In terms of marketing spend it was a cheap deal. Six online booksellers talk about their strategies. Judging by his last three projects, David Mamet is in a major slump. Mamet's American agent refuses comment. Canadian mega-bookseller Chapters defends itself to Canadian government inquiry into the book business.
Chain denies it has tried to run independent bookstores out of business.
Independents have claimed that Chapters has 55 per cent of the Canadian market. We have somewhere between 20 and 23 per cent of the consumer book market in Canada. Authors worried about publishing sensitive writing have a new, anonymous way of doing it - online. The muse finds many forms. The judges can be brutal, but the experience of having your work mauled out there in the ether can also be strangely addictive.