Margaret Atwood illustrates In Other Worlds e-book

Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday U.S., is previewing illustrations from the e-book version of Margaret Atwood’s essay collection In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (McClelland & Stewart).

What’s most notable about these drawings, which demonstrate a variety of cartoonish styles, is that Atwood is the artist. The preview also includes a drawing of a superhero character named Blue Bunny the author did as a child.

Last year, Atwood surprised two fans by drawing superhero versions of their Twitter aliases, Kidney Boy and Dr. Snit.

Toronto Public Library explores money-making options

Following a city mandate to cut $17 million from its operating budget, the Toronto Public Library is looking at ways to bring in more revenue.

On Monday, the library’s board will meet to consider a budget committee report outlining money-making ideas, many of which have already drawn fire for risking to commercialize the library.

The report recommends looking into partnerships with retailers to sell books via the TPL website. It also suggests the library consider selling e-books, possibly through U.S. distributor OverDrive.

Another suggestion is to increase fines for overdue books to approximately double the current rates, which could be paired with “a different fine schedule for low-income users.” Other ideas range from used book sales to charging for parking. From the Toronto Star:

[The report] also recommends creating a new fine for people who put holds on books and don’t pick them up … [and] expanding advertising channels and opportunities including an advertising bookmark and getting sponsorship of WiFi services.

Indigo’s sale of Kobo realizes “a stupendous return,” Reisman says

As many in Canadian publishing’s inner circle primped and primed themselves for the Scotiabank Giller Prize gala, important industry news of another sort broke with the announcement Tuesday evening of Indigo’s decision to sell its majority stake in Kobo, the e-reading company it spun off less than two years ago, to Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.

Indigo is expected to realize between $140 and $150 million from the sale, but it raises questions about what the chain’s future will look like without a significant investment in e-reading (not to mention whether the deal will be allowed to go forward under the Department of Canadian Heritage’s foreign-ownership rules).

In a Q&A published today in Canadian Business magazine, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman addresses some of those questions, telling staff writer Jordan Timm that the sale represents “a stupendous return on our investment” in Kobo, especially in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive:

Over the next year, this business [Kobo] will need in excess of $100 million to take it to where this industry is going, and we just cannot play in that league for that amount of capital. That’s first, but it’s also a question of speed. How quickly can you grow this business in order to establish your leadership position? What Rakuten brings is tremendous reach with their huge customer network.

Reisman was, understandably, less specific about how Indigo will use the influx of capital from the sale, but she did say a new acquisition for Indigo is “very possible”:

We must and will fundamentally transform Indigo. The idea of a book retailer as it existed up until the last two years – that option no longer exists. We did two things two years ago: we made the decision to commit to Kobo, and we also made the decision to fully transform Indigo into a whole new kind of retailer and e-tailer, and we are on that track right now. And there’s no doubt that some of that money will be used in that transformation process, both digitally and physically.

In related news, Indigo’s most recent financial results, released at the same time as the Rakuten announcement, show a relatively flat quarter, with sales up 1.7 per cent to $218.5 million. Revenues at Indigo and Chapters superstores were down 4.3 per cent, while revenues at small-format stores were down 2.9 per cent. By contrast, Kobo sales were up 219 per cent to $40.9 million, though the division operated at a net loss of $10.8 million.

In the September 2011 issue of Q&Q: Guy Vanderhaeghe completes his iconic Western trilogy

Q&Q speaks to Governor General’s Literary Award–winning Saskatoon author Guy Vanderhaeghe about the final book in his Western trilogy, the ambitious A Good Man.

Also in September, rekindling interest in history with high-profile political biographies, a look at independent U.S. bookstore e-book sales, and touring the country with Doug Gibson. Plus reviews of new books by Brian Francis, David Gilmour, Marina Endicott, and more.

FEATURES
A good guy
After nearly two decades, Guy Vanderhaeghe has completed his iconic Western trilogy – and now he’s ready to move on

Raising the dead white men
Can a handful of high-profile political biographies rekindle interest in Canadian history?

E-reading’s awkward embrace
If the experience of U.S. indies is anything to go by, Canadian booksellers gearing up to begin selling e-books should expect some bumps along the road

FRONTMATTER
Orphaned Key Porter authors take back control of their work
How digital technology has put audiobooks within reach of small presses
In memoriam: Robert Kroetsch
Montreal violin-maker Tom Wilder turns publisher
Snapshot: Knopf Random Canada executive vice-president and publisher Louise Dennys
Cover to cover: R.T. Naylor’s Crass Struggle
Touring the country with Doug Gibson
Guest opinion: Rolf Maurer on rethinking the role of the arts

REVIEWS
Natural Order by Brian Francis
The Perfect Order of Things by David Gilmour
The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott
Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis
Eating Dirt by Charlotte Gill

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Starfall by Diana Kolpak; Kathleen Finlay, photog.
No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis
First Descent by Pam Withers
The Busy Beaver by Nicholas Oldland
Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston

PLUS more fiction, non-fiction, and picture books

Q&Q/BOOKNET CANADA BESTSELLERS

THE LAST WORD
Greenpeace International’s Tzeporah Berman on finding a balance between her own voice and that of the organization she represents

Subscribe to Quill & Quire
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J.K. Rowling to sell Harry Potter e-books directly through interactive fan site

In the lead-up to today’s much anticipated announcement from J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter fans had been told not to expect a new novel in the series, but that didn’t stop fevered speculation otherwise. While those still holding out hope for an eighth Harry Potter instalment may have been disappointed by today’s revelation, Rowling’s plans to launch a website containing troves of previously unpublished material are sure to have others salivating.

Most fans will have to wait until October 1 to access Pottermore, an interactive website containing 18,000 words of new material delving into the minutiae of the Harry Potter universe, but the first million users who register on July 31 – Harry Potter’s birthday – are being promised early access. At a press conference this morning in London, Rowling said the website will also include social media elements, allowing users to interact with each other. As quoted in the Guardian:

“I wanted to give something back to the fans that have followed Harry so devotedly over the years, and to bring the stories to a new generation,” Rowling revealed. “I hope fans and those new to Harry will have as much fun helping to shape Pottermore as I have. Just as I have contributed to the website, everyone else will be able to join in by submitting their own comments, drawings and other content in a safe and friendly environment. Pottermore has been designed as a place to share the stories with your friends as you journey through the site.”

The publishing world will no doubt closely monitor Rowling’s success in adapting the Harry Potter universe to the largely untested (save for certain examples) medium of the Web. Even more significant is the decision to begin selling e-books of the novels, which so far exist only in print, directly through the website (with technical support by e-book vendor OverDrive), bypassing established retailers. The digital editions will appear in ePub (meaning they will be compatible with all e-readers), with Rowling’s U.K. and U.S. publishers – Bloomsbury and Scholastic, respectively – receiving a cut. From the Guardian:

“It means we can guarantee people everywhere are getting the same experience,” said Rowling, of her decision to go it alone. “[I am] lucky to have the resources to do it myself and am therefore able to do it right. It’s a fantastic and unique experience which I could afford in every sense. There was really no other way to do it.”

Until recently Rowling had been reluctant to release the Potter novels as e-books, but she said that after downloading and reading an e-book for the first time she had a change of heart.

“It is my view that you can’t hold back progress. E-books are here to stay. Personally I love print and paper [but] very very recently for the first time I downloaded an e-book and it is miraculous, for travel and for children. So I feel great about taking Harry potter into this new medium,” Rowling said.

Book links round-up: Google’s eBookstore, e-mail woes, Q&A with Chester Brown, and more

• Chasing the story behind the story: exploring literary journalism
• The nominees for the inaugural Independent Booksellers’ Choice Awards
• Is the eBookstore worth it for Google?
• Crime writer Robert Rotenberg goes to town on e-mail
• Graphic novelist Chester Brown discusses why he has no problem with Paying for It
• Amazon selling more e-books than printed titles
• The unique world of Zsuzsi Gartner

Flying Dragon prepares to close, citing rapidly changing industry

Just days after being named specialty bookstore of the year at the Canadian Booksellers Association’s Libris Awards, Toronto’s Flying Dragon Bookshop has announced it is closing after eight years. On its blog, the store cites the growing importance of e-books as a reason for shutting its doors:

We have in recent months explored opportunities to embrace the technological advances that have presented themselves with such rapidity in our industry. But at the end of the day we realized that for us, it was all about the books and the tactile, sensory experience they provide.

Flying Dragon’s last day will be June 30; until then, all stock has been marked down by 20 per cent. The store is the second indie to wind down operations in the past week or so. Vancouver’s Ardea Books & Art closed on Monday.

E-books will account for 40 per cent of book revenue within five years, predicts Reisman

Two years ago, Heather Reisman, CEO and “chief booklover” of Indigo Books and Music, predicted that e-books would cannibalize 15 per cent of traditional book sales at her stores  in five years’ time. Reisman has since revised that prediction. She now puts the figure at as much as 40 per cent.

The Globe and Mail‘s Marina Strauss interviewed Reisman about how Indigo plans to cope in a market in which e-books are gaining popularity faster than anyone had expected. How do traditional booksellers survive in a world in which a large minority of sales doesn’t require physical stock to move through the store? In a word, says Reisman, they don’t.

“In the book industry, when you are in a situation where you know that 40 per cent of your business is going to go digital – you need to change,” Ms. Reisman, chief executive officer at Indigo, said in an interview in her office, which she recently cleared of decorative penguin figures and other mementos in a nod to her company’s transformation in the digital age.

Her road map for the country’s largest book seller takes a detour from physical books. Indigo, like many book retailers worldwide, has a toehold in the digital books business, with a majority stake in Kobo. But in the stores, Ms. Reisman, who had a head start in envisaging Indigo as a “cultural department store,” is betting more than ever on other categories. Indigo is stepping up its offerings of tableware, toys and tote bags – even putting comfy chairs back in the stores, in the hope of stemming the tide of consumers abandoning the retailer for Web-based alternatives.

Strauss points out that although Indigo owns a majority stake in Kobo, the e-book retailer posted a loss last quarter, and Reisman doesn’t expect it to start turning a profit until at least next year. In the meantime, she is betting the house on the kind of product diversification that could make Indigo, in Reisman’s own words, “the world’s first lifestyle store for booklovers.”

Daily book biz round-up: turning poetry into e-books, and more

• Breaking lines: the challenges of translating poetry collections into e-books
• British children’s fantasy and sci-fi author Dianne Wynne Jones has died
• Muggles can now rent Harry Potter films through Facebook, but still no word of e-book availability
• Call for 2011 Matrix magazine/Pop Montreal Litpop Awards, now with creative non-fiction category
• A designer’s interpretation of classic record albums transformed into book covers

Daily book biz round-up: March 18

• The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders’ Arrival City “couldn’t be more timely” according to The New York Times
• How I wish this were an Onion headline
• Novelist Alison Pick proves some authors are still loyal to their publishers in Open Book Toronto’s Questionless Books interview
• Ten Canadians make the LAMBDA Literary Awards shortlist
• Looking at earthquakes through literature
• Margaret Atwood on e-books