Why would Indigo sell Kobo?

News today that Indigo
has sold off its rising star and dark horse, Kobo, to the Japanese e-commerce
company Rakuten, came as a bit of a surprise to the publishing industry. During
the past year-long restructuring at Indigo we've seen:




the reduction of floor
space for books;


the decision to carry a
title only for 45 days before returning to the publisher (meaning the customer
only gets to see best-sellers and new releases);


the increase of
giftware;


the complete revamping
of its corporate image from the red, white and blue Chapters/Indigo to the blue
Indigo;
the shutting out of
small publishers.

One has to wonder if
Heather Reisman's vision isn't more about an upscale dollar store than about
books.





And given the
consistent reports of losses from Indigo (allegedly because of development
expenses related to Kobo), one has to wonder why Indigo would sell off what
appears to be a division poised for the greatest potential gain and growth, and
why they would do so for only US$315 million.



To my mind there is
only one likely answer: Indigo's cash-strapped.





I very much suspect in
the coming two years we're going to see Indigo closing the doors of their
smaller stores, particularly those under the Smith Books and Coles divisions,
which are primarily mall outlets. And I also suspect we're going to see stores under
the Indigo banner, with lower sales volume, such as those in smaller urban
centres and more northerly regions, quietly close.





What that's going to do
to the Canadian book buyer's world is create a vacuum, because back in the day
Heather Reisman went on her store buying spree, scores, perhaps even hundreds,
of independent booksellers locked and permanently left their doors.





So, now with
communities not serviced by a bookstore, more and more Canadian book lovers
will turn either to online purchasing (and you can bet more Canadians will turn
to the evil Amazon out of pique), or turn to eBooks.





For the indie
bookseller this is an enormous opportunity. But, as usually happens, the indie
bookseller, for the most part, is going to ignore that opportunity. Instead
they'll continue to grasp that long tail of publishing, waving the flag that
reads 'We've always done it this way!' On their way down to where the light don't
shine they'll continue to ignore the rise of small, indie publishers.



And with Indigo
declining, and indie bookstores declining, statistics about Canadian readers
are going to skew. We are, in fact, a very literate country. Just look at the
writers we produce.



Unfortunately, no one's going to realize there is a healthy
environment of book lovers in Canada.



But we will, quietly
and with determination, purchase those books in whatever form we can find them.





And small indie
publishers like Five Rivers will continue to find creative ways to bring our
books to market.