Canadian Dollar Parity puts book prices under the microscope

by James Adams
From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Toronto

A bookstore traditionally has been regarded as one of the world's more civilized places of work and leisure. But with the aggressive rise of the value of our dollar against its U.S. counterpart, the Canadian bookshop has become a charged environment, perhaps even a dangerous one.
Book rage, anyone? As the Canadian dollar hit the $1.10 mark earlier this week, booksellers and publishers began to circulate stories of customers going beyond simply venting their dismay at hapless clerks and turning books into projectiles, sometimes to the point of drawing blood.

Ever since our dollar achieved exchange parity with the United States on Sept. 20, “books have been under the microscope,” notes Yvonne Hunter, director of marketing and publicity for Penguin Group, one of the country's biggest publishers. And the consumer hasn't liked what he's been seeing. His ire has focused on the discrepancy between what a Canadian pays for an imported, American-made book in this country and what an American consumer pays for that same title, with the two different prices printed right there on the book flap for all to see. The bookstore serves as the conduit for what publishing historian and novelist Roy MacSkimming calls “this predilection for feeling ripped-off. There's been an attack of sticker envy out there.”

The gap between the two prices printed on the inside flap of a U.S. book's dust jacket has been steadily narrowing in the last five years and drastically so in just the last three weeks as the industry heads into the critical holiday gift-buying season – a time that, in some years, has accounted for as much as 65 per cent of the industry's total annual revenue.

As one observer remarked earlier this week, “we're saying to the consumer, ‘Don't assume because the last time you went into a store and the prices hadn't been reduced that you should just give up on it and shop south [either by travelling to the U.S. or shopping on-line] or something like that.' ”

Or throw books. Susan Dayus, executive director of the Canadian Booksellers Association, heard of two “book rage” incidents recently, both occurring outside Toronto, one at an independent retailer. But she refrained from giving any more details, except to say that “it sure makes it tough for the front-line sales staff.”

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