Toronto Bookstores and Inspire’s Dreams
Conventionsbookstores / conference / independent bookstores / used bookstores11 Comments
In September I received an email inviting me to attend the Inspire book Festival. Unlike book Expo America which is directed toward the trade such as booksellers, librarians and others who are in the business of selling books or intellectual property, Inspire is a consumer oriented book event designed to bring authors, books, and readers together.
The hope is to turn Inspire into a TIFF for books. Held in November, it is positioned to capture a holiday buying crowd. But before I get to Inspire, let me start with the city of Toronto and how kind they’ve been to the invited bloggers. Tourism Toronto in conjunction with Inspire arranged for about seven of us to be flown in from all over the world:
- Thea and Ana (UK) from The Booksmugglers
- Liz (Dublin) from Strange Horizons
- MaryAnne and her daughter, Gabby, (Canada) from Chapter by Chapter
- Myself (US)
We also met up with local bloggers:
- Michele from Just a Lil Lost
- Wendy, the Cupcake Queen
- Ardo, A. A. Omer
- Chandra, Dreaming in Red
They put us up at the Renaissance Hotel at 1 Blue Jays Way. (I was told Wayne Gretsky lobbied hard to have this portion of the street renamed to celebrate the Blue Jays after they’d won the World Series). The Renaissance is part of the Marriott hotel chain and I’ve actually stayed in the New York Times Square Renaissance. Dominique, Director of Sales & Marketing, shared that the Renaissance chain is comprised of lifestyle hotels and each hotel attempts to serve locally sourced food and give you a cultural taste of the city in which the hotel is based.
So this particular hotel is attached, literally, to the baseball park. Some of the rooms overlook the baseball dome. I joked with someone at Harlequin that it sounds like the basis for some erotic romance–they’re enjoying their bedroom time with the curtains open, watching the baseball game whilst the fans can peer inside. Sorry for the potato quality photo. I’m a terrible photographer. Trust me, it’s quite an amazing sight.
Tourism Canada arranged for us to take a tour of several independent bookstores based on a Washing Post article written by travel writer Michael Kaminer. There were some wonderful stories. Book City, for example, is owned by a fourth generation bookseller. The original family member was a bookstore owner in Holland, immigrated to Canada and has four stores in the city. Ten Editions is run by the daughter of a woman who had ten kids and decided to open her own bookstore years ago. Bakka Phoenix (more on this later) has several famous authors who have manned the register including Tanya Huff, Michelle Sagara, and Cory Doctorow. They recently had a display that said you don’t have to work at Bakka Phoenix to be a novelist, but it doesn’t hurt.
There was Caversham Booksellers which specialized solely on mental health issues. BMV which is now the largest bookstore in Canada, Willow Books (located right by the shoe museum which I haven’t seen) which specializes in an eclectic mix of literature, used and rare books. The final bookstore we went to was Seekers Books owned by Tony, no last name, who was a psychology major, lapsed Catholic but believed in spiritualism. He was fascinating and has the philosophy that the right book will find you when you browse.
All of the owners were interesting book loving people. But…
I couldn’t help but feel marginalized. I think the sum total of romance books I saw in all of these stores was less than ten. Granted some were very niche such as Caversham and Bakka Phoenix but the BMV flagship store had nearly every subgenre imaginable and six! shelving units devoted to war books. Romance is so small it doesn’t warrant an entry on the directory and occupied about two and a half shelving units.
What I found particularly odd in the used bookstores was that there was plenty of old, kitschy pulp fiction for men but no romances. These were bookstores that clearly didn’t include me as a reader and I felt out of place. BMV had a whole floor devoted to comics and manga (and I bought my daughter the latest Avatar graphic novel at BMV and an endangered species book at Seekers and two fantasy books at Bakka Phoenix) but only a tiny, not worth mentioning, romance section.
Now there’s no money in romance books these days. Print runs are down. The margins on paperbacks are thinner than the paper the words are printed on, but at one time, romance readers bought a ton of print books. It’s so sad to see our genre marginalized–however unintentionally–by these bookstores.
I don’t want to imply that these bookstore owners aren’t wonderful people and that their bookstores aren’t lovely. They are. But they are also, perhaps unintentionally, excluding a huge portion of readers. I remember Courtney Milan pointing out once that romance readers aren’t just buyers of romance books but of all books.
When I grew up, I was one of only two minorities in my home town. My brother was the other. There’s something affirming about seeing people that look like you on the street which was (and to some extent still is) a very abnormal occurrence. There’s a bit of othering that goes on in these stores. You don’t see your reader self in any of the books on the shelf. It’s as if the romance genre doesn’t exist in the “real” book world. I feel bad about complaining about this as the tour was lovely, our tour guide Michael was tremendous and everyone was so kind but the lack of representation was so keen and this is a romance blog, I couldn’t help but mention it.
That said, something truly wonderful happened at the Bakka Phoenix bookstore. As we were leaving, a customer had come in. He’d asked what the group was that was exiting the store and the owner shared it was a bunch of bloggers who had come to attend Inspire. He mentioned something about the Booksmugglers.
Ana was still in the store and I was holding the door. I whipped my head around and said, “Did you say The Booksmugglers?”
He nodded.
I cried, “They’re right here.”
He was elated and said, “Is Liz Bourke here?”
“Yes!”
And we ushered Liz back into the store. What a serendipitous moment!
What about Inspire? Well, I think it’s really quite nice. In Toronto it was a professional services day for the teachers and therefore the children were available to come to the festival. The creators of the festival had a children’s stage with big names such as Dav Pilkey, Jeff Kinney, actress Meg Tilly reading stories.
One of the highlights of the book fair is the indigenous authors/books section labeled First Nations, Metis, and Inuit Literary Circle. I ran into Molly O’Keefe and she shared that this section made her quite proud of both the festival. One of the authors was a children’s author who shared stories taught to him by his grandmother. As the storyteller creates images with his words, his hands create images out of string–a dog and a dog sled, foxes running away, eagles flying. This is not the storyteller but a decent representation of the type of display.
Dav Pilkey was another hit, according to O’Keefe. Pilkey is the author of the popular series “Captain Underpants” which I highly recommend. My daughter loves them. Not only are there underwear and toilet bowl jokes but it’s a story of friendship, bullying, social responsibility, and love. It’s really well done. Pilkey drew cartoons on the Children’s Stage and then challenged his young audience to guess the answers to quiz questions he posed. The winners received a cartoon drawing and a gift certificate. Apparently the children were going crazy over this.
The exhibit hall and the events stages were right next to each other in the same open space which I really liked. At other conferences, the exhibit hall is quite a distance away from where the panels take place. Here it is all on the main floor and easy to access and despite the foot traffic, fairly easy to hear each of the speakers. Some of the speaker stages were small and cozy and others were much larger. Tomorrow, authors like Sylvia Day, Debbie Macomber, Anne Rice, Margaret Atwood will be appearing.
Penguin Canada had these gorgeous Anne of Green Gables hardcovers that I bought for my daughter. Thea from The Booksmugglers pointed out there were books 1 through 5 and 7 but no 6 and 8. Is that not strange? Yes, it is.
The best exhibitor was Simon & Schuster Canada whose display was set up in little vignettes representing rooms in a house.
Again, I apologize for being a terrible photographer. Truthfully while I love my Samsung device, I took much better pictures with the iPhone. I think it does a better job of compensating for shaky, poor picture takers such as myself.
Tomorrow I return to visit with romance authors, listen to others on the main stage, see if there are any indigenous, First Nation romance books that don’t end tragically, and I will report back. If there’s anything in particular you’d like to know/see let me hear it in the comments.
I love Toronto so this was fun to read! I hope you have a little extra time to explore the city while you’re there.
Now I’m even more excited to be attending tomorrow. I’ll be hanging around the Toronto RWA booth and will look for you and other bloggers. It’s always good to meet up with romance people.
Inspire sounds great! So glad we finally have something like this in Toronto and that they’re being so welcoming. I hope you continue to enjoy your experience. Looking forward to hearing more about romance writers and their panel.
I agree with you 100% about being a romance reader here. When I first moved to Toronto, a friend and I made a list of bookstores (new & used) and spent the weekend visiting them around the city. I was shocked by how little romance was available. One UBS had two shelves of Nora Roberts books as their romance section. Nora is great, but that’s one author representing the entire genre. I mean, Harlequin is located here! Why isn’t romance more celebrated?
The only store I didn’t feel marginalized in as a romance reader was the World’s Biggest Bookstore. It was part of our Chapters/Indigo chain but it had so many back list titles, including out of print books. Any time I found a new author I liked, I could find their books there, and their fantasy and mystery sections were well-stocked too. They had books from Samhain and other smaller publishers. I would binge buy during their buy 3 get 1 free sales. The staff were great and would recommend authors/titles as well. Then the bookstore closed, and now my shopping is largely done online – ebooks are cheaper, buying books online means discounts not found in stores, older titles aren’t in stores, and honestly – the Indigo stores that are left are terrible at keeping their shelves stocked. Their records say they have the book in stock, but when I go in it’s always still in a box in the back and I should come back in a week to get it because it should be shelved by then. Why would I do that when I can order it online and have it the next day?
The other issue is with the publishers – we’re a small market on this side of the border so we’re not a priority. I e-mailed Indigo recently because Meljean Brook’s the Kraken King is not listed as a print title on their site & it’s 6-9 weeks delivery from Amazon.ca. Indigo informed me that the title is unavailable for them to order from the publisher. It is unknown if it will be available. We can order the e-book but for print we have to wait and see or order it from the U.S.. To put this in perspective for non-Canadians, Indigo is our only national bookstore chain, so if they can’t order a book from a publisher, I doubt the independent bookstores can.
I’ve been told by both Indigo and Amazon before that books aren’t available here on the release date because the publisher hasn’t sent them any copies. It has only been with romance titles that I have noticed this occurring. All of the Iron Seas novels in trade pb have been at unavailable in stores until at least 2 weeks after their pub date – I think Riveted was a month late. As a nerd who likes to read books on their release date, at one point I was keeping an availability spreadsheet to track if it was only certain publishers but it varied. If this is what it’s like in Canada’s largest city, I can’t imagine what it’s like for readers in rural areas.
We are really lucky that our public library system is awesome and has an excellent e-book selection of romance novels. The romance sections I’ve been to in various library branches have been well stocked, and at one point TPL had a romance writer in residence and various events around that that were great.
Ok, first things first, Gretzky – with a zed.
Secondly, growing up in the suburbs of Toronto I think I might be able to shed some light. Firstly, TO has a brilliant library system, long may it flourish. I was both a Romance and an SFF reader. I found that romance was very well served by both the library service and by mainstream book stores. In addition, even back then they had all those great subscription services that usually meant that used book stores were awash with a selection of romance books. SFF, not so much. Bakka was a revelation, there I could get all those books that just weren’t available in my local. Also, a big shout-out to the World’s Biggest Bookstore. I still remember writing my exams and the going there to buy Lois McMaster Bujold’s backlist to read through the summer.
There are only a few authors I still buy in print. But those I have to oder online. We only have a B&N near me and they have a teeny tiny romance section.
I have nowhere local to buy even the Harlequin print books any longer. Target quit carrying them and Walmart only carries HP and Inspirational.
I went mainly digital due to lack of shelf space. But if I hadn’t for that reason lack of availability would have forced me to anyway. It makes me sad. I miss Borders.
Thanks for sharing the pictures!
Ohhh, the Anne of Green Gables books are gorgeous! Gilbert is probably my first book crush. I wonder why not all the books were done?
I’m pretty sure that happened. It made the national news.
We lost a gem when World’s Biggest Bookstore closed it’s doors. It was also one of the few book stores in the city that would have romance signings… In the PATH system – which is kind of a huge underground walkway/shopping mall that connects many of the big office buildings downtown – there were COLES bookstores, which usually had better romance sections. But I’ve always thought the BEST romance book seller in the city is the coffee shop/magazine seller at the Yonge and Bloor subway stop. Huge selection almost all romance, but even that has gotten smaller these days
I guess they didn’t want to include the grown-up, romancey Anne books? Those are utterly gorgeous, though!
A reader’s convention sounds lovely, but I would be very sad without romance inclusion.
I love our local bookstores – there’s a Book City near me that is my main shopping location, and Bakka is wonderful – but they’re definitely not the place to go for romance. There was one used bookstore that had a huge selection of romance when it opened up, but I think that was just luck because of the stock they opened with, and they don’t carry much anymore. Luckily the Toronto Public Library is huge and has a ton of romance, both print and e-book.
It was such a pleasure to meet you this past weekend! I’m so glad you had a good time in Toronto.
Funny you mention the Harlequin possibility from those hotel rooms overlooking the baseball diamond. There have actually been stories (and photographic/visual evidence) of people having some fun while a game is on and people have caught it on camera!
I’m also glad Jenn (Lost in a Great Book) found you. I mentioned to her your comment about the lack of romance books/bookstores and she said there are some and would let you know! :)