Alberta Separatism: What’s at Stake for Alberta’s Book Publishing Industry?
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Alberta book publishers play an instrumental role in showcasing the voices, themes, and landscapes of our province. Alberta separatism would disrupt every aspect of the book publishing process and impede local publishers’ ability to successfully publish, promote, and share our province’s stories with readers around the world.
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Higher Printing and Distribution Costs
Most Alberta book publishers print their books with specialists located in Manitoba or Quebec. Publishers also work with Canadian distributors to ship books to vendors across the country. Separation from Canada would introduce logistical, administrative, and financial burdens to this process and make it extremely difficult for publishers to get books to readers outside of the province. Important Alberta voices would no longer be able to speak to the world.
Loss of Canadian Sales
Alberta publishers risk losing access to critical Canadian markets. An average of 77.5% of their Canadian sales occur outside the province. Separatism would introduce logistical and legal barriers that threaten access to these vital audiences.
Difficulty Attracting Authors
Authors may be hesitant to work with publishers that face significant barriers to distributing books and promoting them to key audiences and markets.
Federal Funding Lost
Alberta publishers collectively receive over $1 million in federal investment annually through the Canada Council for the Arts and the Canada Book Fund. This funding allows publishers to innovate, take risks on debut authors, and grow their companies. The sudden and significant loss of this funding would be fatal for the industry.
Risk to Scholarly Publishing
Academics rely on federal funding programs to support the research and training activities that lead to the publication of scholarly books. Losing access to these programs would significantly weaken Alberta’s research and innovation ecosystem and damage Alberta’s three university presses, as scholars will choose to publish elsewhere in Canada to remain eligible for federal research and publication grants.
Administrative Burden
Publishers would need to renegotiate author contracts and licensing agreements, and rebuild their accounting systems and other business processes. Implementing these changes will interrupt or even end the actual work of publishing books.