Booknet Canada

Talk to anyone in the book industry and they'll tell you, the winter holidays are the best but busiest time of year for book sales. We bring you the stats you need to know for the season and we talk to Rebecca Andoff of Type Books in Toronto for the retailer perspective. Resources mentioned in the podcast: When does holiday shopping begin: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/12/19/when-does-holiday-shopping-begin Think with Google: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-ca/consumer-insights/want-win-holiday-season-get-know-these-four-types-canadian-shoppers/ How and when to reach the 2018 holiday shopper: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/10/15/how-and-when-to-reach-the-2018-holiday-shopper Perennial holiday bestsellers: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/?tag=perennial+bestsellers RCC Holiday Shopping Survey 2018: https://www.retailcouncil.org/research/holiday-shopping-in-canada-survey-2018/ Canada Post 2018 Holiday Success Guide: https://www.retailcouncil.org/research/canada-post-2018-holiday-

It's been two eventful years since we published our last study on audiobook listening in Canada, so we're back with updated stats on consumer habits and preferences for 2018. We're also discussing recent work being done to support the expansion of audiobook production in Canada, including a new initiative between Audible and Ryerson University. You can read our study, Readers Are Listening: Audiobook Use in Canada 2018, for free in its entirety here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/readers-are-listening Other resources: - Livres Canada Books' The Global Audiobook Market report: https://livrescanadabooks.com/en/reports/digital-publishing/the-global-audiobook-market/ - Details on the partnership between Audible and Ryerson: https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/press-releases-pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/audible-and-ryerson-university-announce-a-collaboration-to-develop-new-facilities-and-programming-in-audio-entertainment - eBOUND Canada: https://www.eboundcanada.org

This month we're talking about book clubs. But not the kind where you pretend to read the books and just drink wine – real book clubs. We're bringing you some stats on Canadian book clubs: who's in them, how they find their books, and more. We also take a look at the popularity of celebrity book clubs. And lastly we talk to Randy Chan, senior marketing manager at Harlequin, who talks to us about the importance of book clubs to publishers and how they find and reach out to them. To see the transcript of the episode and links to further reading see our blog post: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/9/28/the-first-rule-of-book-club-is-tell-us-all-about-your-book-club

From drag queens to Netflix to registered therapy dogs to power tools, Canada's libraries offer patrons more than just books. In this month's episode, Athena McQueen tells us about her involvement with Drag Queen Story Time, and OLA's Michelle Arbuckle talks about the importance of libraries and community outreach programs. Plus Elizabeth Barker and Monique Mongeon share a little bit about BookNet's various library projects. To find out more about Athena McQueen's upcoming events, visit her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theathenamcqueen/ The Drag Queen Storytime article that we mentioned, featuring Michelle and her daughter Simone, can be found here: https://torontolife.com/culture/books/inside-drag-queen-storytime-toronto-librarys-fiercest-kids-reading-series/ Finally, don't forget to check out OLA's Library Land Loves podcast: http://librarylandloves.libsyn.com/ Loan Stars: https://www.loanstars.ca/ SalesData for Libraries: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/salesdata-for-libraries

As part of his mission to make sure artists are financially supported, Toronto-based fundraising consultant Rahim Ladha has taken it upon himself to fund and award three new cash prizes for underrepresented writers in Canada, ranging from BIPOC writing poetry to non-binary illustrators working in SFF. In this month's episode, we talk to Rahim about his intentions for the monthly/quarterly awards, how it's going so far, and his plans for growing the program. Full details on the Spark, Nova, and Echo awards, including eligibility and how to get in touch with Rahim, can be found at https://shootforthemoon.art. The 'racism in CanLit' article that Rahim mentions in the episode can be found at http://yilinwang.com/racism-in-canlit.

In our latest research study, we asked publishers about their digital publishing programs, from audio production to use of EPUB 3. We're sharing some highlights from the report in this month's episode. We also expand on recent trends in digital audiobooks and stress the importance of providing accessible content for libraries. Here are the links that we mention in the episode: The State of Digital Publishing in Canada 2017: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/state-of-digital-publishing BISG's Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing: https://bisg.org/store/ViewProduct.aspx?id=6972996 Loan Stars: https://www.loanstars.ca Let's Sell Some Books TinyLetter: https://tinyletter.com/BookNet_Canada PubFight: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/pubfight

How big is the book piracy issue, who's pirating them, and why? We answer these questions, offer other (legal!) ways of getting free books, and talk with Canadian publisher ECW about how the industry is (or isn't) fighting back against book theft. Visit our blog for all the show notes, including sources and further reading: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/5/28/podcast-batten-down-the-hatches-how-were-combatting-book-piracy

This month we're looking back at our biggest book-publishing-meets-technology conference ever. From March 21-23, 2018, hundreds of professionals from across the industry, from ebook developers to librarians, converged in Toronto for Tech Forum and ebookcraft to share, learn, and debate the future of the industry. We've put together a highlight reel from some of our favourite talks (though they were all amazing), with insights on topics like metadata for ebooks, how retailers are bridging the digital divide, some great moments from our women in publishing panel, and lots more. Talks highlighted: 1:00 - Dave Cramer (Hachette), "Jiminy and Dave's Excellent CSS Adventure" 2:30 - Rose Donohoo (OverDrive), "Oh the Places Ebooks Go! An ebook's journey from creation to circulation" 3:30 - Noah Genner (BookNet Canada), "How We Read Digitally: ebookcraft 2018 research study" 4:25 - Monique Mongeon (BookNet Canada), "How We Read Digitally: ebookcraft 2018 research study" 5:12 - Ellen Ullman (Life in Code), "Ellen Ullm

From the archives: While still in her undergrad at Dartmouth College, Kaya Thomas developed her first app: We Read Too, a book resource application that showcases a directory of hundreds of children's and young adult fiction books written by and for people of colour, which contains over 600 books and has over 4,000 downloads. Kaya has held software engineering internships at Time Inc. and Intuit working on mobile applications. She was a CODE2040 2015 Fellow and is a technical volunteer mentor for Black Girls Code. For her work in education and technology, Kaya was honoured by Michelle Obama at the 2015 Black Girls Rock Awards. She joins us to talk about her favourite books, breaking into coding, and diversifying the publishing industry.

In this presentation from last year's ebookcraft conference in Toronto, Amanda Karby from Michigan Publishing Services and Kristin Waites from The MIT Press shared the 7 milestones on their roadmap for accessibility, complete with details and examples from their own journeys putting those steps into action at their respective presses. From task forces to audits, they've got practical steps you can start taking today to make sure you're on the road towards producing accessible ebooks. Interested in this year's ebookcraft conference on March 21-22 in Toronto? Learn more and get tickets: http://ebookcraft.booknetcanada.ca

Nastaran Bisheban, VP of Global Technology Delivery at Kobo, talks about their recently-launched audiobook program, their first audiobook original, and their future plans for audio content. And we speak to Book*hug's Hazel Millar about their record label that pairs authors with recording artists, Chaos & Star. Curious about some of the articles we reference? Find them here: LiveMint: http://www.livemint.com/Companies/lObJNigyM1uKpaUB9V0dPJ/Audiobooks-could-be-the-next-big-thing-says-Penguin-Random.html APA stats: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/73917-audiobooks-posted-double-digit-gains-in-sales-output.html Quartz: https://qz.com/1190281/google-and-apple-are-trying-to-lure-ebook-and-audiobook-readers-away-from-amazon/ TechRadar: http://www.techradar.com/news/youll-soon-be-able-to-buy-ebooks-and-audiobooks-in-walmart Chaos & Star: https://bookthug.ca/chaos-and-star-records/ TF: http://techforum.booknetcanada.ca/sessions/the-future-will-not-be-silent-audio-fi

We're nearing the end of the year and, like pretty much everyone else, feeling reflective about the past 12 months. And since we're BookNet, that includes how the past year has shaped up in terms of the Canadian book market. So this month we have BookNet president and CEO, Noah Genner, as our guest to chat about the state of the market, the biggest books of the year, the biggest shakeups in the industry, what we can expect for next year, and, of course, lots about Margaret Atwood. Our free webinar on bibliographic standards will be held on Jan. 16 at 1 p.m. ET. Find more info and register here: https://goo.gl/BxvSHv

This month we're talking with Léonicka Valcius about how to interrogate and rethink in-house processes and assumptions when publishing diverse books, including acquisitions, audience identification, setting priorities, and building in-house excitement. Learn more about this topic at Tech Forum 2018: the largest tech-focused professional development event in the Canadian publishing industry. http://techforum.booknetcanada.ca/

Murder, organized crime, and....well, more murder. This month's episode is all about true crime, from recent bestsellers to the evolution of the genre. Featuring authors Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon and Peter Edwards, plus BookNet's Monique Mongeon. Curious about some of the articles we reference? Find them here: NYT: Investigation Discovery Network Makes Crime Pay(https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/business/media/investigation-discovery-network-makes-crime-pay.html) Slate: The True Crime Memoir (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2017/08/the_true_crime_memoir_when_mfa_grads_and_literary_aspirants_write_true_crime.html) Time: Murder shows — The New Soap Opera for Women? (http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/13/why-women-love-murder-shows/) The Hairpin: Why are Women Obsessed with True Crime (https://www.thehairpin.com/2017/05/why-are-women-obsessed-with-true-crime/) Buzzfeed: Scaachi Koul on why being "polite" often gets women killed (https://www.buzzfeed.com/scaachikoul/whats-your-favorite-murder) The Atlantic: How

Second Story Press is serious about keywords. Allie Chenoweth, Marketing & Promotions Coordinator, joins us to talk about their approach on this month's podcast. Links: Demystifying the Inner Workings of Amazon Keywords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaZ6xIuRnc Google Ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams

To help distract us from all our Game of Thrones feelings, we sat down with Evan Munday, children's author and Community Manager at TYPE Books, to discuss the influence of television adaptations on book buying habits of their viewers. Are viewers inclined to head towards bookstores after watching their favourite series? Do television tie-in covers matter? We talk stats, shows, and lots more. Find more details (and fun graphs!) at www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/8/29/page-to-television-a-study-of-adaptations.

To help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, we sat down with Sue Carter, Editor-in-Chief at Quill & Quire, Canada's magazine for the book publishing industry, to talk about the current state of the publishing landscape and what challenges we're facing. We also discuss some statistics from our most recent research reports, including what book buyers think of Canadian books and who the most well known Canadian author is. And, of course, we speculate on what the book industry might look like in another 50 years.

Micah Bowers, Founder and CEO of Bluefire, was a speaker at ebookcraft 2017. His talk, titled Ebook Apps from the Inside Out, is an exploration of the past, present, and future evolution of ebook reading applications and how that impacts and informs the art and craft of creating ebooks. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

There has lately been a huge surge in demand for audiobooks. This spike has largely been driven by the digital disruption that not only changes how listeners discover audiobooks, but also how they listen to, create, and purchase them. As part of BookNet Canada's Tech Forum 2017 conference, we invited a panel of industry professionals to talk about the audiobook landscape including current trends and future opportunities. Watch the video of this panel here: https://booknetcanada.wistia.com/medias/5amsjka062 Find the slides from Noah Genner's consumer data presentation here: https://www.slideshare.net/booknetcanada/audiobooks-and-the-sound-of-sales-noah-genner-tech-forum-2017

In this panel from Tech Forum 2017, panelists Léonicka Valcius, John Toews, and Tan light discuss how to effectively market and sell diverse book lists. This discussion goes beyond championing diverse books because it's the latest trend to acknowledging it as a business priority. They tackle how to identify the right tools and strategies to get diverse books into the hands of readers, while addressing the obstacles and assumptions that stand in the way of that goal.