Books a better buy in Canada? After all the problems caused by the high Canadian dollar in 2007, Canadian publishers and booksellers are “cautiously optimistic” at the start of this year’s holidays according to Vit Wagner in the Toronto Star:
“The climate is much better this year,” says [Nancy] Frater, proprietor of the Orangeville store BookLore. “My reason for optimism is that in challenging economic times, people do turn to books. As gifts, books have long-lasting value and they’re reasonably priced.”
It’s all relative though:
“I can’t look into the future and say everything’s going to be sanguine,” says Random House of Canada’s [Brad] Martin. “We’re doing a lot of cost cutting, but it’s more discretionary, like cutting the number of sales conferences from two to one. But we believe that the organization that we have now is what we need to successfully publish books in this country at the level that we have been publishing them.
“What I can’t tell you is what is going to happen to the market over the first six months of next year. It’s concerning for all of us. But certainly right now we seem to be performing better in a difficult market than the two other major English-language markets.”
And I’m not sure how this all sits with the recently reported “belt-tightening” in Canadian publishing — including staff changes at KidsCan Press and Thomas Allen postponing most of their spring 2009 list — and all the grim news coming out of the US.
Is there worse to come? Any Thoughts?
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