-profile sites just as the Borders book chain is shutting up shop.

No sooner had the rumours begun circulating on the Internet than a spokesperson for Amazon announced that there was absolutely no truth to them. The ABC News website cites an unnamed Amazon spokesman asserting that the company “has no plans to open stores anywhere in the world.”

The article concludes by saying:

The Amazon spokesman declined to comment any further on the report, including whether it could partner with retailers, or its future plans.

More trouble for Borders U.K.

A BBC article reports that Borders U.K. has ceased taking online book orders and suggests that the company “does not have enough cash to last until Christmas.” The article caps a bad year for the beleaguered company, which operates 45 stores throughout the U.K.

Last December, Borders U.K. had its credit insurance cut off, in July CEO Philip Downer led a management buyout of the company, and earlier this month it reportedly jettisoned its Web team, after apparently investigating the possibility of outsourcing its website administration to an independent contractor. In addition to news that the website is no longer fulfilling orders, The Bookseller is reporting that one major distributor is refusing to ship to Borders and that W.H. Smith has backed away from an offer to purchase the company.

According to an email leaked to The Bookseller issued by The Book Service Ltd and Grantham Book Services, the distributor stopped Borders UK and Books Etc accounts earlier in the week. The distributor represents Random House, Little, Brown and the Independent Alliance companies.

According to the website Retail Week, W.H. Smith approached Borders to express interest in a buyout, but walked away from talks at the end of last week without reaching a deal.

Stephen King’s new face of evil: predatory pricing: UPDATED

When you’re an author of Stephen King’s stature, you can afford to be direct. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly (where the mega-selling author is also a regular columnist), King had a message for retailers who are selling prestige titles at steep discounts: “It’s time to give the smaller bookstores a little breathing room (although not much chance of that, with Walmart offering Dome for nine bucks.)”

King’s new novel, Under the Dome, set for release Nov. 10, is indeed being sold for $8.98 at Wal-Mart and Target, which are engaged in a price war with online retailer Amazon. The big box stores are selling King’s hardcover (which has a cover price of $35 U.S.), along with nine other titles by brand-name authors, as loss leaders. The move is expected to adversely affect the bottom lines of independent booksellers, who are heading into the all-important Christmas selling season.

The American Booksellers Association has approached the Department of Justice about the matter, claiming that Wal-Mart and similar retailers are engaging in “illegal predatory pricing.” From EW:

In a letter released [last Thursday], the ABA went on to say that the practice was “damaging to the book industry and harmful to consumers.” A top publishing executive tells EW: “They had no choice. Bookstores are simply under siege. On one side, they’re facing the threat of e-books, and on the other they’re staring in the face of these three ugly superpowers.”

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star reported on Friday that similar deep discounting was not being implemented north of the 49th Parallel:

Andrew Pelletier, vice president of corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Canada, told the Star Friday morning that the company takes “a Canadian approach” to retailing based on “what is good for the Canadian market” that often differs from how Wal-Mart operates in the United States.

“We are two different countries. The U.S. approach is based on their marketplace,” he said. Wal-Mart Canada also doesn’t sell books online, he said.

Canadian politesse notwithstanding, it may be only a matter of time before consumers here start demanding similar price cuts. In any event, the ABA’s letter contains a dire warning: “The entire book industry is in danger of becoming collateral damage in this war.”

This post contains material that has been corrected. The quote concerning “collateral damage” was contained in the ABA’s letter to the Department of Justice. It was erroneously attributed to Canadian Booksellers Association executive director Susan Dayus. Quillblog regrets the error.

Online bookselling, publisher-style (continued)

Canadian publishers are continuing to experiment with direct sales online – and at least one is offering Amazon.ca- or Indigo.ca-style incentives. The Random House of Canada website is currently highlighting (see upper right corner of the home page) a “Summer Reading” promotion that offers 30% off and free shipping on all books. The same deal can be found on the McClelland & Stewart site.

Random has been edging in this direction for a while, doing similar deals in the past on selected titles. They’ve also denied that it’s an attempt to compete with booksellers, though undoubtedly not all booksellers will agree.

Random isn’t the only publisher courting the consumer with incentives: Anansi is currently running a buy-three-get-one-free deal on its site. Other publishers, like Penguin Canada, sell online sans deals, while others, like Key Porter and Douglas & McIntyre, direct readers to booksellers. Same goes for HarperCollins Canada, though their proper site is in the shop at the moment.