Amazon, Friend to Canadian Authors?
Online bookseller restrictions are about limiting competition, not enhancing culture.
Online book buying: drop barriers to foreign giant?
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Eight years ago, the federal government faced a hot-button cultural policy issue as online retail giant Amazon.com, which was already selling millions of dollars of books to Canadians from its U.S.-based site, sought entry into the Canadian market. Canadian investment regulations posed a significant barrier, however, since the law required government approval for foreign investment in the book publishing and distribution sectors.
Amazon was ultimately granted a form of non-entry entry. The company established Amazon.ca, but did not set up shop in Canada. Instead, it outsourced distribution to Canada Post, enabling the government to rule that the company's plans fell outside the book distribution restrictions.
Amazon.ca is now well-entrenched in the Canadian e-commerce landscape and seeks to create its own Canadian distribution channel. The plan requires government approval, which recently led to predictable outcries from the Canadian Booksellers Association. The CBA wrote to Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore -- who must decide the issue -- to urge him to reject Amazon's application.
It argued that Amazon's entry would "detrimentally affect independent businesses and would raise serious concerns over the protection of our cultural industries. Individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture. These are values that no American dot.com retailer could ever purport to understand or promote."
Large chains and small presses
The CBA's attempt to cloak the issue as a matter of Canadian culture is unsurprising, but Moore should recognize this for what it is -- a transparent attempt to hamstring a tough competitor that ultimately hurts the Canadian culture sector.
Evidence of the benefits of major retailers to Canadian culture comes directly from a 2007 Turner-Riggs report commissioned by Canadian Heritage on the Canadian book retail sector. It pointed to a Quill & Quire study that found that consumers were far more likely to find Canadian titles in the large chains than in smaller independent stores.
Moreover, a second study of sales from 11 small Canadian literary presses found that online sellers represented the largest source of sales growth, while both chain and independent booksellers experienced relatively static sales.
Neither of these findings should come as much of a surprise. The scarcity of space in brick and mortar bookstores has long been a key concern for Canadian authors and publishers, who fear that their titles might get squeezed off the shelves.
Big chain retailers alleviated those concerns to some degree by offering up far more space for titles of all origins (though at a cost of greater reliance on those chains and a weaker bargaining position on commercial terms). Online sellers such as Amazon removed the scarcity concerns altogether, since the number of books the company can offer is unlimited.
That undoubtedly means more competition, yet it also ensures that fears consumers will be unable to access Canadian titles have disappeared. Indeed, the report concludes "the visibility of Canadian titles -- and Canadians' access to them -- in online book retail rose significantly with the launch of Amazon.ca and its considerable selection of Canadian-sourced inventory."
Drop the barrier
In 2000 the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage conducted hearings on the Canadian book market. The resulting report -- "The Challenge of Change: A Consideration of the Canadian Book Industry" -- recommended that the government "ensure that no foreign investor is allowed to take over a Canadian firm in the book industry unless credible assurances are made that the investment will increase the availability of Canadian-authored books."
The experience of the past decade has demonstrated that greater retail competition does increase the availability of Canadian books. While the book industry may still require support to bring Canadian books to market, restrictions on who may sell or distribute those books represent a harmful barrier from a bygone era. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Booker
16-03-2010
Restrictions
In the brick-and-mortar side of the book retail sector we have near monopoly in place in Canada, and that's the real problem. That places restrictions on book availability simply due to a lack of diversity in retail options. Amazon is a counter to this, but one must remember that they are an enormous corporation and while they may be helpful now, that might not always be the case.
RyanB
16-03-2010
Bigger is sometimes better
The idea that small book sellers are best for people is somewhat outdated.
Aside from a few notable smaller stores, Munro's in Victoria comes to mind, small book stores don't have much to offer. I rarely find what I'm looking for in a small book store. Sure they can order it in, but in a couple weeks at full list price. I fail to see how this is the fault of the large bookstores.
The public is better off when books are easy to get and cheap. History has shown that. Although amazon.ca has tons of book, amazon.com has more. I'm all for letting amazon.com open shop in Canada, if they make all the books on amazon.com available for purchase. However, if this plan is just so they can save money, I'm not too happy with it.
Tbarnston
16-03-2010
Amazon is more than books
Allowing Amazon to set up distribution in Canada would bring down retail prices on hundreds of retail items, not just books. Not only would we finally see just one price on books, instead of US/CDN$ pricing, we would see a rapid evaporation of the inexplicable price spread on identical items sold in US and Canadian department stores.
Canadian corporations are generally regarded as the laziest in the G8. I would argue Canadian retailers are some of the laziest, right behind our wireless oligopolists. Lets get with the future and finally open our borders to truly competitive retail (and wireless).
barney
16-03-2010
Can-Con ok...
I always supported Canadian content rules for domestic radio (long before the digital era), and in principle, I support the current effort to protect/promote local booksellers/authors for the same reasons. However, the digital age we increasingly find ourselves in make the almost debate moot, especially when our dollar hits par with the US, or better, becomes more valued.
If Canada's brick & mortar bookstores want to compete, they should pool their efforts and create their own online shop. I doubt this would ever happen for the obvious reasons.
The next best strategy, in light of this new reality, is for domestic book sellers to further define, nurture and promote what it is that makes them distinct from online shopping. I still prefer to get off my ass, walk downtown, and browse amongst real books, amongst real people. In addition to the tactile intimacy I enjoy about this experience, I do not face the very real fears that come with leaving my entire identity, credit card details in the hands of a faceless cyber-corporation.
barney
16-03-2010
oops
Should read: "... make the debate almost moot,...."
craigriggs
16-03-2010
Those 11 literary presses
Hi Michael,
I always read your work with interest and certainly appreciate your attention to our earlier market studies. But I thought I should clarify your reading of our 2007 book retail study on a couple of points.
One of the questions we explored in our study was how the changing book retail landscape in Canada has affected the selection of books available to Canadian consumers.
Along that line, our report notes:
"There is a strong association between Canadian-owned publishing houses and the publication of Canadian-authored titles. Many of these titles have a local or regional interest element that is practically built-in because they are published, authored, or set within the region. A strong community of locally owned booksellers, who make their buying decisions in the local area, are on balance likely to be adaptable and open to such titles. For all these reasons, the health of the independent bookselling sector remains an area of enduring interest for Canadian book publishers."
This observation appears to be borne out by some of the data we were able to collect during the study. You say in your article that, "...a second study of sales from 11 small Canadian literary presses found that online sellers represented the largest source of sales growth, while both chain and independent booksellers experienced relatively static sales."
However, the point that we make in the report is that this sample of small presses has experienced a collective decline in sales. Their sales to indie bookstores held relatively steady, online sales--while small in absolute dollar terms--certainly had the largest percentage growth, but sales to chain bookstores fell dramatically.
The complete report on book retail is freely available online: http://j.mp/QA8It
cr.
Booker
16-03-2010
misunderstanding
There seems to be a misconception that this move would allow Amazon to offer more titles in Canada and at U.S. prices. This is not the case. This move is to create more efficient distribution (ie: save them shipping costs) and to make it easier for them to ship non-book product in Canada. Amazon.ca would still purchase books in Canada at the Canadian price.
Regarding Canadian content, the consolidation of retail into one or two companies has not improved the selection for Canadian consumers looking for Canadian books -- it has reduced it. This is not by design. It's simply a fact that if you have only a few retailers they are going to want a limited variety of books, so books that they don't like won't be economical to publish anymore. This has happened with regional publishing in particular (and other niche categories). Local businesses sell local books much more effectively. But they are virtually all gone now, and the publishing landscape has changed considerably over the past decade as a result. If your only criteria is "cheap", well, you get what you pay for.
RyanB
17-03-2010
Back your your statement with facts
Booker, please cite your source for the following "Regarding Canadian content, the consolidation of retail into one or two companies has not improved the selection for Canadian consumers looking for Canadian books -- it has reduced it."
Booker
17-03-2010
There are no statistics
Ryan, Canadian publishers are making publishing decisions based on whether a book will do well for ONE retailer (I think you know who). If they don't think it will do well for that one customer, then the chance of it being published is reduced. You won't find stats for that anywhere, but it is a constant topic of conversation in the industry. The lack of diversity in retail has altered the selection of titles being published in Canada, and in my opinion, that is not an improvement. Books have been killed because the one retailer wasn't interested, and the independent market is now so small that they can't make up the difference. Even Amazon doesn't make up the difference.