Is small beautiful? Canadian book publishing and the Internet could be a happy match.

Is small beautiful? Canadian book publishing and the Internet could be a happy match. Five years ago, Canadian book publishers emerged from a horrorstory horror storyStory intended to elicit a strong feeling of fear. Such tales are of ancient origin and form a substantial part of folk literature. They may feature supernatural elements such as ghosts, witches, or vampires or address more realistic psychological fears. . General Publishing, a book distributor handling books from anumber of Canadian publishers, had gone bankrupt. Book returns from thebig-box bookstores had surged to unacceptable levels and payments weredelayed. A number of independent bookstores had gone out of business.Reflecting on the crisis, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritageissued a report on the Canadian book industry in June 2000, noting theproblems and listing the challenges that faced the industry. A yearlater, Indigo acquired Chapters. After that rollercoaster ride, it was hoped that things couldsettle down and Canadian publishers could get down to creating andselling books. However, numbers released by Statistics Canada in June 2006 show atroubling tale. (1) In 2004, the total revenue for book publishers inCanada was some $2.2 billion; 47 percent of that revenue went to the 19foreign-controlled book publishers active in Canada, and 53 percent wasshared among 311 Canadian-owned book publishers. The Canadian-owned sector is incredibly varied. At the top of theheap in terms of revenue are Thomson Publishing and Harlequin Harlequin(här`ləkwĭn, –kĭn): see commedia dell'arte. HarlequinPrincipal stock character of the Italian commedia dell'arte. Books,each of which make a nice profit in their respective niches ofprofessional publishing and romantic paperback fiction. But neither hasdipped their toe into trade publishing, the risky field of hardcoverfiction and non-fiction that most people think of when they walk into abookstore. That is where most of the smaller Canadian-owned publisherstry to compete, publishers such as McClelland and Stewart, Douglas andMcIntyre, Key Porter and dozens of others. Those smaller publishersreceived government support of about $50 million in 2004. From the perspective of readers looking for Looking forIn the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. choice, no one canquarrel with the result. The Canadian-owned publishers originated morethan 10,000 new trade titles in 2004, the great majority of them byCanadian authors. (The branch plant publishers also publish a fewhundred trade titles by the better-known Canadian authors, but theCanadian-owned firms give rise to the real diversity in the system.) But the Statistics Canada figures show an appalling truth. Themedian profit of all those Canadian-owned houses was less than $10,000in 2004, even after government grants. In fact, without the support ofgovernment subsidy programs, the average Canadian-owned publishing housewould have gone into the red to the tune of $150,000. And fully 40percent of them were in the red even after receiving governmentsubsidies. And this is not a recent development. As detailed in theHeritage Committee report, the profit situation for Canadian-ownedpublishers was even worse back in 2000. All of which lends interest to a new phenomenon, the "longtail" effect, whereby the "smaller" book, the niche titleand the less popular title may have a better chance of success in thefuture. Could this work to the advantage of Canadian book publishing book publishing.The term publishing means, in the broadest sense, making something publicly known. Usually it refers to the issuing of printed materials, such as books, magazines, periodicals, and the like. ? The term "long tail" was coined in 2004 by ChrisAnderson Chris Anderson may mean: Chris Anderson (TED), curator of the TED Conference Chris Anderson (writer), author, journalist, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine , the editor of Wired magazine. His book of the same title (TheLong Tail: Why The Future of Business is Selling Less of More) waspublished in July 2006 and immediately became a bestseller. Andersonstarted with the age-old observation (often referred to by economists asa Pareto distribution The Pareto distribution, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, is a power law probability distribution that coincides with social, scientific, geophysical, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena. ) that for many product categories, includingbooks, movies and sound recordings, 20 percent of the titles account for80 percent of the sales. On an X-Y graph, measuring popularity versusinventory, the 20 percent of bestsellers constitute the "head"at the far left of the graph, and there is a long tail extending far tothe right consisting of the remaining titles that get relatively fewsales. Anderson's new insight was that with the rise of the Internetand companies such as Amazon (for books), Rhapsody (1) A subscription-based online music service from RealNetworks that gives users unlimited access to a vast library of major and independent label music. Within a single interface, Rhapsody provides access to streaming music, Internet radio and extensive music information and (for music) andNetflix (for DVDs), there were now new ways to market, promote anddistribute these lesser-known titles. The Internet gives unlimited shelfspace to new or old titles, and search engines make the job of findingthese titles much easier. If storage and distribution costs distribution costsdistribute npl → Vertriebskosten plcan beminimized, there can be a thriving business in satisfying demand fortitles that would never be stocked by bricks-and-mortar stores withtheir limited shelf space. The Amazon numbers illustrate the long-tail phenomenon. A normalmall store has room for no more than 20,000 to 30,000 distinct booktitles. The big-box retail bookstores--Chapters Indigo in Canada, Barnesand Noble or Borders in the U.S.--can stock upwards of 100,000 differenttitles. But an Internet bookseller can list and sell millions ofdifferent titles. Anderson states that as much as 30 percent ofAmazon's book sales are represented by titles that are not in thetop 100,000. In summary, Anderson argues that the Internet has made possible"a new world in which the combined value of modest sellers andquirky quirk?n.1. A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: "Every man had his own quirks and twists"Harriet Beecher Stowe.2. titles equals the sales of the top hits." This isundoubtedly overstating the case. The long-tail effect does noteliminate the overwhelming impact of the bestseller. The economics ofpopular culture, where almost all of the cost is in the first copy andthe marginal costs of additional units are small, still drivespublishers to seek titles that can generate significant sales. The sameeconomics means that publishers do particularly well if these titlescontinue to sell in backlist back��list?n.A publisher's list of older titles kept in print.tr.v. back��list��ed, back��list��ing, back��listsTo place (a title) on a backlist. , which is titles more than one year old.Backlist titles involve little new investment and can spell thedifference between profit and loss for many firms. But the Internet,while making backlist books more accessible to consumers, also gives newlife to the used-book market, which financially benefits neither thepublisher nor the author. How does the long-tail effect apply in the Canadian book market?And can it benefit Canadian publishers and Canadian-authored books? Thestory is a complex one and has many moving parts Moving parts are the components of a device that undergo continuous or frequent motion, most commonly rotation. "Parts" only include the mechanical components which does not include fuel, or any other gas or liquid. . As in other countries, bestsellers have always dominated the bookmarket in Canada. When big-box retail bookstores emerged in the mid1990s, many thought that the greater selection of titles might mitigatethat effect. But very little changed. If anything, bestsellers receivedmore sales than before, since their prices were heavily discounted toincrease traffic in the stores. BookNet Canada has tracked sales data in Canadian bookstores sinceOctober 2005 and its numbers show that the bestseller effect is stillalive and well. In the nine-month period since it began collecting data,some 650,000 different book titles were sold to Canadians. The top 200titles garnered 20 percent of the revenue. The next 5,000 titles got 40percent of the revenue and all the remaining titles combined garneredthe remaining 40 percent of the revenue. The bestseller list is highly volatile and it is an axiom ofcultural economics that "nobody knows" what will succeed inadvance of publication. J.K. Rowling went through 12 publishers beforeone decided to publish her manuscript of the first Harry Potter book.Now the release of her titles (the Canadian rights to which are held byRaincoast) are a worldwide event. Last year, Harry Potter and theHalf-Blood Prince, released in July 2005, was the number-one bestsellerin Canada. But Chapters Indigo was so concerned that the resultingincrease in its book sales was a one-time event that in the"Management Discussion and Analysis" issued with its financialreturns in May 2006, it restated the percentage increase in itscomparable store sales "normalized for Harry Potter." In otherwords Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , it purposely subtracted the Harry Potter sales in order not tomislead investors into thinking that similar growth could be expected infuture years. Where are the Canadian-authored books in these statistics? This isan easy question to ask but a tough question to answer. StatisticsCanada breaks out book sales by genre, by ownership of the publishinghouse, and by agency or "own titles." It also breaks out thenumber of new titles by Canadian and non-Canadian authors. But it hasnever generated a solid estimate of the proportion of sales representedby Canadian authors. In its last survey Statistics Canada did ask thequestion, but the response rate was insufficient to generate a reliableresult. BookNet Canada's bestseller lists appear monthly in theindustry magazine Quill quill:see pen. and Quire quire?1?n.1. Abbr. qr. or q. A set of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and stock; one twentieth of a ream.2. and one of its top-20 lists focuses onCanadian-authored titles. However, at present the sales data collectedby BookNet does not break out Canadian-authored works (although it hopesto change that) and any estimate must be made the hard way, byeyeballing each title in the list. On that basis, Quill and Quire estimated that based on November2005 BookNet numbers, Canadian-authored titles accounted for 10 percentof the top 200 bestsellers sold that month. But it is clear that thisnumber can change greatly from month to month, since it is so dependenton what new titles have been released. It is also likely that Canadianauthors do better in the sub-genres. For example, a recent Quill andQuire piece on the cookbook market estimated that fully 50 percent ofthe bestselling titles that month were connected to Canada. Looking at the Statistics Canada data for all trade titles in 2004(not just the bestsellers), and focusing only on the sales ofpublishers' own titles, a more generous estimate might putCanadian-authored titles at upward of more than; above.See also: Upward 25 percent of overall salesvolume, depending on the month. If that is the case, it is clear thatCanadian authors do much better in the long tail. Further evidence of this is found in a telling statistic. Of thenew trade titles published in Canada in 2004, only 36.5 percent were byCanadian authors. But when it comes to trade titles that were reprintedin 2004, the percentage of Canadian-authored titles rose to 75 percent.That suggests that the Canadian-authored books have shorter initialprint runs, a longer shelf life and more frequent reprints,distinguishing features of the long-tail effect. There are also some heartening heart��en?tr.v. heart��ened, heart��en��ing, heart��ensTo give strength, courage, or hope to; encourage. See Synonyms at encourage.Adj. 1. signs that the Internet could behelpful to Canadian books. Statistics Canada released a special study ofInternet users in August 2006, tracking the activities of a selectedsample over a 24-hour period. Respondents were divided into light users,moderate users, heavy users and no users. The heaviest users of theInternet turn out to be the most interested in buying books. The increased connection between the Internet and book purchases issupported by a 2005 study entitled "Book Buying Attitudes andBehaviours of English-Speaking Canadian Adults," carried out bySecor Consulting for the Department of Canadian Heritage The Department of Canadian Heritage, or simply Canadian Heritage, is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for policies and programs regarding the arts, culture, media, communications networks, and sports and multiculturalism. and theCanadian Publishers Council. It found that 22 percent of the book buyerssurveyed in late 2004 said that they had bought at least one book fromthe Internet. Among heavy buyers of books, that number rose to 36percent. The Internet is a growing part of the picture for Chapters Indigo,Canada's largest book retailer. In the 52-week period ending April1, 2004, the Chapters Indigo website had revenues of $52 million, whichwas 6.7 percent of the overall sales of the company. Two years later,for the year ending April 1, 2006, its sales on the Internet had risento $79.5 million, close to 10 percent of its overall sales. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca are also important retailers of books inCanada. The actual volume of Amazon's sales in Canada is not known,however, since its financial statements only break out "NorthAmerican North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. " sales, disguising how much is accounted for by Canadianbuyers. In addition, Amazon lumps its book sales in with figures forCDs, DVDs and video games See video game console. under the heading "Media" so thatthe book segment cannot be broken out. If Canadian books are to benefit from the long tail, a keyingredient must be promotion. The 2005 Secor study found 73 percent ofrespondents agreeing that "books written by Canadian authors shouldbe more highly promoted in Canada." But how to do so on an economicbasis is still a conundrum conundrumA problem with no satisfactory solution; a dilemma . When asked, 40 percent of book buyersidentify "book displays" as contributing to their impulse buy impulse buyn → achat m d'impulsionimpulse buyimpulse n → Impulsivkauf mimpulse buyn → ,27 percent cite "book positioning" and 20 percent cite bookreviews. Only 2 percent cite broadcast outlets such as CTV's CanadaAM Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It was created as a response to the popularity of American morning shows such as The Today Show, and adopted a similar format initially. or BookTelevision. The use of Canadian broadcasting as a promotional tool forCanadian-authored books warrants further examination. In the case ofsound recordings, radio broadcasters--who are required by CRTC CRTC Canadian Radio-Television & Telecommunications CommissionCRTC Combat Readiness Training CenterCRTC Cathode Ray Tube ControllerCRTC China Railway Telecommunications CenterCRTC Cold Region Test CenterCRTC Continuously Regenerated Trap Column regulation to devote at least 35 percent of their playlist A file that contains an index to a selected group of music files on the computer. Using digital jukebox software such as iTunes and Winamp, playlists are created by the user by dragging and dropping titles from a master index. The software may be able to create a playlist automatically. to Canadianrecordings--have had a noticeable impact in increasing sales of recordsby Canadian musical artists. At the recent CRTC hearings on radiopolicy, however, a curious statistic emerged. Overall sales by Canadianartists The arts have flourished in Canada since the 1900s, and especially since the end of World War II in 1945. Government support has played a vital role in their development, as has the establishment of numerous art schools and colleges across the country. account for about 16 percent of total record sales in Canada.But of the top 200 albums sold in Canada, more than 25 percent were byCanadian artists. Why the better success rate for Canadian artists amongthe bestsellers? Arguably ar��gu��a��ble?adj.1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved.2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. the reason is that Canadian radio stationstend to focus their Canadian airplay air��play?n.The broadcasting of an audio or audiovisual recording on the air over radio or television.airplayNounthe broadcast performances of a record on radio on the stars, and do not give muchairplay to the Canadian talent in the long tail. That may change, if theCRTC gives extra credit to stations for playing songs by emerging newartists instead of playing music by the tried and true. Can books be promoted on TV? Absolutely, as anyone familiar withthe drawing power of the Oprah Winfrey “Oprah” redirects here. For the show, see The Oprah Winfrey Show.Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history. Show will attest. When Oprahplugs a book on her daily show, sales for the title in both the U.S. andCanada go into the stratosphere. And every so often, she will include aCanadian title, such as Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, if it isdistributed in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . (Most Canadian titles are not). With Oprah in mind, it is something of a tragedy that Canadian TVshows do not offer more promotional opportunities for Canadian books.But it would be difficult to match the Oprah effect with a Canadianshow. The Oprah Winfrey Show runs on CTV CTVCanadian Television (Network Limited) stations at 4 p.m. Monday toFriday and, with the benefit of simulcasting, gets average ratings of647,000 in Canada, three times better than Canada AM and eight timesbetter than the Vicki Gabereau Vicki Frances Gabereau (born 1946) is a Canadian radio and television personality. Most recently she hosted an eponymously titled afternoon talk show on CTV Television Network, which wrapped up production on April 8, 2005. Show (all numbers from Neilsen for thespring of 2006). As for the CHUM-owned digital service, BookTelevision, whichlaunched in 2001, barely 7 percent of English TV households weresubscribing to the service as of August 31, 2005, and it was stilllosing money. However, its subscribers still represent a very importantaudience for book publishers. After all, the 2005 Secor study showedthat only 18 percent of the population buys 71 percent of the units and58 percent of the dollar value of books in Canada. And given the natureof its audience, CBC Radio For the Japanese broadcaster, see Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting.For the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation's radio service, see CBC 900 AM (Barbados).CBC Radio is the English language radio division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. can also be a potent venue for raisingawareness Raising awareness is a common phrase advocacy groups use to justify a particular event, brochure or even the entire organization. Raising awareness refers to alerting the general public that a certain issue exists and should be approached the way the group desires. of Canadian books, if it were to focus more on this goal. The power of promotion is well shown in the results from"Heather's Picks," the front table in all the ChaptersIndigo stores across Canada Across Canada was an afternoon program that formerly aired on The Weather Network. The segment ran from early 1999 until mid 2002. The show ran from 3:00PM ET until 7:00 PM ET. that displays selections by company CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Heather Reisman Heather Reisman (born 1948) is a Canadian businesswoman. Reisman was born in Montreal, Quebec, the niece of Simon Reisman who headed the Canadian delegation that negotiated the 1988 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. . These selections are made from galleys orpre-publication copies and she adds about one new selection each month.A number of her selections are by Canadian authors. "I pick books Ilove with no idea of what will happen," she explains. "Here inCanada, I believe there are now real followers followerssee dairy herd. of 'Heather'sPicks,' as we can see that once a book is chosen it quickly becomesa top seller." "For me," she goes on, "the fun is in discovering agreat book and then having the joy of 'putting' it in someoneelse's hands who I think will enjoy it as much as I did. I alsobelieve that so many books by lesser-known authors can easily get lostin the shuffle. Word of mouth and hand-selling--which is essentiallywhat Oprah is doing and what I am doing--remain a great way for bookswhich might otherwise take a while to surface to get known." Michael Tamblyn, the CEO of BookNet Canada, argues that if Canadianpublishers are to take advantage of the long-tail effect, they will needto become much more skilled at creating and directing nichedemand--tapping into or building communities of interest for some oftheir more obscure offerings or older works. "The Internet,"he says, "offers an expanded palette of options in thisregard--mailing lists, community websites, discussion forums, blogs,MySpace--for the publisher who is skilled enough to take advantage. Butthis requires a shift in both the mindset mind��setor mind-setn.1. A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations.2. An inclination or a habit. and techniques that Canadianpublishers bring to bear when thinking about the promotion of theirtitles." One development that may help Canadian books in the long tail isthe technology of on-demand books. Under this concept, a singlepaperback copy of a desired book could be printed and delivered to acustomer overnight. Storage costs and returns would be eliminated.Chapters Indigo is known to be actively exploring this concept, whichwill require the agreement of Canadian publishers to succeed. In the end, however, the long tail will not eliminate thehorrendous economics of Canadian publishing. Government support willcontinue to be required if we want to have a publishing sector giving usthe quality and diversity of Canadian titles that we have becomeaccustomed to. In terms of delivering value for dollar, the currentgovernment support mechanisms for Canadian book publishing are probablythe most successful programs in the cultural field in Canada. Long tailor not, it is essential that they continue if we want to have firms outthere to develop and publish a full array of Canadian authors. Note (1) The data tables for "Book Publishers and ExclusiveAgents" are available from Statistics Canada at<www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/87F0004XIE/87F0004XIE (X Image Extension) Extensions to the X Window system that enhance its graphics capability. It allows the desktop terminal or PC (the server) to retrieve various types of compressed images from the client and be able to manipulate them. 2006001.htm>. Peter S. Grant is a senior partner of McCarthy Tetrault LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol . He isthe co-author of Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in aGlobalized World (Douglas and McIntyre, 2004).