Chapters/Indigo and CAIA

[bcholmes]

I'm not generally a fan of confrontational interview tactics, but when one half of the discussion just avoids participating in debate, it's hard for me to disapprove.

I've picked up some of the key points about the Chapters/Indigo boycott by osmosis while hanging out with Haiti activists. There are relationships between the group I hang out in and the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. I don't feel sufficiently well-enough informed to have an opinion on the boycott, though.

For non-Canadians, Chapters/Indigo is by far the largest book seller in Canada, and (in Toronto at least) it's hard to find a non-specialty bookstore that isn't either a Chapters or Indigo store.

Comments

[shara.livejournal.com]

They own Coles too... y'know, in case anyone feels like thoroughly boycotting them. *ahem*

Not that I side with CAIA (I don't know enough about the whole thing), but as an employee of an independent book store, any action that keeps us in business is okay action with me.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Are there still stores that carry the Coles name?

[shara.livejournal.com]

Yep!

They use it for stores below a certain size - it's sortof the "boutique" version of Chapters. There is a Coles in the Beaches, for example... and I think the one in Scarborough Town Centre is still Coles. I gather a lot of the mall stores are Coles, because they're little. :)

[sabotabby]

There are a few good reasons I can see to boycott Chindigo. The first is CAIA's—Heather Reisman and her husband whose name I always forget founded Heseg, the lone soldiers' fund, which sponsors non-Israelis who join the IDF. So profits from Chindigo go to killing Palestinians, basically.

Also, Chindigo is evil from a publishing industry perspective. It bankrupted a lot of independent bookstores and most Canadian publishers. In most other industries, a store buys a certain number of goods, based on what it can sell, and if it can't sell them, tough cookies, but the supplier isn't forced to take them back. That's the way all bookstores used to work, but Chindigo changed the model and because of its size, was able to demand deep discounts from the publishers and returned books that it couldn't sell. This wrecked havoc through the industry and put a lot of people out of work.

The result? Fewer independent bookstores, a smaller market for non-bestselling books, and Reisman controls which books sell and which do not. It's creepy as all hell, and that's why I boycotted all the stores they owned even before I found out about Heseg.

But it's shitty, because when you're a bookish sort of person, people are always giving you Chindigo gift certificates. I guess you can just use them to buy Edward Said books or something.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

we have bookcity! they are open late, and are pretty awesome :)