BookNet Canada

In this month's episode, we talk about ISNI, the International Standard Name Identifier. It's an identifier with potential in the supply chain for your trading partners and as a marketing tool. Tom Richardson, Bibliographic Manager at BookNet Canada and Kendra Martin, Marketing Administrator at Dundurn Press (https://www.dundurn.com), join us to shed light on how ISNI is and isn't being used. (Fin...

Jennifer Baker of the Minorities in Publishing podcast interviews Jael Richardson, author, columnist, and founder of the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), on craft, publishing, and formulating equity within the literary community. This conversation was hosted live at Tech Forum on March 20, 2019. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2019/3/25/podcast-minorities-in-publ...

Here at BookNet, we've had children's titles on the mind since we opened up voting for our new Loan Stars Jr. list in November. The first Loan Stars Jr. list, consisting of Juvenile and Young Adult titles, will be released this March and while we're waiting to see what will make the inaugural list, there's been a lot of reflecting and bonding over memories of the books and library programs that le...

Our PubFight game came to an end at the beginning of January, so we wanted to interview our All-Star players to find out what strategies they employed, whether they were successful or not, what they learned, and apparently most importantly, how they felt about the trash talk. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2019/1/29/podcast-pubfight-all-stars-game-end-wrap-up) Further...

For our last episode of 2018, we share the bestselling Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Juvenile/YA books of the year, discuss some of the major award winners, give a rundown of the top 10 Loan Stars picks for the year, and look ahead to our projects for 2019. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/12/17/bestselling-books-of-2018-and-year-end-wrap-up) Further reading: Bestselli...

Talk to anyone in the book industry and they'll tell you, the winter holidays are the best but busiest time of year for book sales. We bring you the stats you need to know for the season and we talk to Rebecca Andoff of Type Books in Toronto for the retailer perspective. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/11/27/podcast-holiday-bookselling) Resources mentioned in the...

It's been two eventful years since we published our last study on audiobook listening in Canada, so we're back with updated stats on consumer habits and preferences for 2018. We're also discussing recent work being done to support the expansion of audiobook production in Canada, including a new initiative between Audible and Ryerson University. You can read our study, Readers Are Listening: Audiob...

This month we're talking about book clubs. But not the kind where you pretend to read the books and just drink wine – real book clubs. We're bringing you some stats on Canadian book clubs: who's in them, how they find their books, and more. We also take a look at the popularity of celebrity book clubs. And lastly we talk to Randy Chan, senior marketing manager at Harlequin, who talks to us about t...

From drag queens to Netflix to registered therapy dogs to power tools, Canada's libraries offer patrons more than just books. In this month's episode, Athena McQueen tells us about her involvement with Drag Queen Story Time, and OLA's Michelle Arbuckle talks about the importance of libraries and community outreach programs. Plus Elizabeth Barker and Monique Mongeon share a little bit about BookNet...

As part of his mission to make sure artists are financially supported, Toronto-based fundraising consultant Rahim Ladha has taken it upon himself to fund and award three new cash prizes for underrepresented writers in Canada, ranging from BIPOC writing poetry to non-binary illustrators working in SFF. In this month's episode, we talk to Rahim about his intentions for the monthly/quarterly awards,...

In our latest research study, we asked publishers about their digital publishing programs, from audio production to use of EPUB 3. We're sharing some highlights from the report in this month's episode. We also expand on recent trends in digital audiobooks and stress the importance of providing accessible content for libraries. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/6/28/...

How big is the book piracy issue, who's pirating them, and why? We answer these questions, offer other (legal!) ways of getting free books, and talk with Canadian publisher ECW about how the industry is (or isn't) fighting back against book theft. Visit our blog for all the show notes, including sources and further reading: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/5/28/podcast-batten-down-the-hatche...

This month we're looking back at our biggest book-publishing-meets-technology conference ever. From March 21-23, 2018, hundreds of professionals from across the industry, from ebook developers to librarians, converged in Toronto for Tech Forum and ebookcraft to share, learn, and debate the future of the industry. We've put together a highlight reel from some of our favourite talks (though they wer...

From the archives: While still in her undergrad at Dartmouth College, Kaya Thomas developed her first app: We Read Too, a book resource application that showcases a directory of hundreds of children's and young adult fiction books written by and for people of colour, which contains over 600 books and has over 4,000 downloads. Kaya has held software engineering internships at Time Inc. and Intuit w...

In this presentation from last year's ebookcraft conference in Toronto, Amanda Karby from Michigan Publishing Services and Kristin Waites from The MIT Press shared the 7 milestones on their roadmap for accessibility, complete with details and examples from their own journeys putting those steps into action at their respective presses. From task forces to audits, they've got practical steps you can...

Nastaran Bisheban, VP of Global Technology Delivery at Kobo, talks about their recently-launched audiobook program, their first audiobook original, and their future plans for audio content. And we speak to Book*hug's Hazel Millar about their record label that pairs authors with recording artists, Chaos & Star. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2018/1/29/podcast-audiobook...

We're nearing the end of the year and, like pretty much everyone else, feeling reflective about the past 12 months. And since we're BookNet, that includes how the past year has shaped up in terms of the Canadian book market. So this month we have BookNet president and CEO, Noah Genner, as our guest to chat about the state of the market, the biggest books of the year, the biggest shakeups in the in...

This month we're talking with Léonicka Valcius about how to interrogate and rethink in-house processes and assumptions when publishing diverse books, including acquisitions, audience identification, setting priorities, and building in-house excitement. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/11/27/podcast-building-in-house-momentum-for-diverse-books). Learn more about thi...

Murder, organized crime, and....well, more murder. This month's episode is all about true crime, from recent bestsellers to the evolution of the genre. Featuring authors Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon and Peter Edwards, plus BookNet's Monique Mongeon. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/10/31/podcast-true-crime). Curious about some of the articles we reference? Find them here:...

Second Story Press is serious about keywords. Allie Chenoweth, Marketing & Promotions Coordinator, joins us to talk about their approach on this month's podcast. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/9/25/podcast-keywords-and-second-story-press). Links: Demystifying the Inner Workings of Amazon Keywords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaZ6xIuRnc Google Ngram: https://...

To help distract us from all our Game of Thrones feelings, we sat down with Evan Munday, children's author and Community Manager at TYPE Books, to discuss the influence of television adaptations on book buying habits of their viewers. Are viewers inclined to head towards bookstores after watching their favourite series? Do television tie-in covers matter? We talk stats, shows, and lots more. (Find...

To help celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, we sat down with Sue Carter, Editor-in-Chief at Quill & Quire, Canada's magazine for the book publishing industry, to talk about the current state of the publishing landscape and what challenges we're facing. We also discuss some statistics from our most recent research reports, including what book buyers think of Canadian books and who the most well know...

Micah Bowers, Founder and CEO of Bluefire, was a speaker at ebookcraft 2017. His talk, titled Ebook Apps from the Inside Out, is an exploration of the past, present, and future evolution of ebook reading applications and how that impacts and informs the art and craft of creating ebooks. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. (Find the transcript here: https://www.booknetcanada.ca/blog/2017/6/20/p...

There has lately been a huge surge in demand for audiobooks. This spike has largely been driven by the digital disruption that not only changes how listeners discover audiobooks, but also how they listen to, create, and purchase them. As part of BookNet Canada's Tech Forum 2017 conference, we invited a panel of industry professionals to talk about the audiobook landscape including current trends a...

In this panel from Tech Forum 2017, panelists Léonicka Valcius, John Toews, and Tan light discuss how to effectively market and sell diverse book lists. This discussion goes beyond championing diverse books because it's the latest trend to acknowledging it as a business priority. They tackle how to identify the right tools and strategies to get diverse books into the hands of readers, while addres...