Talonbooks: Publishing from the Margins - The DOC Revises Its Program

Talonbooks:
Publishing from the Margins

The DOC Revises Its Program

Beginning in 1984 the impact of the Canadian Book Publishing Development Program (CBPDP) was analyzed, and a new program was formulated. The analysis showed that, while the previous program had to be credited with "sustaining a number of firms through a difficult economic period, [...] the undirected nature of much of the funding has meant that the CBPDP has had little long-term effect" (Masse 1986).

The DOC sought to remedy these shortcomings by introducing a series of industrial grants aimed at improving "the ability of Canadian publishers to finance themselves and grow within their own domestic market" (Masse 1986). Where funds from the previous program had been used by most publishers to supplement Canada Council (i.e. deficit) funding, the new industrial grants were to be allocated on a project basis. They had a subtext of (in Karl Siegler's words) "encouraging people to diversify into what the DOC considers to be more profitable books" (Siegler 1991), segments of the marketplace which they may have no real interest or expertise in. One side effect of this diversification was that less time would be available for small publishers like Talon to devote to the areas which they were already covering better than other publishers.

Despite these reservations with the new program Talon has diversified on a small scale into coffee-table format books, beginning in 1988 with the publication of their award winning book on the Stein River, and later with their 1990 book of photographs by Leonard Frank . The underlying goal of this diversification though, was to move Talon's half-time promotion person into a full-time position in order to be better able to promote a larger list of literary titles.

The market for literary titles, for culturally significant works, has remained relatively stable over the period of Talonbooks' existence . In recent years however, Karl has seen Talon's literary competitors "either dropping like flies or changing their programs and diversifying into non-literary books. [...] If Anansi isn't doing its eight to ten titles a year, if Malcolm Lester isn't doing his twelve Canadian titles a year, and if Thistledown and Coteau and Turnstone and so on are diversifying into children's books, [...] then I'm going to [...] step in and acquire the literary shelf space that they're vacating" (Siegler 1991).

Talonbooks currently has three full-time staff members: Karl Siegler handles the editing and the business side, and supervises production; Christy Siegler is the office manager and looks after order fulfillment; Michael Barnholden is in charge of advertising, marketing and promotion. Talon currently has production done by freelancers. Their eventual goal is to acquire the appropriate technology and bring production back in-house, with a fourth staff member and with financial assistance from the DOC's industrial grant program.

Karl's plans for the coming few years see Talon expanding their output from the current ten to eleven titles a year to fifteen to eighteen titles a year. His commitment to "a literary life" remains as strong as ever. Talonbooks may be publishing from the margins, but they intend to work to make those margins bigger.