New chapter opens for downtown book lovers
Downtown Vancouver is finally getting its bookstore back — it’s just going to be a lot smaller. Due to a “significant” rent increase, Indigo Books & Music shuttered its 50,000-square-foot Chapters location on Robson Street in June last year. But the retai
1% INCREASE In sales of printed books in 2015
The sale of printed books finally increased across Canada last year — by one per cent. While it’s a subtle increase, it’s put a stop to the downward trend of people left reading print, said BookNet Canada CEO Noah Genner.
“That’s the first time we’ve seen an up in book sales in four years ... really since the break out of eBooks,” he said.
Genner believes the trend is due to the price of print and eBooks levelling out.
“eBooks were priced quite a bit cheaper than print books, but that differential over the last year and a bit has shrunk,” he said. “The price differential between eBooks and print books is closer, especially on the best-selling titles.
“When that happens, a lot of consumers tend to buy the print book because they perceive more value in (it). They can share it, they can put it on the shelf, they can sell it on the used market — you can’t do any of those with eBooks.”
45% OF BOOK PURCHASES Are now made online
The sale of books (both eBooks and print) online continues to grow across Canada. Forty-five per cent of last year’s book purchases were made online, which marks a 16 per cent jump from 2013.
“It’s not a huge surprise,” Genner said of the upward trend, adding that Amazon is a big portion of that market, followed by Chapters Indigo online.
The trend also leads to a lot of book discovery online through suggested reads and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.
But if you include both big-box book stores, such as Indigo, and smaller independent shops, like Vancouver’s Book Warehouse, purchasing at physical locations still makes up for the bulk of sales, at 55 per cent, said Genner.
4 ADULT COLOURING BOOKS Were among the Top 10 best-sellers in 2015
While adult colouring books have been around for decades, the product saw a surge in sales last year.
Four of the Top 10 best-sellers were adult colouring books (three of which were created by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford).
“We’ve never seen that before,” said Genner. “It was a large and unforeseen boom in adult colouring book sales in the Canadian market.”
The colouring books aren’t sold in digital either, so it likely helped push the increase in printed sales as well, he added.
According to Genner, “Books are a big gift thing,” so he suspects a lot of the colouring books were often given to friends and family as a way to provide a “break from their digital lives.”
The No. 1 bestseller in 2015 was Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train.
17,000 TITLES Available at new Indigospirit store
Vancouver’s new Indigospirit store is scheduled to open on Friday at 810/816 Granville St. The new store boasts more than 17,000 titles, along with the usual assortment of gifts, stationery, office accessories and baby products. However, the location is only 5,000 square feet, so Indigo Books & Music is still looking for “the perfect location for a large format Indigo store in downtown Vancouver,” according to a news release. While it seems like the book industry is struggling, Genner insists it’s not as stark as it looks.
“We haven’t seen a huge die-off in book retail — there has been some, but it hasn’t been like it was in the U.S.,” he said, referring to the closure of Borders, one of the largest bookstores in the U.S.
He also noted that while some of Canada’s independent book stores have shut down — mostly in cities with high rent costs, like Toronto and Vancouver — many others have stood strong, again unlike the U.S.