Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Family and Friends

Lots has been going on here at Turner-Riggs headquarters. For one, you may know that we have a new intern: Georgia Kate Riggs was born early at just over five pounds in ... February. Your thank-you card is coming if you sent us something! Thank you!

Though she is amazingly gentle and as low impact as a baby can be, Georgia’s arrival was (a) early and (b) coupled with spinal surgery for me. And we have a three-year-old. And I wasn’t done work. And I needed to get my driver’s license. It was all a bit crazy, truth be told.

I finally went on mat leave in April while Craig continues to drive the bus (have you checked out Canadian Bookshelf yet? It’s still developing, but it’s already a thing of beauty. More on that in another post).

Before I went, though, we had the great opportunity to work with Elizabeth Hay on her new website, timed to sync with the launch of her bestselling new novel and one of the season’s major releases, Alone in the Classroom. We worked on the site with our friend Don Aker from AgencyZed, and hired the design talent of Aires Almeida at Operativ. We built it in WordPress with some special AgencyZed sauce added in.

For us, in addition to the usual priority of developing a site that really felt right to Liz in terms of look and feel, we wanted to see how much we could play with WordPress to make it accommodate features an author would appreciate. Turns out a lot: we were pleasantly surprised by how flexible and extendible WordPress is. We were able to provide automatic linking to event and news items for Liz, to incorporate some nice display widgets for covers and FAQs, and to whittle down the back end of the administration so it’s nice and easy for her to change or add things herself whenever she feels like it.

She’s happy, we’re happy, and it was a dream to work with not only an author I have admired for years but also a lovely, warm woman we now consider a friend.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Talking About My Gasperation: A Fix for The Giller Dilemma

By now most of us have heard that Johanna Skibsrud’s Giller win this week for The Sentimentalists has provoked heated controversy. Countless Tweets and blog posts have offered opinions on whether or not Skibsrud’s publisher Gaspereau Press is right to limit the available copies for sale to those they can produce by hand—roughly 1,000 copies per week—in their in-house print shop. The company has reportedly rejected offers from other publishers to collaborate on a commercial printing that would put more copies in stores more quickly.

The debate goes something like this: those who commend Gaspereau’s stand applaud the press for its commitment to high standards and craftsmanship; those who don’t criticize the publisher for failing to seize and leverage the rarest of moments for one of its authors. (See Tasha Kheiriddin’s recent National Post column and Nic Boshart’s accompanying comment for an illustration of both points of view.)

The argument is fuelled, especially within the book trade, by the knowledge that the opportunity provided by the “Giller effect” (the term used to describe how a win like Skibsrud’s can massively increase sales) can be fleeting. The spotlight is on Skibsrud and her book right now, but readers are fickle, Christmas is coming, and the shelves are loaded with readily available alternatives to The Sentimentalists. For Skibsrud, right now is an incredible but shrinking window of opportunity that won’t be served entirely by the always-on eBook edition.

Here’s an idea for the hopper: why not continue to print the handmade editions for which Gaspereau is so justifiably famous and collaborate with another publisher or printer to put a second, commercially printed edition into the market quickly? Maybe even attach a modest premium to the price for Gaspereau’s handmade editions, and/or look at other manageable enhancements (signed by author, anyone?) for those beautiful handmade books. This would respect (even highlight) the publisher’s commitment to craft and further differentiate the value of its original edition for readers who want it, while also allowing the press to meet its responsibilities to its author and her would-be readers by ensuring the book is more readily available across the country.

Above all, why not put the focus back where it belongs? On Skibsrud’s and Gaspereau’s fantastic achievement in writing and publishing a very fine book. And on many more readers discovering it than either of them could ever have dreamed.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

If You Love Canadian Books ...

You’re going to love Canadian Bookshelf. A project spearheaded by the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP), Canadian Bookshelf will be an online discovery and discussion platform for Canadian books, and it’s coming soon. The most apt description we’ve come up with for Canadian Bookshelf is of a “virtual library-meets-community-bookstore stuffed to the rafters with Canadian books and content—complete with face-out display racks and friendly cues to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.” It will make Canadian books and authors easier to find, and thus more widely read by audiences everywhere.

The browse panel on the Canadian Bookshelf homepage.

Please check out our pre-launch blog at www.canadianbookshelf.com, and sign up for news and an invite to our private beta release.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Better Metadata Will Ensure That Canadian Books Don’t Get Lost Online

We’ve been doing a lot of work around discoverability for the last year or so, especially with regard to how readers discover books—or other cultural products—online. A version of this post appeared as part of feature called “7.5 Ideas for Fixing Canadian Publishing” in the 75th Anniversary Issue of Quill & Quire, Canada’s Magazine of Book News and Reviews, April 2010.

How do readers find books today? In many respects, the same ways they always have: word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, suggestions from trusted sources such as booksellers or media reviews, and impulse buying from end caps, table displays, or homepages.

But we’re also discovering books in very new ways. For one thing, our filters are shifting. Newspaper review sections are shrinking, and there are fewer independent bookstores hand-selling books. But it’s the Internet that is really moving the needle on book discovery: the Web is where we go to find out about things, and increasingly it’s where we go to find books. Whether we buy them online or not, we look up books on Amazon or other major retailers’ sites, we join online book communities, we read blogs, we share links to books that catch our interest, and we discover books while searching or browsing online.

This is more than a change in behaviour. It also marks a sea change in book marketing. It used to be that the press release or catalogue was the foundation of the marketing plan. No more. Now it’s the metadata: the title information that publishers send out into the world about their books.

If publishers don’t begin improving the quality and depth of their metadata, they risk being lost in a sea of information and competing titles-especially the rising tide of books published outside of Canada. Good metadata makes it easier for people to find and buy books: it registers a book’s availability throughout the supply chain, allows the book to be presented on retailer websites, and primes the awareness pump for search engines, bloggers, online book communities, media, and readers of all kinds. Bad data makes books invisible in a crowded marketplace where the balance of power is shifting to readers.

If you’re a publisher, what other information could you include in your data file that would help readers - or librarians, or educators - find your books? How about expanded author information such as a detailed bio, a photo, and the author’s nationality? Or rich descriptive content like review quotes, extended book descriptions, or excerpts? Did the book get nominated for or win any awards?

Every publisher has this information. Relatively few include this rich content in their data feeds, but it’s time to do so. Above all, publishers need to own their data - to ensure its accuracy and completeness and to be authoritative sources of information about their books. It’s too valuable a resource to be treated any other way.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Audiobook and eBook Study Online Now

Library and Archives Canada has just published a study we did for them late last year on audiobook and eBook publishing in Canada. The study is online now in HTML and MP3 editions and soon to be available via accessible PDF.

As far as we know, this is the first comprehensive study of digital publishing in Canada. It explores the context for audiobook and eBook publishing, the current Canadian market, production of digital editions, and circulation of digital books in libraries.

The study’s main findings include:

Mainstream audiences are primed for digital: “Digital natives” (i.e., those who have grown up using computers and the Internet) are very at ease reading off a screen as opposed to the printed page and are ready consumers of digital content. At the other end of the demographic spectrum, Canada’s aging population means that an increasing number of consumers will prefer or require non-print formats that help them counter sight or other print-reading challenges.

Digital devices are on the rise: The mass market’s adoption of a new generation of Internet-enabled portable devices—e.g., cell phones, smart phones, and PDAs—has accelerated consumption of digital content, both online and via download. Similarly, the rapid adoption of purpose-built reading devices, especially the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, has given eBooks real traction in consumer markets for the first time.

Digitization of book content is increasing rapidly: Thanks to increasingly digital production workflows, virtually all publishers can easily generate some level of eBook file from their native production files. As publishers accumulate a growing archive of digital production files, and as older backlist titles are scanned or otherwise converted into usable digital source files, the commercial output of digital books has naturally increased. To date, this has mainly been in the form of eBooks of various formats—especially PDF—and large multinational publishers have accounted for the majority of commercial releases.

There is relatively little Canadian content in sales channels for digital editions: The Canadian-owned publishing firms that account for the majority of Canadian-authored titles published each year have been relatively slow to publish digital editions of their books. Canadian-owned firms are small compared to their multinational competitors and generally have more limited staff and/or budget resources to invest in digitization programs.

Management of rights and copyright is a major market shaper: Many book publishers will have audio rights for their titles, but relatively few have historically acquired electronic rights. Therefore, a decision to publish electronic editions of one’s books is often accompanied by the need to revise contract language for new titles and to clear or acquire electronic rights for previously published work. The application of Digital Rights Management protections (DRM) is the other key rights issue in digital publishing. The goal of DRM is to limit piracy of copyrighted work, but these measures often also have the effect of locking content into a given sales channel. Consumer resistance to DRM restrictions on digital content, combined with publishers’ interest in breaking down platform monopolies has led to a weakening (or even abandoning) of DRM protections on an expanding range of digital titles.

You can find the complete study report on the LAC site, and please drop us a line anytime with questions or feedback.

A special thanks to the many industry experts in Canada and the US who contributed their ideas and data to the study, and also to the Initiative for Equitable Library Access team at Library and Archives Canada for their support of the project.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Book Distribution Study Now Available

We were commissioned by the Department of Canadian Heritage last year to do a national study on book distribution. The study report, “Book Distribution in Canada’s English-Language Market,” has just been published and is available online in PDF and HTML editions.

Distribution is a part of the book business that is not easily visible to many of those involved in the book trade and certainly not to the average book reader in Canada. However, effective management of the supply chain—the process of getting books to where they need to be, when they need to be there, and as efficiently as possible—is a critical function in publishing. It is a process that increasingly touches virtually all other aspects of the Canadian book trade from editorial acquisitions to marketing to consumer behavior.

A special thanks to the many publishers, distributors, booksellers, and industry groups who contributed their time, expertise, and data to the study. And congratulations to our colleague Marcel Oullette whose complementary study on Canada’s French-language market was also published today.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Russell Wangersky Wins Canada’s Biggest Non-Fiction Prize

Lots going on last week. Tuesday-Thursday in Toronto with the Association of Canadian Publishers, and then Friday-Sunday on Quadra Island for the BC publishers’ retreat. But before all that, we had the 5th annual BC Award for non-fiction on Monday, and Russell Wangersky won for his book Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself.

There are a few cool things about this: (1) the BC Award is a major national prize (the only one in Canada that doesn’t come from Toronto or Ottawa), (2) Russell is the first Newfoundlander to win the award, and (3) before picking up the BC Award, Burning Down the House also won the Drummer-General’s Award and was named one of the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books for 2008.

I always look forward to the award luncheon because each finalist is introduced by someone who can provide some context and insight into the author’s work and/or the story behind each book. All of the introducers were great again this year, but Alexandre Trudeau (who introduced Christopher Shulgan) and Elizabeth Bachinsky (who introduced Russell) are still ringing in my ears a week later. Hit the links for video clips of each.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Live Blogging the Frankfurt Book Fair (Four Days Later)

I made my first visit to the world-famous Frankfurt Book Fair last week to speak at an innovative summit of Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand book publishers. My job was to give everybody the lowdown on the Canadian book market as part of the opening presentations for the conference.

The Australian and New Zealand book markets share a number of important characteristics with our market here in Canada, such as the large market share of imported books, our concentrated book retail trade, and the challenge of breaking out separate territorial rights for our respective countries (i.e., the option to buy Canadian rights for a foreign-published book as opposed to seeing broader North American rights go to a US publisher). The summit was packed with publishers from all three countries. It sold out well in advance, and was attended by media as well as the Canadian and Australian ambassadors to Germany and the deputy head of the New Zealand mission.

A couple of other quick observations from a Frankfurt first-timer:

1. The book fair—the Frankfurter Buchmesse to the truly initiated—is massive. 7,400 exhibitors from 100 countries. 124,000 new titles on display, including one breathtaking bit of food porn. 300,000 visitors over five days. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trade event of this size before in any business, and it’s hard to not be a bit dazzled by the scale of it all.

2. There are the Sexy New Things that catch a lot of media interest at the fair—new e-book readers rolling out, the sweeping tide of digitization in book publishing, etc.—and then there is the real business that everyone is there to do. In Frankfurt, the real business is buying and selling international rights, and Frankfurt is unquestionably the most important meeting point for rights trading in the global book business.

3. Thanks to the Internet and all of the good web tools we use every day, it is easier and cheaper to communicate with colleagues around the world than ever before. But Frankfurt is a reminder that so much business is about relationships, and also how important it is to refresh and strengthen those relationships face-to-face. I have no doubt that more deals are done before and after Frankfurt than ever before, but it says something that thousands of publishing professionals gather in this one place once a year (and at considerable expense thanks to the predatory pricing of the local hotels) to do business together.

The chance to visit Frankfurt was educational to say the least, and the summit was a really important opportunity to extend some of the existing trading relationships between Canadian and Aussie and Kiwi publishers. Big congratulations to Barbara Howson and the Association for the Export of Canadian Books (AECB) for putting it together, and a special thanks for inviting me to join in.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Seth Godin Wants Me, He Really Wants Me

Somewhere in my permanently backlogged RSS reader, there’s a feed from Seth Godin’s hyperactive marketing blog. It turns out that Seth has a new book coming out this fall, and he’s come up with a new way to promote it. A promotion so clever that—before you could say “act now”—I was signed off, paid up, and anxiously awaiting further news.

Here’s the necessary context: the new book is called Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, and it’s all about “groups of people aligned around an idea, connected to a leader and to each other.” The main argument of the book appears to be that the web makes it easier than ever to find and participate in your tribe, and this in turn uncorks no end of opportunities for marketers and other tribe-interested folk the world over.

But who cares what the book is about. I bought it because of the promotion.

Here’s the invite from Seth’s promotional message yesterday:

I’d like to invite you to join a members-only tribe. A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas.

This online community will live on a site we’ve created that will feature blogs, forums, social networking, comments, photos, videos and a job board. And it’s by invitation only until October. Spots are limited and early members get privileges and bragging rights.

Members get a password and the privilege of meeting each other, posting thoughts, connecting to big ideas or projects and more.

The catch is you have to pre-order Tribes and send Seth your proof of purchase in order to get a password to join this new online community. “It’s not about selling more books, of course,” says Seth. “It’s about creating a small hurdle to get the right people in the door.”

Genius. Here’s why:

• Who doesn’t want to be “the right people.” (Where do I order my copy?)
• The invite is time-limited and creates an incredibly effective sense of urgency. (How soon can I buy?)
• The invite appears to offer real value—an exclusive online community of like-minded folks. (I’d be crazy not to buy this. These are my people.)
• The promo proves the central argument of the book—tribes good, join one now—as well as a minor argument that the most powerful tribes are those that are not open to everyone. (This guy’s really on to something. Do you take Amex?)

We spend a lot of time at Turner-Riggs working on strategies for better book marketing, and this is as nifty an idea as we’ve seen recently. Months in advance of publication, Seth has engaged his community of interest (the term we use around here for “tribe”), cranked up the pre-sales for the book, and seeded the marketplace with lots of good word of mouth. I’m in the tribe, if only to see what happens next.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Could Vancouver Become a World City of Literature?

A movement is underway to have Vancouver named a UNESCO City of Literature, like the City of Edinburgh, which received the first-ever UN designation in 2004. To be recognized by UNESCO (a designation comparable to the World Heritage Sites), a literary city must demonstrate that it has a broad-based publishing industry, a tradition of hosting literary events and festivals, and a wide range of public spaces dedicated to the preservation and promotion of literature.

Kiley and I have been working on the project over the past year, and I joined Alma Lee, the founding artistic director of the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival, and Margaret Reynolds, executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, yesterday for a public consultation at the Vancouver Public Library. The session was well attended, and I had a chance to present some of the background from our working proposal for UNESCO along with Hal Wake from the Writer’s Festival, CBC’s Joan Anderson, and Rick Antonson from Tourism Vancouver.

A number of people asked to receive copies of the draft UNESCO dossier and so we’ve posted it here for download: UNESCO_DossierFeb4_DRAFT.pdf. (Please note the file is currently a draft only and will be revised over the spring before it goes to UNESCO this summer.) If anyone would like to receive further project news or provide additional feedback, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thursday, March 06, 2008

BC Book Prize Finalists Announced in Fine Style

The finalists for the 2008 BC Book Prizes were announced today, and, better yet, they were announced via a snazzy new website. The site was produced by our friend and colleague Monique Trottier over at Work Industries.

The site features an easy-to-browse archive of the finalists and winners dating back to 1985 as well as a new blog with posts from finalist-authors touring the province.

Congratulations and good luck to all of the finalists and to the BC Book Prize Society on the launch of the new site.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Book Retail Study Now Available Online

Last year, we were commissioned to do a comprehensive study of Canadian book retail. The study report, The Book Retail Sector in Canada, has just been published by the Department of Canadian Heritage and is available online in PDF and HTML editions, and in both official languages.

We’ve structured the Book Retail paper as a collection of linked studies, each of which explores a major aspect of the market: reading and book buying behaviour, the size and composition of the consumer book market in Canada, the traditional book retail channel, the book market in Quebec, non-traditional sales channels, and online book retail.

The Globe and Mail quoted extensively from the study in a February 2 article and has called it an “essential reference work” for the industry and policy makers alike.

It’s a pleasure to see that readers both in and outside of the book business are so engaged with the study. Thank you to the many publishers, booksellers, and industry groups who contributed their time, expertise, and data.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

How About Some Good News About Canadian Books?

You don’t have to look far these days for signs that Canadian book publishers and bookstores are facing challenging times. For example:

• Pundits and researchers are warning that the practice of reading for pleasure is under siege (see Caleb Crain’s New Yorker article Twilight of the Books or the recent Ipsos-Reid/CanWest reading poll).
• Canadian booksellers and publishers are watching already razor-slim margins dwindle further due to industry consolidation, consumers’ price sensitivity, and exchange rates.
• Bestsellers are crowding out niche and literary titles in an intensely competitive book retail landscape. (For more on the last two bullets, see The Book Retail Sector in Canada study we just completed for Canadian Heritage.)

In times like these, it’s all the more important to support Canadian literature and those who make it available to us. The BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction is doing just that—and it’s coming up soon: February 7, 2008. We work on the award program, which is now in its fourth year, and as usual, we’re anticipating a thrilling event that reminds us of all the reasons we chose to make publishing one of our core focuses.

What’s So Exciting About the BC Award?

1. It’s happening in Vancouver. Vancouver, BC. This makes it the first major national award to originate outside of Ontario. Until the BC Award was established four years ago, every one of the big national awards—the Giller, the GGs, the Charles Taylor, and the Griffin—came out of Toronto or Ottawa. The BC Award reflects the strengthening of literary culture across Canada.
2. It’s worth $40,000. That makes it the richest non-fiction prize in the country, and one of the most valuable literary prizes in Canada, period. Contrary to some popular opinion, money isn’t immaterial to writers, as much as they will continue to write in the absence of it.
3. It’s all about literary non-fiction. This is a genre in which authors write passionately and personally about the real world around them—a genre that at its best, makes Canadian readers more aware of the issues and events shaping our lives and country.
4. The shortlist is riveting. The finalists are Donald Harman Akenson’s Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself, a brilliant examination of the Mormon genealogical project; Lorna Goodison’s From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People, a lyrical exploration of family; and Jacques Poitras’s Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, a journalistic investigation of art, ego, and ambition.
5. The presentation ceremony is a forum for ideas about Canadian literature. Each year, a distinguished and eloquent individual introduces each finalist—and why the finalist’s work matters. These introductions have been highlights of the event in years past, and doubtlessly will be again for the 2008 ceremony. As soon as possible after the ceremony, the introductions will be posted at The BC Achievement Foundation website. And right now, you can check out videos of last year’s introductions and remarks from the 2007 finalists.

Here’s a list of things you can do to participate in the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction celebration:

1. Find out more about the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
2. Check out the BC Award finalists’ books: Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself; From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People; and Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy
3. Tune in to CBC Radio 1’s Almanac at noon to 1:00 pm PST February 4, 5, and 6 for interviews with the finalists, and to North by Northwest the following weekend for their interview with the award winner
4. Enter to win the three finalists’ books by writing us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and telling us your favourite Canadian non-fiction book from the past year. Your email will automatically enter you in the contest.

And keep buying Canadian books!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Adventures in the East

We’ve spent the last two weeks on the move in Eastern Canada—with stops in Ottawa, Halifax, Ottawa again, and then Toronto—and are now settling in to a large pile of mail and two disgruntled cats back here at Turner-Riggs HQ.

The trip was great and we especially appreciated the chance to deliver a couple of extended workshops to senior staff at the Department of Canadian Heritage in Ottawa and the trade committee of the Association of Canadian Publishers in Toronto.

These sessions focused on an about-to-be-published market study on book retail we did for Canadian Heritage last year. We’ll post a link to the complete study shortly. For the moment, many thanks to all who attended for your participation and your interest in the project. It was wonderful to get some direct industry feedback on the study, not to mention some excellent discussions around the changing marketplace for books in Canada.