Bottom Line on Books.

This article discusses Canadian publisher Doug Gibson and the Canadian publishing industry. The sky continues to fall on Canadian publishing after years of consolidation in a tough retail market. Last year, returns of unsold books to publishers from Indigo, the giant chain that moves well over half of the books sold in Canada, ran at more than 50 per cent. And now McClelland & Stewart publisher Doug Gibson has been eased from his position by a bottom-line focused board of directors. Doug Pepper, the New York City-based Canadian editor-publisher named as Gibson's replacement, clearly doesn't think the situation is so grim. Literary non-fiction has been surprising publishers lately with its popularity, leading some to think it the source of future profits, given the slowdown in fiction sales abroad.