Canadian booksellers shouldn’t fight Amazon’s Canadian expansion plans.

About 15 years ago, when I was an editor at a small children’s book publishing company, the Canadian bookselling market was a very different place. There was more than one national chain, there was no Amazon, and the publishing landscape was more diverse. It seems like a lifetime ago.

And then Borders, a giant American chain, started sniffing around Toronto with the eventual aim of perhaps setting up another national chain. But the cultural nationalists got up in arms over this foreign incursion and the protectionists in the book industry quickly hid in the warm embrace of the nationalists’ blanket. The result was that Borders never crossed the border. Too bad. At the time, I remember thinking if any American chain was going to make the leap, Borders was the best bet. It was well run, had a certain amount of sympathy for small publishers, and did its buying in a smart, responsible manner.

In the aftermath of the Borders retreat came the consolidation of Chapters and Smithbooks. Then Indigo came onto the scene (Heather Reisman was initially to be the Canadian investor in Borders’ northern experiment) and swallowed up Chapters/Smithbooks, resulting in a virtual monopoly on Canada’s bookselling landscape. How was this better than allowing Borders to venture north?

Let me tell you a little something about the bookselling business: It is archaic in the worst sense of the word. Booksellers basically purchase the books you see in the store on consignment. They don’t pay for them until you buy them. If the book languishes on the shelves (or in the warehouse) long enough, the bookseller simply returns them to the publisher.

Yes, that’s how it works, even today. And any publisher in this country with a long enough memory will tell you that Chapters has long been one of the most irresponsible buyers of books in this country. Their returns are legion and their own flirtation with bankruptcy (before Indigo came in and saved the brand) resulted in the bankruptcy of numerous Canadian publishers.

Indigo’s buying patterns aren’t much better. They overbuy to ensure their stores are fully stocked and then publishers must endure massive returns six months down the road. (This doesn’t hold true for bestsellers, obviously.)

Naturally, the introduction of e-bookstores has changed the dynamic of the book industry. Because Amazon doesn’t invest in “bricks and mortar” (save for their warehouses) and because their system has been digitized from the start, they have managed to alter the economics of bookselling.

Now, booksellers, including (oh, the irony) Indigo are appealing to Ottawa to stop Amazon’s plans to build warehouses in Canada. And once again, they are hiding under the guise of cultural nationalism to make their case.

Amazon.ca has been an exemplary player in the Canadian book industry. Yes, we have fewer bookstores now. Independents, the heart and soul of the industry, are closing at an alarming rate. But overall buying habits are changing as well. Booksellers are hardly alone in falling victim to an evolution in how the public shops. (Been to a record store lately?)

The Canadian bookselling industry seems to have learned nothing from their last bout of protectionism. Before running to Ottawa, they should consider all of the consequences of getting what they wish for.