PING!
Posted on 11/08/2006 10:38:26 AM PST by GMMAC
Ignoring Canada's conservative readers
Barbara Kay
National Post
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
MONTREAL - Pity Sorya Ingrid Gaulin. Her role as VP of Public Relations at Indigo Books and Music demanded she confront the wrathful public face of North America's most formidable conservative tiger, Mark Steyn. In a November 4 letter to the National Post, she rebutted Steyn's "ludicrous" claim in Maclean's that Indigo deliberately under-ordered copies of his new, widely heralded book, America Alone: The End of the World as we Know it. Gaulin admits there are none available at the moment, but claims Steyn already knew more copies were on order. Steyn, however, asserts that his publishers had warned Chapters that its initial order was woefully inadequate to meet the (correctly) predicted huge demand.
Gaulin's wounded tone may reflect Indigo's innocence in this particular affair. But from my observation of Indigo/Chapters stores' promotional tables (ongoing, monotonous Bush-whacking, just as Steyn notes), I find the tiger's' irritable growl understandable.
Indigo isn't biased against Steyn in particular. They don't stock many -- and certainly don't promote any -- conservative books. America Alone is published by Regnery, America's premier conservative press. Other books on Regnery's 2006 list you're unlikely to see on Indigo's front tables: The President, The Pope and the Prime Minister, by John O'Sullivan (a paean to Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher); Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, by David Horowitz; Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should know, by Meg Meeker; or any of their Politically Incorrect Guides -- to Women, Sex and Feminism/American History/Islam (and the Crusades)/English and American Literature.
Margie Ross, president of Regnery Press, has pretty well given up on our country. Even though Regnery's sales rep here is "indefatigable," Ross emphasized in a telephone interview, "Our experience meeting with sales reps from Canada has confirmed that there is not a conservative alive in the book business in Canada."
Conservative books are a tough institutional sell everywhere. A library-dependent Toronto reader wrote me, "It is frustrating to find that conservative books [in libraries] now require special pleading or determined searching." My curiosity piqued by her exasperation, I keyed "Regnery Publishing" into an electronic search of selected public library catalogues across Canada. Some less than encouraging results: Toronto -- 16; Vancouver -- 12; Calgary -- 7.
I visited my local Westmount library, which caters to a highly educated demographic. Lots of liberal anti-Americanism, a tiny paucity of conservative texts. Its director tells me her purchases are guided by reviews in library journals, as well as those in The Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement and the Times of London, all centre-left to far-left publications. Moreover, there is no "equity" Canadian magazine policy in their reading room. The Westmount Library stocks the Walrus, but the director had never heard of, let alone considered subscribing to, the Western Standard magazine.
But should we be surprised? Librarians are extremely liberal and, thanks to our tax dollars, insulated from their consumers' preferences. Much was made in the 2004 presidential election of the 11-1 ratio of university professors' donations to Kerry's campaign over Bush's. Compared to librarians, however, academics are Rush Limbaugh's fan club, for the Kerry-Bush ratio of librarians' donations was a stunning 223-1.
Are Canadian librarians less ideologically monolithic than their U.S. colleagues? Not on the evidence. At the Toronto Public Library (TPL), Canada's largest, The Bush-Haters Handbook is readily available, but not Steyn's The Face of the Tiger, which, by the way, is not carried in the public libraries of Winnipeg, Montreal or Fredericton, or in the university libraries of Toronto, British Columbia and McGill.
As of this writing, I'm informed that Steyn's America Alone is on order at the TPL, so there is another small victory for Regnery Publishing. Michael Moore's Dude Where's My Country and Stupid White Men can be found in every major library in Canada (including universities); David Horowitz' Left Illusions is in two.
The Ontario Library Association's "Hippocratic oath," i.e. their mandate concerning "The Intellectual Rights of the Individual" includes "the freedom to examine other ideas and other interpretations of life than those currently approved by the local community or by society in general, and including those ideas and interpretations which may be unconventional or unpopular."
At present this lofty ideal seems to be honoured more in the breach than the observance. As for bricks-and-mortar book stores. I, for one, ordered my copy of America Alone (autographed!) directly from SteynOnline.com. Ms. Gaulin may be interested to find out how many other Canadians do likewise.
bkay@videotron.ca
PING!
Wasn't "America Alone" #1 in Canada as well? Amazing how high his sales would be if they stocked it.
These are American figures, and Canada is probably worse. Stunning indeed.
After the talk, when I went up to get my copy of his book signed, I told him that my mother and I were librarians, my brother was an attorney and my father was a college professor...and we're all Republicans. Obviously, we are the exceptions that prove the rule.
I don't know if it is still the case, but under NAFTA exceptions granted to Canada, it was illegal for an American to own a book publishing or distribution company in Canada.
If you've ever noted the difference between the U.S. & Canadian list prices pre-printed on many books, you'll have seen it's considerably more than the exchange rate on our respective dollars.
Plus, Ms. Reisman sells a heck of a lot of her books at full pop &, even when she doesn't, a discount in excess of 30% is pretty much unheard of other than on very old stock being remaindered out.
I've bought conservative books Stateside via the Internet which, aside from providing me with the satisfaction of not dealing with the monopolistic Indigo empire, still ended up 15-20% cheaper even after factoring in the shipping & exchange.
When my oldest children were small, I had a Blackwell's catalogue from the famous bookshop in Cambridge, England, and I used to order large Care Packages of books from them for the children to read--E. Nesbit, C. S. Lewis, and so on. The prices were outstanding because of the exchange rate, about half what the books cost here, although typically you had to wait 6 to 8 weeks for the books to arrive via freighter.
Yes, now I order most of my books through the internet--Amazon, Abe Books, Half.ebay.com, etc. You can find excellent prices, and get free shipping from Amazon.
I would think that Canadians would take advantage of that, especially given the bookseller bias you mention. Amazon is not conservative, but they seem to be surprisingly neutral compared to their rivals.
I'm not a librarian, but I'm certainly a book lover. And I've never been a liberal.
There's no reason I can see why librarians should be liberal, but it seems to have gravitated that way for some reason. Maybe the MA programs in Library Science have acted as filters, like the journalism schools?
It's a lot like academia. It attracts leftists. Very scary leftists.
Strangely enough GMMAC I was able to get Bill O'Reilly's book Culture Warrior at my Kelowna Chapters store. And during the Peterson trial I bought pretty much all the major books on that case (that, of course isn't a Conservative issue). But, the sticker prices were shocking indeed!!
We need Stephen to change this NONSENSE!! CO
LOL I'm married to a very true blue Conservative Lawyer too!! I guess we are the exceptions.
Amazon may have an agenda, but you wouldn't know it from their inventory. I buy most of my conservative books there, and they are always in stock. Given how well conservative books do on Amazon, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot not to carry materials the right-wing wants to read.
My local library will buy books you request, if they're not in stock.
So I requested Ann Coulter's Treason...which the library bought--probably the only copy in the entire province of Quebec, LOL!
*moving into John Kerry's down-home slang mode* "I just might take me a hankering to the new Mark Steyn book. Anybody knows where I can get me a copy?"
LOL! :)
Exactly!! We continue to get screwed here don't we??
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