Turning the page

Peter Wilson | Image: CJ Burton | Published: May 01, 2008

Scott McIntyre, Vancouver’s legendary book publisher, says the tough times in his trade tend to fade quickly into memory – particularly after what he describes as a “fabulous” 2007. That’s the reason he can look back at the ups and downs of the past 37 years at the helm of Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. – one of Canada’s largest independent publishers – without too much pain. Still, he can’t help shaking his head as he recalls the devastating 2002 bankruptcy of D&M’s Toronto-based distributor, General Publishing.

‘‘It cost us almost $1 million,” says the 63-year-old UBC fine arts grad. “And, you know, we went through hell. We went through a lot of difficult times and cash was always an issue, but all of this has gone away. And not because of more equity, but because we earned our way out of it.” In 2007, after he’d recovered from that near disaster, McIntyre brought new blood into the company: president Mark Scott, a lit-loving former investment banker at Scotia Capital who, along with two partners, has taken a majority position in the company. McIntyre now not only has his personal future provided for, but also intends to stick around for up to another decade as publisher and chair.

Despite the turnabout for his own firm, McIntyre knows from long experience that survival is always in doubt for the 32 member firms of the Book Publishers Association of B.C. Just this January, it was
announced that Vancouver-based Raincoast Books – most famous for being the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter series – would be dropping its domestic publishing program after the spring season. At its peak, Raincoast was publishing almost 50 titles a year, but it never made any money from its publishing arm and blames the rapid rise of the Canadian dollar (which forced publishers to match U.S. prices) for its ultimate downfall.

Publishing in B.C. has always been a low-margin business (if profitable at all), with owners often going into debt just to keep themselves afloat. The rising dollar has helped erode those margins further. Adding to this is the growing question of what influence the digital revolution will have on traditional publishers.

After decades of broken promises and clunky technology, the digital reading tool known as the e-book seems to have finally turned the corner of consumer acceptance, presenting both risks and opportunities for print-focused publishers.

The e-book made its

first real impact in 1971 in the form of the electronic publication of The Declaration of Independence by Project Gutenberg, which currently offers 20,000 texts online (along with another 100,000-plus from its partners). More than three million of the out-of-copyright, free e-book files are downloaded from the site each month. Until very recently, however, the e-book hadn’t lived up to its hype. The traditional book is, after all, relatively inexpensive and portable, and nobody saw a good reason to switch from that comfortable print-on-paper environment. That’s changed with the almost universal usage of BlackBerrys, PDAs, iPods and iPhones, as on-screen reading becomes a 24-7 activity.

Pushing e-book adoption to the next level has been the recent arrival of Amazon​.com Inc.’s Kindle – a US$399 electronic reader that gives its users direct-download access to some 115,000 titles from major publishers such as Scribner, Ballantine, Putnam, Simon & Schuster Inc., and Penguin Group. For US$9.99, Kindle owners can download current hardback bestsellers, such as Liberal Fascism, that would otherwise set them back almost US$17 plus shipping from Amazon.com’s online store; a paperback, such as The Overlook by renowned mystery author Michael Conolly, is US$6.39 in electronic form, compared to US$7.99 in print if ordered online and even more if purchased in a bookstore. While Amazon​.com doesn’t provide figures on its e-book sales, the first batch of Kindles (said to be about 4,000 units) sold out in 5½ hours; since that November 2007 launch, the wait for purchasing a Kindle has been as much as six weeks. (Another online site, eBooks.com, offers more than 102,000 books that can be consumed on the Iliad Reader – a device costing a much pricier US$699.)