News

If Canadian publishers have a particularly fervent wish for 2009, it's likely embodied in the words “stability” and “clarity.” Last year was a rough one for the industry, highlighted by the loonie's wacky pas de deux with the U.S. greenback. On Jan. 3, 2008, the Canadian dollar was pegged at $1.01 cents (U.S.). Earlier this week, it was closing at 82 cents – an almost 20-per-cent drop in less than 12 months.

Canadian publishers will “happily” take a buck valued at 80 cents (U.S.). After all, prior to the spike that started in fall 2007, a soft dollar was something they had grown accustomed to. But they'd like it to stay that way, more or less, for the duration of 2009. If there's a blessing to a recession, it may be a becalmed, devalued dollar allowing publishers some consistency in their pricing, not only for international titles but Canadian-authored books as well.

If the loonie remains below par, look, in particular, for the suggested list price of most U.S.-originated hardcover titles to bump past the $30 threshold here. This will be most noticeable in the last half of the year. Look, too, for increased sales of the Sony Reader (so far the only dedicated e-book available in Canada) as more consumers decide it's prudent to spend $300 on a device capable of accessing thousands of on-line titles at home, cheaply and paper-free.

South of the border, the final quarter of 2008 was marked by ferocious belt-tightening in all sectors of the publishing industry. Expect to see some of that here in the next 12 months – “that” being layoffs, consolidations, store closures, streamlined publishing lists, authors scoring smaller advances than they would have in, say, 2006, and wage freezes.

At the same time, writers will continue to write, recession or not. Lest we forget, The Maltese Falcon, The Grapes of Wrath, Such Is my Beloved, The Waves and Tender Is the Night were all were published in the years of the Great Depression. Strictly from a literary perspective, 2009 already looks to be a winner. Margaret Atwood is releasing her first novel in six years. Alice Munro, meanwhile, appears to have renounced a 2006 “pledge” to forsake short fiction as her publisher is set to issue a new story collection in the fall. Anne Michaels also is back with a novel, The Winter Vault, her first since Fugitive Pieces rose to international prominence in 1996.