Publishing at the polls: Foreign-ownership regulations

As Canadians head to the polls on May 2, Q&Q looks at key federal policies affecting the publishing industry. Stay tuned for upcoming features on federal funding and mass digitization.

When it comes to foreign ownership in Canada’s book businesses, the only thing all industry players seem to agree on is that the current policy is woefully outdated. Known as The Revised Foreign Investment Policy in Book Publishing and Distribution, an amendment to the Investment Canada Act, the current regulations have been in place since 1992.

Since that time the global economy has adapted to an increasingly consolidated business scene and the advent of digital publishing. In light of these massive changes, the federal government initiated a review of the guidelines and their effectiveness in the industry’s three main sectors – publishing, distribution and wholesale, and retail – four years ago. An announcement regarding the review findings and the government’s subsequent decision, officially slated for 2011, was unofficially expected sometime this month. And then the election was called, which halted any further discussion or review.

In July 2010, the department of Canadian Heritage released “Investing on the Future of Canadian Books,” a discussion paper that addressed the “evolving book industry landscape.” The paper presented policy review options available to the government, and solicited feedback from industry players. Phase two of the book policy review saw this feedback posted to Canadian Heritage’s website, where the public could comment on submissions.

The third phase involved three roundtable discussions with industry representatives, which took place December in Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto.

Canadian Publishers’ Council executive director Jacqueline Hushion reports the sessions were well attended and represented an array of industry interests. On the publishing side, CPC members included David Swail, president and CEO of McGraw-Hill Ryerson; Kevin Hanson, president of Simon & Schuster Canada; Greg Nordal, president and CEO of Nelson Education; and Brad Martin, president and CEO of Random House of Canada, among a number of others.

The Association of Canadian Publishers was represented at both English-language events in Vancouver and Toronto. “Publishers who attended from the ACP at both of those roundtables all got the message that the status quo for the policy is not, in [Canada] Heritage’s view, a viable option,” says ACP executive director Carolyn Wood. “There’s going to be change.”

The ACP supports the current policy, and has pushed for increased accountability, as opposed to relaxing or repealing restrictions. “We think the current system needs to be more carefully applied, and that a greater degree of transparency would be valuable and productive,” Wood says. “We think the limiting of ownership to Canadians, except where net benefit can be demonstrated, is a sound basis. We believe the application, measurement, and reporting of the net benefits process need to be strengthened.”

So what’s to become of this intensive multi-year review? Wood suggests it may be “quietly shelved” for the moment, though she quickly adds it’s possible the Department of Canada Heritage will push ahead. Hushion agrees that once the election dust settles, there’s likely going to be a long delay getting the process back on track, but she’s confident it will happen.

“The process will have to go forward, because the process was something that came from Cabinet,” Hushion says. “It’s just now a question of how much later it will be completed.”

New media “unconference” in Toronto this weekend

It can be a little tricky staying on top of the latest in new and social media these days. A few hours at PodCamp Toronto this weekend could be time well-spent in figuring out how to make better use of these tools for your business.

On Feb. 26 and Feb. 27 at Ryerson University, the self-described “unconference” will bring together hundreds of professional and amateur Web content producers and online community-builders – writers, bloggers, digital publishers, e-commerce professionals, Web designers, photographers, and podcasters among them. The event has dozens of free sessions, a number of which might be of interest to publishing professionals. Saturday is particularly meaty, with presentations on copyright and social media, social media trends for business, the legalities of blog advertising, online reputation management, core messaging, plus a roundtable on e-book trends, and a panel discussion on community management (a.k.a. online customer service). The schedule is available at the PodCamp Toronto 2011 website. Though the conference is free, there is a registration process.

Last year’s event attracted nearly 900 participants. A video archive of sessions from 2010 is available here.

The publishing industry: this week in quotes

“Many people in the beleaguered industry are hoping that [The Apple Tablet] will do for reading what the iPod and iTunes did for music. A survey among booksellers claimed that an Apple e-reader would one of the main factors that will help push digital publishing forward.” – Thomas Rogers via Salon.com

“The fact is: My septuagenarian mother is delighted with her first-generation Kindle and my sixty-something-year-old mother-in-law is delighted with her Kindle 2 and my 14-year-old nephew is delighted with his iPod touch…If I were to guess, out of all the aforementioned people who already own devices, the only one likely to spend money on an upgraded device anytime soon will be my teenage nephew. That’s not a very large percentage of current owners willing to re-invest in this newest generation of devices, the ones we’ll be hearing about over the next week.” – Edward Nawotka, in an editorial on publishingperspectives.com

“Writing about writing is the best way I know to discover what I think about a book and what I think about what other people think about it. Sometimes reviews bring new readers and sometimes they don’t. Tony Hoaglund’s book Donkey Gospel published by Graywolf didn’t receive one review yet became widely read. A positive or opinionated review in the NYTBR can bring many readers, but reviews in smaller magazines do not have much effect.” – poet Emily Warn, on Lemon Hound

“I spend an inordinate amount of time doing nothing. I don’t even think it can be called daydreaming.” - Joyce Carol Oates, via Paris Review.

“I’m beginning to see just how irrelevant our prejudices about new technology really are. Books are wonderful partly because they have been an unchanging corner of our lives in a world that thrusts change on us every day. But anything that reassures us by being constant should also make us anxious, because there are no exceptions anymore — everything is being transformed in the digital age.” – Peter Scowen on the Globe‘s book blog

Harlequin tries for some online love with digital publishing venture

Harlequin Enterprises, best known as a publisher of romance novels in the traditional “dead tree” format, has just launched an online publishing house, Carina Press. According to the Carina home page, the new venture will focus on romance novels but “will also acquire voices in mystery, suspense and thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, erotica, gay/lesbian, and more.” An inaugural blog post on the site provides a kind of mission statement for Carina: “There are hundreds of fantastic stories out there that for one reason or another don’t yet have a home. Our intent is to give them one and provide the authors behind them with opportunities to play an active role in this exciting and ever-changing digital space.”

Indeed, a quick scan of the Carina site indicates that authors will be required to play a very active role in promoting their books: the FAQs page says that authors “have more control over [their] own brand” in the digital arena and that Carina will provide the tools to help authors begin “self-promoting in the digital space.”

Additionally, Carina authors will not be paid an advance, but instead will be “compensated with a higher royalty.” And Carina does not offer digital rights management to prevent authors’ work being copied or downloaded illegally.

According to a Harlequin press release, Carina books will be sold directly to consumers via its own website and various third party websites. The release continues:

“As a digital-only publisher Carina Press is a natural extension to our business; it builds on our digital strength and leadership position. We expect to discover new authors and unique voices that may not be able to find homes in traditional publishing houses,” said Donna Hayes, CEO and Publisher of Harlequin Enterprises. “It definitely gives us greater flexibility in the type of editorial we can accept from authors and offer to readers.”

Angela James, described in the press release as “a well-known advocate for digital publishing,” has been named executive editor of Carina. The “press’s” first books are expected to appear online in spring 2010.

Kindle 2 not coming to Canada

This week, Amazon unveiled Kindle 2, but the thinner, sleeker e-reader is still not available in Canada. That means Canadians will have to wait to read Stephen King’s lastest novella, which is a Kindle-only exclusive. The National Post reports:

The company still has a number of issues to solve before the device can be sold [in Canada], including Canadian digital publishing rights and electronic distribution negotiations.

“The book publishing industry in Canada is not up to speed in terms of what is available in the number of titles [online],”  [Amazon.ca spokesperson Margaret] Antkowski said. “Secondly, because it has WiFi capabilities, there has to be an agreement with the providers – the Bells of the world, the Rogers of the world. That’s one of the things that’s standing in the way, and they’re working on that.”

Curl up with a good mash-up

Advances in digital publishing have brought us to the ever-so-modern and high-tech production of what LibreDigital is calling book “mash-ups.”

The “mash-ups” are custom publications filled with content from several different sources and bound into one handy book. Using the eCompile Service, publishers can create custom publications for the truly demanding customer. LibreDigital is promoting their use for college textbooks and professional directories.

LibreDigital will announce the latest eCompile Service program at the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference in New York today.