14 Conclusion: Distribution and Access to Titles by Canadian Authors

The principal objective of the Department of Canadian Heritage's Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) is to ensure the availability of and access to Canadian-authored books that reflect Canada's cultural diversity and linguistic duality in Canada and abroad. Through this study, the Canadian government has attempted to better understand the conditions under which French-language books by Canadian authors are distributed and grasp the main issues affecting the diffusion and distribution of books in Quebec and French Canada.

What can we conclude about access for all publishers and titles by Canadian authors to a nation-wide distribution service? How can we describe access for all titles by Canadian authors to the retail trade network? And what about access by all Francophone communities across Canada to books as a cultural product?

We must first recognize that the great majority of Canadian publishers have access to nation-wide distributors, and that the smallest publishers do not necessarily seem to be forced to work with the smaller distributors. According to BTLF data, 93.5% of Canada's French-language publishers are distributed across Canada, which is significant. Similarly, 89.3% of the Canadian titles in Memento are distributed across Canada, which reveals the great capacity of the book distribution system in French Canada to make a great majority of French-language titles by Canadian authors available. In addition, Quebec and French-Canadian books are, on average, released in proportions six times greater than foreign books. Lastly, when we learn of the lists of publishers registered with each of the distributors, we note that the smallest publishers are distributed among all distributors, rather than all being included in the same distribution group.

However, is it enough to conclude an agreement with a distributor to guarantee that one's titles will have fair access to the retail trade market? Our research and interviews have demonstrated that it is very difficult to be a small fish in a big pond. Diffusers, increasingly focused on profitability and often on the search for a bestseller, obviously pay more attention to the better-known publishers and best-selling books. This is why groups of small publishers, like the members of the Regroupement des éditeurs canadiens-français or the Coopérative de diffusion et de distribution de livres, have attempted to develop their own diffusion structures better adapted to their own realities in order to control the strategies and efforts employed to market their titles. A growing number of publishers are seeking and developing options for diffusing their titles that fall outside established frameworks and depend less on major diffusion and distribution companies, even if this means assuming a greater part of the risk associated with marketing their titles. Better control by publishers over the diffusion of their own titles partly explains the reduced role of Canadian French-language distributors in both final sales and resales of books in Canada.

In Quebec, the Act respecting the development of Quebec firms in the book industry (Bill 51) and use of the système d'office as a tool for marketing new titles have greatly encouraged variety in the supply of titles by Quebec authors and access to books — especially Quebec books — by communities scattered across the country. By facilitating the work of distributors and booksellers, the système d'office has indeed allowed a great variety of new titles to automatically reach retail outlets and be among the reading material offered to the public. Titles by little-known authors have succeeded in breaking into a market that did not anticipate their success. Similarly, despite the burden that it imposes on the industry, the ability to return unsold books allows bookstores to take risks with works by lesser-known authors and thus improve access to a greater diversity of titles, especially titles by Canadian authors. Returns on the système d'office and restocking, based on the number of copies, are different for Quebec titles (27.04%) and foreign titles (32.51%), demonstrating that diffusers and distributors accurately plan the positioning of Quebec and French-Canadian titles in the bookstore channel.

Moreover, the purchase mechanisms promoted by Bill 51 have given local booksellers guaranteed access to their own markets, at least to the public institution market, thus ensuring that regional bookstores have the minimum sales essential for survival. The mechanisms of the French-language book market, at least in Quebec, provide benchmarks that ensure equitable market access for titles published and a diversity of titles for communities.

Today, however, this fragile balance is threatened. Mainly because of the constant increase in the number of new titles, the système d'office seems increasingly unmanage­able and is gradually being replaced by prenotification. Each week, an average of 564 new titles are sent to bookstores and big-box store networks in Quebec and French Canada. At this rate, it is becoming impossible for the bookseller to honour all agreements under the système d'office and offer its customers all titles. This is why there are now some questions regarding the terms and conditions for marketing through the système d'office, which we would like to revise so that they more effectively address the new realities of the book trade. Unfortunately, titles with small print runs and titles from lesser-known publishers and authors may be the ones to lose out from any possible revision of the système d'office. It is unlikely that a revision of the système d'office would provide more space for lesser-known titles; as tends to happen more and more for obvious reasons, solutions will be sought that will limit the number of titles placed with the système d'office, thus favouring the bestsellers, in order to improve the profitability of an already-fragile book marketing network. There is cause for concern about the impact of a possible revision of the système d'office on access to a diversity of products.

In the other provinces, access to French-language books is still inadequate; the system has limited ability to make books available to Francophone communities scattered across the country. This issue deserves particular attention from governments, and a specific strategy should be developed to ensure that this essential need for access to a diversity of French-language titles is better met for linguistic minority communities.

The book trade is also experiencing significant changes surrounding access to increasingly sophisticated technological tools designed to facilitate book marketing. The introduction of exchange standards between distributors and retailers is already making it possible for each one to gain substantial savings and more reliably and efficiently submit orders, invoices, delivery slips and various other documents related to returns and claims. The improved management systems used by distributors and booksellers have already helped manage inventory more carefully and more quickly return titles whose performance in the bookstore seems disappointing, limiting the time lesser-sold titles are kept on display. The Sales Information System (SIS), whose introduction has been announced for February 2009, will make it possible to follow the day-to-day fluctuations of each title on the market. It is expected to greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of book marketing in Quebec and French Canada. However, use of the SIS may also emphasize a title's performance in the bookstore and thus limit the presence of slower-moving titles. This of course decreases the probability that a title by a lesser-known author will find an unexpected market; with these sophisticated tools, sales will become increasingly predictable, based solely on sales performance.

Lastly, concentration and integration in the book trade influence the conditions of book distribution as part of a drive toward profitability at all cost. A strongly placed title is, and always will be, more profitable and easier to distribute than a group of books with reduced and more uncertain sales. With increasingly concentrated diffusion/ distribution, or a growing movement towards integration of businesses in the book trade, this profitability constraint, which focuses all efforts on titles with strong placement, is very likely to continue, to the detriment of diversity of supply and access to French-language books across the country. By single-mindedly focusing on financial interests, reserving increasing space to bestsellers, the emergence of new publishers that contribute to the book trade by introducing the newest and often most innovative authors is being considerably limited. Perhaps the ever-growing distributors will become more hesitant to agree to distribute small publishers or titles that do not achieve a guaranteed sales threshold and pose a risk considered excessive.

The French-language book trade in Canada is changing at an accelerating rate, and distributors are not immune to disruptions caused by the development of new technology and the need for profitability dictated by commercial legislation and increasing competition. The more innovations improve the quality of work by diffusers and distributors, the greater their incentive to change the role for the smallest publishers and lesser-known authors and the risk of reducing the diversity of supply for Canadians. Fortunately, there are new tools that help market these more marginal titles, and models are appearing that change the way the relationship between the publisher, the diffuser/distributor and the retailer has traditionally been defined. It is to be hoped that the disruptions the book trade is currently undergoing will not become an obstacle to the diversity of supply and access to books across Canada, but will instead reduce the barriers to improving the distribution of books in Quebec and French Canada.

[ Previous Page | Table of Contents | Next Page ]