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Mount Allison has plans to give Chindigo CEO Heather Reisman an honourary degree. But not everyone is happy. ‘Ninja friend, editor, professor, and drop-dead awesome poet, Amanda Jernigan sends in the following open letter, which does a great job of contextualizing much of the anti-Indigo sentiment has developed over the years.
To: Dr Robert Campbell, President and Vice-Chancellor, Mount Allison University; Dr Stephen McClatchie, Provost & Vice-President, Academic & Research, Mount Allison University; Ms Gloria Jollymore, Vice-President, University Advancement
Cc.: Dr David Thomas, Dept. of International Relations, Mount Allison University; Dr Karen Bamford, Chair, Dept. of English, Mount Allison University; Stuart Woods, Editor, Quill & Quire; Martin Levin, Books Editor, Globe and Mail; Dru Oja Jay, Editor, The Dominion; George Murray, Editor, Bookninja; David Stonehouse, Editor, Telegraph-Journal (St. John); Al Hogan, Managing Editor, Times & Transcript (Moncton); Kim Jernigan, Editor, The New Quarterly; Tim and Elke Inkster, Publishers, The Porcupine’s Quill; Andrew Steeves, Publisher, Gaspereau Press; Ellen Pickle, Bookseller, Tidewater Books
12 May 2010
Dear President Campbell, and Vice-Presidents McClatchie and Jollymore:
I am writing this open letter to add my voice to the chorus objecting to Mount Allison’s decision to grant an honorary degree to Heather Reisman, President and CEO of Indigo Books and Music Inc.
I read with interest and alarm Dr. David Thomas’s letter regarding Ms Reisman’s involvement with the HESEG foundation. I agree with Dr. Thomas that “universities and intellectuals have a special responsibility to create a just society and to oppose war and militarism,” and it seems clear that tacit support of the HESEG foundation, through the planned honorary degree, runs counter to that responsibility.
I have my own reasons for opposing Ms Reisman’s honorary degree, however. I studied English literature at Mount Allison University from 1997-2001, and have since returned (in 2009) to teach in the English department here. In the intervening years, I worked in the world of Canadian small-press publishing, and so had a front-row seat on the depredations of Chapters/Indigo in the Canadian book trade. A recent article in THIS Magazine paints the picture: “Some 350 indie bookstores closed across Canada in the past decade, and, according to Susan Dayus, executive director of the Canadian Booksellers Association, much of that had to do with the arrival of the Chapters chain. ‘Those closures happened very quickly when Chapters opened,’ Dayus says. ‘The leadership of Chapters was very predatory—they opened across the street or kitty-corner to successful bookstores. And those who didn’t have strong financial backing went under.’”
It wasn’t just the independent bookstores that Chapters threatened; small publishers felt the squeeze as well. It wasn’t that Chapters didn’t buy our books (I say “our” because I was working for Porcupine’s Quill, Printers & Publishers, in Ontario at this time): they did buy our books — and then returned them, in ruinous numbers. Publisher Tim Inkster kept close track of the situation:
“In 1998 Chapters (& Indigo) ordered 13,293 copies of Porcupine’s Quill publications. And returned 4,052 — less than 30 percent, which was somewhat higher than industry standards at the time but not excessively so — leaving us with a net sale of 9,241 units, worth about $90,000 which was not bad at all. I remember David Peterson, chairman of the Board at Chapters at the time, talking about ‘growing the market’ for Canadian books. I was keen.
“In 2004 (six years later) Chapters ordered 2,797 copies of PQL books. And returned 1,415 — more than 50 percent, which left us with a net sale of 1,382 — which means quite simply that we have lost 85 percent of the business we once did with Chapters over the course of those same six years.
“In the calendar year 2005 Chapters returns are running at 68 percent, which is disastrous — maybe not catastrophic — but pales in the face of Chapters’ returns in the current fiscal year-to-date (since 31 May 05) which weigh in at 167 percent of sales. This is ruinous, and this cannot be permitted to continue.” (Canadian Notes & Queries)
Porcupine’s Quill is a small press; Tim and Elke Inkster print and bind all of their books in house. A Chapters order, in the thousand-copy range, would have necessitated special print runs, and an up-front cost well in excess of what the press would have spent in a normal year. Like many small presses, the Inksters swallowed the cost, banking on Chapters’ promised sales. When the books were returned, in droves, the press was nearly put out of business.
This huge discrepancy, on Chapters’ part, between orders and returns, is hardly emblematic of the corporate “responsibility” the company claims to espouse.
I can only think that the rationale for Mount Allison’s decision to grant Ms Reisman an honorary degree is Ms Reisman’s “success” in business. Since my return to academia, I’ve had limited professional involvement with the business world — but my years working in the book trade gave me huge respect for certain business people. I have huge respect for Tim and Elke Inkster, who have sustained their small press for 36 years against heartbreaking odds. I have huge respect for Ellen Pickle, Sackville’s own independent bookseller, who has sustained Tidewater Books in Mount Allison’s home community for 15 years, as many of her bookseller-counterparts have gone under. But I cannot respect a corporation like Chapters/Indigo that operates by bulldozing competitors, expanding unsustainably, and abdicating its responsibility to the communities of readers and writers it depends on.
Writers get their starts with small presses; small presses are sustained by independent booksellers who care enough to carry and hand-sell their books. The whole ecology of writing and reading at the grassroots level has thus been threatened by Chapters/Indigo, in a way that seems to me have frightening implications for the intellectual life of our country.
Mount Allison, as a small, liberal-arts university, is deeply invested in that intellectual life, and must work to sustain it. Granting an honorary degree to Heather Reisman runs directly counter to this imperative. I must ask the administration to reconsider.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Sincerely,
Amanda JerniganAmanda Jernigan
Part-time instructor,
Department of English Literatures,
Mount Allison University
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May 12th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Thank you Amanda for putting it so forcefully and succinctly.
On a related note, the next time that Margaret Atwood is delivering one of her smug condemnations on the world of business or politics we should remember that she regularly shills for this company.
May 13th, 2010 at 1:40 am
It’s fine to censure Indigo/Chapters (I’m not a fan either), but let’s also take an opportunity to heap some degree of responsibility on the people who buy books from there — I guess loyalty to your mom-and-pop shop pales in the face of a 20% discount at Indigo. It’s unenlightened consumers who are also responsible for this mess. Maybe instead of directing our invective at Reisman, we can focus efforts on making Canadian readers aware of there responsibility and role in supporting independent bookselling and publishing. You’ll be surprised how many people don’t make the connection between their purchasing patterns and the closure of some of Canada’s best independent bookstores.
May 13th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Sorry, “their” not “there” responsibility.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Just riffing stream of consciousness here:
Yes, CK, but I would wager that most of those consumers aren’t buying the same kinds of books we are, and are therefore more inclined to think of any reading they in a utilitarian way, rather than as cultural pastime. They’re looking for good deals on books in the same way they look for good deals at the grocery store. In the US, income level is a factor in the rise obesity, not because people can’t afford to eat, but because they can’t afford to eat well, so they buy pizza pockets and Kraft Dinner instead of fresh vegetables, etc. So I’d say the bargain hunting at Chapters and Indigo, etc. comes partly from socio-economic factors and partly from a desire to mask those factors in a veil of “respectability” and “authenticity” (the couches, decor, Starbucks, etc.), as opposed to the brazen bargain hunting at Walmart and Target. It’s also why Amazon’s so popular. Hunt from home. But, while the people who shop at Walmart and Target make no bones about their purchases: Oprah books, self-help, Grisham, Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, Koontz, etc. (so those stores only stock those titles), those who shop at Indigo want to feel as though they’re of a certain “lifestyle” (so the store puts in couches and offers lattes) and colours the walls whatever yuppy ochre is current. They still want the same books, but they want the “option” of something more heady or literary or, even more to the point, the “illusion” of such. They fetishize the fetish, not the books. So what happens is Indigo competes with the local shop who can hand sell actually decent books, and puts them out of business. Then, when the lit titles don’t sell in two weeks (that’s seriously how long a book has before it’s returned en masse), they’re gone. So they aren’t there for anyone.
Maybe we should encourage Indigo to just gave up the ridiculous charade that they’re anything more than a glorified Walmart and drop lit fiction altogether… Then local shops could build back their clientele by working the lit niche.
May 13th, 2010 at 10:54 am
With regard to “lifestyle,” the desires of the giant-headed personage behind Indigo probably carry more weight than those of the clientele. While one could not perhaps prove decisively that Ms. R is, say, “banal” or “intellectually insecure,” one might be tempted to diagnose the ailments by what appears to be her chief mode of soothing them: the ostentatious rubbing of shoulders with, and “interviewing” of notable persons. The “lifestyle” cultivated by the Indigo machine seems designed, most of all, to facilitate this.
May 13th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Amanda: Integrity and clarity, ever your trade mark.
Thanks for the forceful letter.
May 13th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
I haven’t shopped at Chapters/Indigo since Ms. Reisman publicly declared she had the right to tell Canadians what constitutes hate literature, white-washing history in the process. [see link above] While as a private business owner she has the right to stock whatever she wants in her stores, by making a public declaration about it she claimed moral authority we in this country reserve to elected officials with the oversight of appointed judges.
The woman has no respect for intellectual freedom, and should not be recognized by an institution that supposedly holds that as its foundation.
May 13th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
What has not been discussed here is that the creation of the ChIndigo chain(s) conferred a dominant trading position on ChIndigo. Those delightful discounts that you read about in full page ads (and customers love so much) are substantially paid for by publishers. The notion of opting in/out does not exist. ChIndigo merely sends an (upbeat..) invoice, informing the supplier of their participation contribution. Funny, but I don’t think that any other bookseller in the country could pull that one – no matter how upbeat they were.
Maybe the honourary doctorate should be in recognition of Canada’s ongoing embrace of predatory monopoly. It makes life so simple, right?
May 13th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
This letter covers all my frustrations so, so well.
May 14th, 2010 at 5:52 am
great letter. thank you for writing it and great comments too.
i’ve been nauseous about
heather ever since her embarassing public condemnation of mien kampf.
the whole thing makes me cry
not from frustration but from disgust at her
(and her husband’s) blinders and the resulting horrible choking death
of the bookstore . i hope that your letter shoves a stake in someone’s
memory at Mount Allison. i hope heather reads it too.
May 15th, 2010 at 7:18 am
It makes me want to weep, what’s happened to our bookstores. However, I agree that the power to change anything rests entirely with the individual, the consumer. If no one shopped at ChIndigo there would soon not be one on every corner. Of course there will always be great globs of people who value that 20% over everything, but there are also enough others who (at least say they) value the writers, the publishing houses and the indie shops more. So great. If all of us put our money where our heart is the 100 monkey theory would, at some point, kick in and begin to make a difference. But I think some weaning off Amazon also has to occur…
By the way, I love the idea of ChIndigo dropping literary titles entirely. Perfect. (And that would be worthy of an award.)
Fabulous letter. Thanks for sharing.
May 16th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Books get returned to their publishers for only one real reason, they are not being purchased by the public (end) consumer.
It is always the publishers’ fault if they grossly overestimate their own expected true sales calculations. Just because ChIndigo (nifty nickname) opened large stores everywhere didn’t mean our Canadian Populace – expanded primarily thru struggling ESL immigration was also going to increasingly spend their money on that many more overprinted, and perhaps overpriced & expanded, books.
June 4th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Response to CQ:
Actually, the publisher does not grossly overestimate the sales of their books and have to swallow the costs when Chapters cannot sell them. What occurs is this:
Chapters orders an estimate of books which the publisher produces. Chapters then tries to sell the books, any books that they cannot sell are then returned to the publisher, and Chapters will not, and does not, pay for them. Therefore, the overestimation is done by Chapters, but the cost must be swallowed by the publisher.
Why doesn’t the publisher just say no? Because at this point, Chapters has taken over so many independent book stores, and publishers cannot afford to say no to Chapters and risk not having their books sold there at all.
March 3rd, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Realizing that this is a slight tangent to the overriding theme of the letter, and though the very existence of “honourary degrees” goes beyond any measure of comprehensible absurdity in the first place, what has the Resiman truly contributed that is meritorious of any type of recognition by the college in question?
On the topic of “big box stores” and their bloodlust for fiscal success at the expense of local economies must first, as one previous commenter has already pointed out, reside with the consumer themselves.
I’m in the U.S. and frankly, I have never heard of the company in question,
but I will offer that I despise the stale and impersonal “Barnes & Nobles”, “Books-a-Million, and the likes of the former retail giant “Borders”. I will offer that as an aspiring author that recognizes the extremely unlikey prospect that I’ll ever be published, and as an avid reader and collector of books of all genres, that I for one am appaled at the cost of hard back books as a general rule. I’ll not claim to understand the full costs associated with the production, promotion, and distribution of a novel, but I have always believed that any book, with the exception of collectibles and of those books for which demand justifies to some extent the price (ie The New York Times Best Sellers) are obscenely overpriced at the retail level.
This belief took hold in college and continues some 15 years later. It’s appalling to me that a work of modern fiction can command a price in excess of 30 dollars, and as a result, I will not even buy books from ANY retail book store, regardless of size because publishers augment the cost of lesser known writers in a communistic fashion by more or less pricing all of their titles within a minor margin of deviation. The entire system is broken in my humble opinion and it needs a massive overhaul.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Grisham, and the late Crichton’s works as much as the average Joe, but I also like grabbing a novel of authors I’ve never heard of and then trying the book on, which I would NEVER do at the MSRP. Should I ever create a work I feel will be well received, I’ll likely self-publish and promote because I believe the consumer is getting gouged. I can go back and look at the retail price of a novel in 1985 and with few exceptiona, the price variance for a currently published book is essentially the same in 2012.
Someone needs to come up with a better way to expand the availability of books, while better managing the retail price. The very fact that reading is in dramatic decline tells me that even small press publishers don’t seem to understand that the average consumer can’t buy John Q author at 29.99 when they are faced with that same price for a known quantity like Grisham.
As such, my books, almost all of which are hardbacks and permanently part of my growing collection have come from used book stores, Amazon, and through wealthy communities Goodwill stores.
In some very unique situations, I’ve paid retail for a book, but I was disgusted that I had done so virtually every time. Bottom line, the publishers, based on this letter, are clearly inflating prices to bolster what to me seems like a purely ABSURD, business arrangement whereby the publisher is essentially consigning books, not selling them. It’s seems to me that the entire economy of books is on the verge of collapse due to gross inefficiencies and greed, but maybe that needs to happen in order to drive a new book economy that more effectively and efficiently brings the author and reader together in a manner that is more democratic and reflective of the actual costs.
I’ll leave you with this example. A brand new Toni Morrison novel in paper back is $7.99, but the hardback is $34.99. Someone justify that price difference for me, as it should be amusing to hear how a piece of cardboard, different binding method and likely finer quality & quantity of paper result in 4X price increase?
Bottom line, shame on this university, shame on the publishers, and shame on the the entire primary book market for robbing the consumer for so long. The worst part of it all, is that this behavior is driving down literacy indirectly because the poor can’t afford to develop a love of reading, which comes not just from the words, but also from the collecting and coveting books over time.
I for one will enjoy watching all of these players collapse under their absurdity.
March 3rd, 2012 at 3:44 pm
And of course I realize how out of relevance this topic is as it relates to the letter’s timeframe, however I believe my “rant” to be valid regardless of time passed and it will continue to be until both honourary degrees and the aristocratic existing book economy are both done away with all together.