CanCult.ca

I think Dean Cooke says it best: “No matter how large or small the agency in Canada, none of us have this kind of leverage here.”

The Conservatives are asking for public input they can ignore regarding Canada’s publishing industry.

Mike Bryan, formerly of Penguin India.

Plans to offer in-house photo studios and sell more drink coasters.

The Globe and the Post report all parties have reached a deal in the Curious Incident of the Penguin in the Sex Scandal.

That’s right — a new indie bookstore has opened in Vancouver. Take that… uh, landlords who charge too much rent?

Just a couple of blocks away from the now closed Duthie Books, Sitka Books & Art is getting ready to open its doors as Vancouver’s newest and largest independent bookstore.

Ria Bleumer, who managed Duthie’s for 16 years, is the force behind this new venture. Once she got word that Duthie’s would no longer be in business, Bleumer was quick to seize the opportunity and with the help of her business partner Karel Carnohan, Sitka was born.

Over at the Walrus, Stacey May Fowles has a piece called Drinking With Men Who Are Not Russell Smith, which is a response to Russell Smith’s column about sex in publishing, which is a response to the David Davidar scandal. And I don’t even want to think about what that is a response to.

Over a recent (pre-Davidar case) pint with an extremely virile writer friend, we discussed this very quandary. That we forgive the culture, the errant behaviour of writers, the highly inappropriate workplace, the playtime discussions, because we’re programmed from a young age to believe “that’s just the way writers are.” That the artistic temperament is a free pass to live outside the boundaries of self-control, and that it’s the price we pay for loving this culture we call “books.” In a rather inspiring, emphatic, drunken moment, he slammed his empty glass on the bar and rightly exclaimed that a writer had no authority to use clichés as an excuse for a rabid, insatiable appetite for debauchery, that such excuses for a lack of restraint were “bullshit.”

A pint later, he told me I had great tits.

Except Kathleen Winter.

If my books were carnivals then my editors are the carnies. They are the people who bark at me to set up the illusion’s structure; people without whom there would be no carnival at all. The Ferris wheel would lie in pieces on the stadium parking lot, and if by any chance it got set up and the carnival went ahead, everyone who bought tickets would fall off the ride because the bolts would come out and send everyone hurtling to the ground.

Ah, Sidney.

Last year, I was based in Sidney while exploring the surrounding Saanich Peninsula’s emerging foodie culture — nascent vineyards and cideries, family enterprises making handcrafted gin and raw chocolate. But I was also pleasantly surprised to discover Sidney’s other angle: Inspired by Hay-on-Wye, the medieval Welsh town known for its many secondhand and antiquarian bookstores, Sidney,  population 11,000, is a bibliophile’s paradise — with no fewer than 12 independent specialty bookstores. There are rare, collectible and bargain books, with topics ranging from military history to gardening. And, yes, there are enough Stieg Larssons to go around.

Apparently there’s not much action at all, aside from lecherous male authors hitting on publicists. Funny — when I lived in Toronto, all the stories I heard depicted the exact opposite scenario.

The Post’s Mark Medley talks to publishing insiders — are there any other types? — about the challenges facing Penguin Canada in the wake of David Davidar’s resignation and the sexual assault lawsuit filed against him and Penguin by former Penguin staffer Lisa Rundle.

Last week, Ivan Held arrived in Toronto to conduct a series of below-the-radar meetings with some of the city’s literary agents. Held, who is president of Penguin’s GP Putnam imprint, will be filling in for Penguin Canada publisher Nicole Winstanley when she goes on maternity leave in August. The plan is for him to continue to work out of his New York office, while working closely with his colleagues in Toronto.

“He made it sound like he was rather excited about the possibilities,” says agent Anne McDermid. “But it’s not quite the same thing as a Canadian being present on a daily basis, and I think he seemed to be aware of that.”

“We were able to ask some specific questions about, practically speaking, how this company was going to be run during this time of transition?” says Jackie Kaiser of Westwood Creative Artists.

Sigh.

Book lovers in Toronto are alarmed by the bailiff’s notice posted on the door of iconic Toronto bookseller This Ain’t the Rosedale Library Friday.

The bailiff’s notice alleges the popular independent Kensington Market bookseller owes its landlord $40,000 plus costs.

The latest instalment of Mark Medley’s Ecology of Books series at the Post looks at self-publishing, and how it’s never been more respectable — or profitable.

For writers who can’t find publishers, going it alone has long been a last resort. Hundreds of thousands of authors self-publish each year (the Association of Canadian Publishers doesn’t keep track). But what was once called “vanity” publishing is seeing a pronounced up-tick these days that is threatening publishing’s longstanding business model. And why not: An author can now go from manuscript to book in a matter of minutes — easily and more lucratively than has hitherto been possible.

The publishing business is like musical chairs, isn’t it? And that was a strange game.