Seventeen years later, Type has three locations across the city, employing staff who are experts in various fields including art and music and who are given the freedom to curate books based on the communities they work in and the topics in which they are knowledgeable. “We weren’t business people, but we loved books and I believed deeply that this was needed and necessary.” “It was really the heyday of Indigo and Chapters and Amazon was just growing. “When we opened Type, we hadn’t seen a new bookstore open in 13 years and there had been so many closures,” Saul said. When Joanne Saul, co-owner of Type Books, left her career as a professor at the University of Toronto to open her first store on Queen West in 2006, people called her “nuts” and naive.” This commitment to community is at the core of the resilience of Toronto’s independent bookstores. Laura Carter, executive director of the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association, says there has been an increase in new independent bookstores that are opening across the country and according to data from BookNet Canada, indie bookstore sales were up six per cent in 2022 from the previous year. “The work that we do in our communities and events we present is constantly introducing new readers to our store.” “Our sales are robust,” said Anjula Gogia, the retail manager and events co-ordinator at Another Story Bookshop in Toronto’s Roncesvalles neighbourhood, which sells books focusing on themes of social justice, equity and diversity. In Toronto, independent booksellers report that business is strong, and in some cases sales are even better than before the pandemic, as a growing number of shoppers prioritize community and one-on-one human connection over malls and online purchases.Īs chain bookstores struggle to maintain profitability amid an industry in turmoil, pivoting to lifestyle products to compensate, indie bookstores are attracting customers by providing a personalized shopping experience while emerging as community hubs for readers to share ideas at events, lectures and book signings. Today, that couldn’t be further from the truth. and global e-commerce giant - which emerged as an online bookstore in the early ’90s - the demise of the independent bookstore was widely forecast. With the rise of big chain booksellers like Indigo in Canada, Barnes & Noble in the U.S. The floors are often well-worn hardwood or covered by a cosy rug in intimate spaces choc-a-bloc with volumes carefully curated by the book lovers who run the place. In stark contrast is the experience of browsing at a Toronto independent bookshop. When you walk into an Indigo bookstore these days, it’s hard not to notice the dwindling number of - well - books.Ī sprawl of handbags, kitchenware, plants, cocktail kits, loungewear, couch cushions and even composters that turn your food waste into soil now spill out over into the vast spaces of Canada’s largest bookstore chain where years ago there was little else but a maze of bookshelves.
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