Monday, July 18, 2005

On the book industry

From Michelle, The Red Fork at help! bats! everywhere! on the lifecycle of the book and independent bookstores versus mega-bookstores.

I find this to be a really interesting topic since I hope to one day own my own little book nook, and because John and I both worked - and in John's case, continues to work - for Indigo/Chapters/Coles mogul Heather Reisman. On the one hand, as a consumer, I get lots of books at lower costs. On the other hand, the big bookstores have the publishing industry over a barrel, and my books keep getting more and more expensive.

A couple more articles for you bookies to check out - unfortunately, they're more than three years old:
Dooney's Cafe, champion to the little man who successfully lobbied to keep Starbucks off its hallowed grounds (only to have them move across the street), and which also serves yummy desserts on Bloor St. W;
The Link from Concordia University;
and Maclean's.

Couldn't find anything on how Chapters has affected the Canadian publishing industry since Heather took over - the advantages to keeping your company private, I suppose.

1 comment:

The Red Fork said...

Re: finding info on Chapters killing the industry. As a wiseman in Zoolander said, "keep pulling the sweater. Eventually the whole thing will unravel."

I've got this info up the wazoo, FYI.