BookExpo Canada, which had been scheduled for June 19-22 in Toronto, has been canceled by Reed Exhibitions. According to the Globe and Mail, the cancellation "comes after three of Canada's four major publishers said they were pulling out this year. Random House Canada was the first to leave, followed by Penguin Canada and HarperCollins Canada. Only Simon & Schuster Canada said it would take part in the trade show."
The Toronto Book Fair has also been canceled, its fate sealed when Reed "announced the new consumer fair for the fall and was again rebuffed by Random House and Penguin," the Globe and Mail commented.
In a statement, Reed said the company's "focus on the publishing industry now centers on our event in New York [BookExpo America, May 28-31] and we look forward to serving the needs of our customers in North America most effectively with a singular event."
The Globe and Mail wrote that the "consensus among the major publishers was that BookExpo Canada had lost its relevance. It was originally designed to allow publishers to meet booksellers from across the country and sell their upcoming releases. But with the advent of Indigo/Chapters, which sells more than half the books in the country, paying Reed to attend an event to meet independent bookstore owners stopped being worth it."
But Sarah MacLachlan, president of House of Anansi Press, countered that for smaller, independent publishers, the show will be missed. "It makes me sad," she said. "BookExpo was a real opportunity for an independent Canadian press like ours to meet with booksellers from across the country. . . . BookExpo served a vital purpose to the independent booksellers and publishers alike, but was less useful to the bigger multi-national publishers and the biggest bookstore chain in the country, Indigo. I hope that the Canadian Booksellers Association will now take the opportunity to mount a new trade fair, a more scaled down version more suitable to the size of the market. We don't need to meet in a convention centre, but I do think that it's vital for us to have some sort of national gathering."
Kim McArthur, president and publisher of McArthur and Co., also expressed regret, but suggested an alternative: "Here's an ideal substitute for BEC, though. . . . I've just returned from the ABA Winter Institute in Salt Lake City, where I was signing up a new U.S. publisher (Unbridled Books). The Winter Institute was really impressive--two days of educational seminars for booksellers, a keynote breakfast with industry leaders (Morgan Entrekin of Grove Atlantic, Bob Miller of HarperStudio, Nan Graham of Scribner). [See Shelf Awareness coverage of that panel below.] Participating publishers (all sizes, from the smallest indie to the largest multinational) also had two rounds of 'speed dating' (pitching their spring lists to the 500 booksellers in attendance, going from table to table where the booksellers were sitting).
"Also very impressed by the Author Reception from 6-8 p.m. on Friday night where each participating publisher was allowed to bring two authors to meet the booksellers and sign galleys for them, as we did at BEC. Each participating publisher could also send up to four galleys or advance reading copies to be stored and picked up by booksellers in the galley room. It was terrific. There were a number of Canadian booksellers in Salt Lake City, too . . . and they all thought the idea of a Summer Institute in June in Toronto was an excellent one. . . . A fraction of the cost, at the right time of year, and all publishers (Canadian and multinational) could participate. I'm all for it, and we still have time to organize it."