Podcast: Talking Canadian contributors with Taste Canada

This month we chatted with Taste Canada’s Karen Baxter about the work she and Taste Canada are doing to promote Canadian books and the business case for identifying Canadian authors in your metadata.

(Scroll down for a transcript of the conversation.)

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Further reading/listening

• Canadian contributor content on the BookNet Canada blog

• Canadian authors: The whys and hows of identifying them in your data

• Celebrating Canadian contributors on I Read Canadian Day 2022

Transcript

Ainsley Sparkes: Welcome to the February 2023 episode of the BookNet Canada podcast. I’m your host, Ainsley Sparkes, Marketing Manager at BookNet Canada.

This month we’ve interviewed Karen Baxter from Taste Canada about that organization’s work promoting Canadian books and making the business case for more publishers to include the Canadian identifier in their metadata and for more retailers to display it on their website.

But, before we get to the interview, we should define the term ‘Canadian Contributor’. A Canadian contributor is an author, illustrator, translator, or editor (in the case of an edited collection of material) who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.

Publishers can identify which of their authors, illustrators, etc., are Canadian in their metadata. In their ONIX files, they can use the country code “CA” in the Contributor composite's Country Code element. We have quite a lot of resources on the BookNet blog about why this is so important and how you do it. The blog post written by BookNet President & CEO Noah Genner on the whys and hows of identifying Canadian authors in your data is a great place to start. (Find links in the show notes.)

One of the other blog posts we published, written by our research coordinator, Aline Zara, showed that the number of titles in the Canadian book market that have at least one Canadian Contributor is on the rise. Between 2020 and 2022, they have increased 13%, and they’re up 8% alone from 2021 to 2022. At the time of writing that blog post (in November 2022) there were over 145,000 ISBNs flagged with a Canadian contributor in BiblioShare, BookNet’s quality-controlled data aggregation and distribution system.

So now that you’re up to speed on the terminology and oriented in terms of Canadian Contributors, let’s hear from Karen Baxter on why this is all so important to Taste Canada.

So, thank you for joining us today. Can you tell me a little bit about Taste Canada, what you do and your role in the organization?

Karen Baxter: Thank you for the opportunity, Ainsley. It's my pleasure to take the time to talk to you and be a part of this podcast. My name is Karen Baxter, and I'm the executive director with Taste Canada Awards. Taste Canada is celebrating this year its 26th year, and it was born out of a passion to recognize and celebrate Canadian cookbook authors.

We're a not-for-profit organization. We're a national, and we also are bilingual. So, every year we receive submissions from publishers and self-published authors. The books arrive and we have five different categories in both official languages, so five categories in the English language, and five categories in the French language.

And then these books get distributed and sent to the judges across the country who follow the judging criteria and come up with a short list, which is normally announced mid-year, around June, the time varies depending on the cycle of the operations. And then in the fall, we announce the winners in each category, in each language. So each category will announce a gold winner and a silver winner. And the awards presentation is also hosted in both languages. So, there is an English language host and a French language host.

Ainsley: So, I've noticed over the past couple years that you've been doing a lot of work with the Canadian identifier. Can you tell us a little bit about why it's so important to Taste Canada that publishers identify Canadian authors in their metadata?

Karen: Yes, for sure. I almost came across the fact that there ... and they were all new jargons and words for me, metadata and these identifier and true research and in talking more with colleagues at BookNet Canada. I came to learn and understand that there was such an identifier, and started researching a bit more to understand how that information got shared from publishers through BookNet and other stakeholders in the industry, reaching the Canadian consumer.

And there's peaks and valleys on how these things are happening. Through our information gathering, I understand that the publishers fill the metadata, and one of the items there is the citizenship of the author. And that gets assigned the Canadian marker. And that made me think more that, you know, Canadian-made campaigns are very successful. We're such a proud nation. I mean, you go to the grocery store and you see product of Canada, and everybody's choosing to support our farming industry, to support the producers and the growers.

Beers and the commercials are funny and make us think. And at the end of the day, we end up buying Canadian because we're so proud, right? We like to support our own. And it's no different with books. So, if consumers can see that particular book was authored by a Canadian, I think it would stir up in them a thought that I'm gonna try this because it's homegrown talent.

So, continuing with our investigation to understand how this was being permeated amongst the many channels, it seems that most of the indie bookstores on their digital platforms and their websites are able to display the marker, showing to their clients who the authors are and their affiliation. Some of the larger booksellers don't yet seem to have adopted that practice. And maybe there is room to grow in that direction if we all work together.

And I think also the publishers, you know, this is a tremendous marketing opportunity for them, and I think it's worth us getting together and looking at it like a business case, for example. I understand that Book Net gathers data on book sales and statistics. And from our understanding is that last year, in 2022, over a million units of cookbooks in Canada were sold, equivalent to total value of $41 million in the cookbook section.

However, only 21% of these 41 millions are equivalent to Canadian contributors, meaning 21% of these sales were identified to a Canadian author. So, in short, we are missing out roughly about 33 million in sales that are going to international titles. And that's how I'm interpreting the data, but $33 million that could be turned to Canadian booksellers and publishers. So, there's a definite business case to be made, and I think we would be able to use the Canadian marker to start shifting the pie chart and increasing our own percentage of sales.

Ainsley: In summary, you think it's important for retailers to display the Canadian identifier on their e-commerce sites to drive sales of Canadian titles. Do you think that there'd need to be a larger push?

Karen: I think the publishers obviously are interested in increasing sales. They're in the business of selling books, publishing and selling books. And if they had the time to gather and assign resources to include the Canadian marker in their promotional efforts, I am very positive that this would be a good return on investment, because as I mentioned, I think the marker will help increase sales.

I also think it's important for publishers and our industry stakeholders to help educate the consumers about this. If they knew, like I didn't know before, that there was such a thing as a marker. And I think it's because still an undiscovered jam.

And if the bookstores, you know, had in-store section Canadian titles that would also be a company with the marker on their e-commerce sites would use the the marker. All of this would turn into these dollars towards the authors, the bookstores, and benefit the consumer with tremendous content. Because we are coming across, like Taste Canada only deal with Canadian authors, all the books submitted are authored by Canadian citizens, and they are exceptional. They are high caliber and world class. We're very proud to see that.

Ainsley: Can you talk a little bit about your work supporting and promoting the Canadian marker through the book supply chain?

Karen: So, about two years ago, Taste Canada edited its voice to promoting the existence of this marker. We engaged in the campaign that had several social media posts sharing the importance of the marker, and the posts were well received. We received informal feedback that a lot of people also didn't know about that. And we're starting to look deeper into finding out if a certain book they liked was authored by Canadian.

So, it was a good campaign. And I think more such campaigns are needed. And I see the industry in general, there are so many players. We need to bring our French language counterparts on board to have one standard across Canada that identifies the Canadian citizenship. And BookNet has the red maple leaf marker, which is very fitting. So it's important to see that across the board and across the country in both official languages.

And I think we also can work together a bit better in terms of collaborating in social media campaigns with the publishers, with the authors, with organizations such as BookNet and BTLF, and 49th Shelf, and Book Manager, and just keep driving that message and be a Canadian-made campaign for books, which will be very well accepted and celebrated, I'm sure of it.

Ainsley: So, is there anything else that you wish that publishers and retailers knew about the Canadian identifier, how it's used, the potential for its use?

Karen: I believe if our publishers could sharpen their pencils and do the math on the percentage of cookbooks that are not being sold or published by them in this country, they would realise that we probably can do better in terms of drawing customers to their own books by using the Canadian marker. That's my personal view. This is what I believe in having held conversations with a vast array of industry stakeholders.

And at the end of the day, I think we're all here to help increase market share, to help increase sales that are gonna benefit our national publishing industry and our booksellers. So, it's a win across the board, and I'm available to, you know, help wherever we can to push the message forward and to get consumers more engaged with our own talented authors.

And I think the journey here has just started. I think there are exciting things coming forward. I think more and more ISBNs are being identified with the Canadian marker by the publishers. And, you know, like anything is not all of a sudden that things will happen. There is a transition period where we started from zero and now we're getting towards our goal.

I think if people work together to get there, it makes this journey a more pleasant one and more rewarding, and our benefits will be, you know, across the board. So, I'm very excited to see all of this, and I think organizations like Taste Canada recognizing Canadian talent in our industry are doing and accomplishing great things. So yeah, I think all in all, it's very positive. We just need to keep nudging ahead and capturing more of that percentage in the pie chart where it reflects more sales for Canadian authors and titles.

Ainsley: Yeah, I think that's a good point to remember that there has been a growth in the identification of Canadian authors. Well, thank you for joining us today. We appreciated your time and your thoughts on the Canadian identifier, and we'd like to have you on the podcast.

Karen: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ainsley, for the opportunity. Lovely talking to you. And until we meet again.

Ainsley: Thanks again to Karen for joining us today.

BookNet Canada acknowledges that its physical office is upon the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat Indigenous Peoples, the original nations of the land we now call Toronto. BookNet’s operations are remote and our staff contributes their work from these traditional territories, as well as those of the Mi’kmaq People, from the lands we now call Beeton, Brampton, Guelph, Halifax, and Vaughan. We endorse the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and support an ongoing shift from gatekeeping to spacemaking in the book industry.

We'd also like to acknowledge the Government of Canada for their financial support through the Canada Book Fund. And of course, thanks to you for listening.