BC Business, July 2009

When Portia Tickell told people she was opening a children’s bookstore on Vancouver’s Main Street, jaws began flapping. Didn’t she know B.C.’s retail landscape is littered with the ghosts of independent booksellers? Hadn’t she heard the death knell for the Granville Book Company, Fireside Books, Women in Print and Black Sheep Books? How about Merlin Books in Kamloops? Or Prince George’s beloved Mosquito Books?

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The Globe & Mail
April 18, 2009

Take a break from the economic bloodletting and visit Portland, Ore., for the best happy hour on the continent. Every weekday afternoon, Portlanders sip cheap cocktails and dig into ridiculously low-priced, well-crafted food.

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What does it take to stand out in the book business? Talent and hard work, of course. Not to mention professionalism, creativity, and a certain community-mindedness. Plus an ability to see the industry from different angles, understanding the needs of various players at the table.

This is the fourth survey of “Ones to Watch” (following features in 2004, 1999, and 1994). Our selections this year have all the above qualities, and they share one other: none of them have yet reached the age of 35.

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It was supposed to be a major step forward. Last summer, the B.C. Ministry of Education passed a new curriculum requirement mandating all Grade 8 to 12 language-arts courses to include at least one “significant” (i.e., full-length) Canadian text. The guideline was to take effect immediately. One fall school term later, though, B.C.’s CanLit quota looks to be largely symbolic: most B.C. teachers say their class work and reading lists have been modified little, if at all. “It’s not a tremendous change,” says Bal Panesar, English department head at Vancouver’s Eric Hamber Secondary. “At Hamber, we do teach Canadian literature. It’s part and parcel of what we do.”

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Electronic textbooks may soon get a big boost in Canada. A U.S.-based online marketplace for digital college textbooks is setting its sights on Canadian students, faculty, and booksellers as it aims to become the iTunes of e-text sales.

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Succession planning is a hot topic in book circles these days. Linger at a publishing cocktail party and you’ll hear plenty of whispering about rumoured deals and retirement goals. And given that a 2003 Heritage survey of Canadian publishers revealed that nearly 50% planned to retire by 2013, we could be halfway to a significant industry shift.

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Many writers are disciplined, with regimented schedules and 1,000-words-before-coffee rules, but Timothy Taylor is a special case. The banker-turned-novelist works out of a downtown Vancouver office, which serves the dual function of literary haven and professional headquarters, and he divides his writing into three main areas: novels, non-fiction magazine pieces, and film work.

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Based on groundbreaking research, this book pinpoints the new rules of engagement for the connected generation and delves deep into established and breakaway brands to identify ten core cravings – for adventure, high-concept design, new families and social networks, and personal storytelling, among others – at the heart of the Gen X and Y psyche.

Packed with fascinating case studies from every major industry, revealing statistics, and interviews with dozens of maverick thinkers and hundreds of consumers, this revolutionary book analyzes the scope of each craving, how it drives specific buying behaviors, and offers relevant data that illustrate its impact. Mind Your X’s and Y’s equips anyone who wants to reach these consumers – brand managers and their advertising, online, creative, packaging, events, and promotions teams; small business owners and their marketing staff; advertising agencies and specialists – with the know-how to transform market research into profitable strategies.

Members of Generations X and Y are the most coveted and hard to reach consumers in the marketplace. Mind Your X’s and Y’s is a master class in how to create compelling brands for this Connected Generation.

By Lisa Johnson and Cheri Hanson

Combining the companionship of a friend with the career smarts of a mentor who’s been there and done that, Wildly Sophisticated provides insight, strategies, and tools for defining yourself, expressing yourself, leveraging the power of attitude, taking risks, overcoming isolation, living with imbalance, and more. With a contemporary approach that is both edgy and fun, this unique career guide is the only book to directly target the 20 million North American women between the ages of 18 and 29, making it the go-to source for young working women who want it all.

By Nicole Williams (and written by Cheri Hanson)

Readers will learn to:

- Tell the difference between going into debt and investing in their careers
- Sell themselves at work — without selling their souls
- Discover their individual gifts and talents — and use them to get a raise
- Value what’s most important to them and dump bad financial habits
- Decide what they really want out of their careers — and get it

Once women get over their fears of dealing with cold, hard cash, they’ll have the confidence to ask for — and get — what they deserve. Crammed with useful information, uncommon advice, inspiring stories, and insider secrets to success, Earn What You’re Worth will motivate women to invest in the most important stock of all… themselves.

By Nicole Williams with Cheri Hanson