How Indigo/Kobo Has Put Publishers in Checkmate

“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.” Heather Reisman, CEO of Chapters Indigo.

And by change, she meant finalize owning the Canadian book  industry. Did you know Chapters Indigo are the major stakeholders in Kobo?

I’m not knocking Reisman in this article, she’s just doing her job as the CEO of a corporation. I’m knocking the idea of a bookseller acting more like a corporation than a bookstore and a bookseller being a publisher. I’m knocking those of us who’ve given Indigo the power it has. In the literary world, there’s a word for that: irony.

Let’s recap:

Step One: Indigo Monopolizes the Bookselling Industry

Indigo, clever beast it is, bought out all the three major bookchains: Chapters, Coles, and Smithbooks. Each of these in turn devoured any competition in all three forms of bookstores as we know them: The big boxstores (Chapters), the mall outlets (Coles), and the indie-esque bookshops (Smithbooks).

To bait those who could resist their aesthetic appeal and deep discounts, Indigo was smart enough to partner with Starbucks, and, start selling undeniably attractive housewares to give customers a full-on shopping experience.

But here’s a true story about them as a bookseller:  I once asked a girl at Coles if they had Sarah Selecky’s This Cake is For the Party in stock, as it wasn’t on the shelf. Who? she said. “Oh,” I said, “You wouldn’t know her, she’s on this totally obscure award shortlist called the Giller Prize.” It’s not an isolated incident, and what really rubs me the wrong way is that those signs at Coles and Chapters, like “Hot New Fiction.” They’re bought and sold like adspace in newspapers. A publisher with big money buys it, to fool readers into thinking those are the good books, and Indigo therefore sells their integrity. They forfeit the value of their suggestions. And on a grander scale, accepting money to influence Canadian reading habits in the pursuit of profit is a horrible thing to do, as a bookseller. It’s the work of an evil, greedy corporation like you’d see in a Grisham novel.

I get why Chapters do what they do. But from a writer’s/reader’s standpoint, I don’t like it.

Step Two: Indigo Eclipses Publishers as the Ruler of the Industry.

This, this is impressive. Chapters have gotten so big that publishers, the makers of books, bend to their rules and every demand, to stay in their good books. It’s like we’ve elected the school bully as president. Because what publisher in their right mind would piss Chapters off and not comply with their rules?

I know, from stints working in the industry, that, when a bookstore doesn’t sell all the copies of a certain title they’ve ordered, them send them back for credit. Like anything you’d return to any store, they still need to be in good condition. Would Walmart take back a damaged TV? No. But Chapters expects publishers to take back damaged books.  If it’s just some a little ma-and-pa bookstore, the books need to be in pristine condition for return credit. Chapters? They don’t bother packing the books securely, so half the returns are damaged. The sentiment: You want to do business with us, take the book back and shut up about it. They’ve also played a huge role in deciding what eBooks should sell for. Why? They’re a bookstore! eBook prices, that’s something all of you publishers should have sat down and talked about. I know I am oversimplifying here, and I know most of you all paired up with the Association of Canadian Publishers and talked eBook pricing, because I was in on the calls. But I know adhering to Chapters.ca’s “eBook price point sweetspot” ended up playing a massive role in what the current, standard eBook price is.

The thing is, Indigo operate more like a big, profit-driven corporation than a bookstore. They’ve got a whip and they use it. Because you’ve let them. To date, only one publisher, Beth Follett of Pedlar Press, has had the courage to boycott the giant. Pedlar does not do business with them. How indie is that, kids! And way to stand by her in camaraderie, fellow publishers. Because if you refused to sell books to the bully, they’d have no books to sell, and they’d be in no position to be calling the shots. It’s really that simple. And again, I am not knocking Heather Reisman. She’s just doing her job. It’s the publishers and Canadian bookbuyers who’ve given her the power, and now complain about it, who I am frowning on.

Step Three: Launch an Attack on “Traditional Publishing”

A few years ago, Chapters.ca made self-publishing exceptionally easy, and they even offer packages you can buy so they’ll stock your print book (at ONE store!) and book you a book signing or two (at ONE store!)

Sounds alluring to a poor first-timer who doesn’t know publishing this route will get your book nowhere in the public eye. Sounds good to a first timer who doesn’t know the benefit of a good professional edit, or the utter necessity of a publicist getting your book reviewed and submitted to awards, and getting you on a radioshow or a blog. This industry runs on publicity and publicity alone, and no one reads a book they haven’t heard of, because how could they? So no one reads a self-published book, except your mom and mother-in-law. Spare me the exceptions, the Still Alice success stories, because they’re one in ten thousand. You self publish and you’re ineligible for reviews, awards, and festivals. And most importanly, none of those amazing Canadian publicists are working in your corner. Trust me, a lot of these people are amazing at what they do. I can’t imagine launching a new novel without one of them them in my corner.

But the real story here was they way they were suddenly calling publishers useless, with statements like, “What do publishers really do for you? They’re just gatekeepers rejecting more books than they publish and limiting what gets out there.“

You say gatekeeper and I say quality control. I once spent a year reading hundreds of submissions to a publisher I worked for. And my God did 95% of them even smell like crap. And I am not being nasty, because I’ve sent stories out that’ve been rejected too. I read them a year later and they really weren’t worthy of publication. Rejection exists for a reason. Would you say yes to every wo/man who wanted to date you? Well, Indigo.ca will. They’ll flood the eBook market with them to turn a profit off of embittered first time writers who can’t get traditionally published.

Their promotion of this money-making scheme as “a way around those mean and useless publishers”  should have been like biting the hands that feed them. But it wasn’t, because they’re somehow the hand that feeds us. A total role reversal. So it was more like Indigo calling publishers a mutt, and still wanting a healthy, 2-way business operation. I’m surprised how publishers rolled over on this one.

And this is what really perked some ears: They said they’d split royalties from book sales 50-50 with authors … “instead of the measely 10% your publisher gives you!”

Yeah. That ruffled publishers’ feathers. Authors really do only get 10% of whatever their book sells for. That’s 2 bucks on a 20-dollar book. Versus the 10 bucks on a 20-dollar book Indigo is offering. As in, five times as much. That’s quite a raise.

But it was easy to dismiss, as it was still dirty old self-publishing. We all moved on, but with that bug in our heads. Like … hey! I could just pay my editor friend 500 bucks to haul this over real good. And, my ex, she’s a graphic designer. She’d do me a cover … and, like, with Facebook, Twitter, and a few pals with books blogs, I could do some cool promotions myself. Not the same, no, but … we all thought it. Even writers like me who will stick with trad publishing and rad publicists until the end of time.

Step Four: Kobo announces They’re a publisher now.

Kobo, producer of eReaders for eBooks, are calling themselves a publisher now, and they’re offering editorial services and design services, you name it. And they’re offering authors higher royalties than ever before. Who didn’t see that coming? I did, 5 years ago. C’mon. Step Three was simply the launch of an all out war on publishers. All that smacktalk was like putting the tanks and blitzkriegs in place.

South of the border, Amazon(Kindle) have “published” more than 100 books already, and they’re acquiring some bestselling authors. Several. Barry Eisler gave up a $500,000 US two-book offer from his long-time publisher to go with Amazon. His new book, The Detachment, was released digitally last month and “is smashing his personal e-book sales record.”

But the whole thing is gross and incestuous. It’s like Pepsi and Doritos buying a grocery store and claiming they’ll still stock Coke and Lays. Whose books do you think Chapters and Kobo are going to favour promoting to readers now? A traditionally published book from any given publisher, our one of their very own Kobo-published books? It’s grossly incestous and has potential to be a big bad blow to CanLit. I am not sure this should even be legal. And when they start pushing mostly their own titles on their website (the Canadian eReader’s go to website) they’ll have officially corrupted Canadian reading choices in the name of money, and that’s a sad atrocity. And classic big business versus art. We all know who wins there. And I just don’t get it: a bookseller making its own products. It’s like your paperboy writing the newspaper himself, instead of just delivering other peoples’ papers, so he gets paid for both jobs. Book stores need to be selling good books, not owning them. There should be no potential for competition between a bookseller’s books and other peoples’ books. It’s all backwards. It’s like letting a kid babysit itself: it’ll have it’s cake and eat it to. At the cost of what Canadian readers are exposed to, bookwise, when they log in to buy a new eBook.

It’s been said that “Amazon or Kobo don’t want drek – they want good books that make money!”

That statement is itself drek. Associating “good books” with “makes money”  is dangerous and would distort what is supposed to release books out into the world: quality.You base what gets published on sales and its the end of books as we know them. Commercial lit, like Twillight and Dan Brown, will always outsell the kind of stuff I like. Money should be kept out of it. But when Kobo says, ‘Sorry, your last book didn’t sell as well as these guys’!” The answer is: Harry Potter vol. 38 and yet another book with a dreamy vampire in it, and nothing for me to read …

“Competing with traditional publishers to develop new titles is essential for a company that strives to be a global player in the e-reading market.” -  Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis.

Wrong. A bookseller is supposed to sell books. Not own them!

You did it to yourself, Canada. By giving all the power to the booksellers. Stop selling your products to them, and start doing what they’re doing: sell directly to customers, and make booksellers the middle man. If you all banded together for a good old fashioned boycott, Amazon and Kobo wouldn’t have a damn book to sell. Then they’d change their train of thought. Instead, they’re trying to put you out of business. And when you look at what’s going on in the States, all those big names publishing with Amazon … It’s only a matter of time.

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