Q & A
Doug Pepper
McClelland & Stewart president and publisher Doug Pepper on his house's 100th anniversary, the state of fiction and the essential role of beer in book clubs
Image credit: Mimi Cabell
Who’s your favourite M&S author?
The standard answer to that question is, all of them. As with your children, you would never tell one you loved him more than the other. Do I have a favourite author? I do, but I would never tell.
M&S has been deeply involved with a flowering of Canadian nationalism in publishing. Yet you made your name in the U.S. Are we still the little brother?
When I was in the U.S., colleagues looked to Canada for the best writing in the world, and not only admired but were somewhat jealous of our literary tradition. For a very small country, we export a lot of writers, and not many other countries do that, especially ones next door to the most powerful country in the world.
M&S is well known for its fiction, but the last few years have been tough for the fiction market in Canada. Is that scary?
I think what’s happened is that people are still buying a lot of fiction, but they’re narrowing their choices. Everyone’s buying the same few books. But I disagree that fiction is in a bad state. Go on a subway anywhere, and people are reading fiction, though I wish they were reading a more varied assortment of it.In a piece about why men don’t read fiction, you were quoted as saying that it might help to have beer at reading groups.
There was a letter in the Globe from a guy who said that he and a bunch of his buddies got together, drank beer and talked about books, and I thought that was fabulous. I was going to write the guy—I think he was from Ottawa—and say, ‘Any time you want to invite me to this thing I’d be happy to show up, and I might even buy a round.’ ”
What’s your take on the movement of Google to digitize entire libraries?
Everyone in publishing is looking at the example of the music industry, but books are a lot more tactile, whereas music can be on a CD or an iPod and it doesn’t make much difference. I’m very impressed by technology, and I think there’s a real boon for books in there. We just have to figure out what the business model is.
What was working with the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter like?
I enjoyed every minute. Honestly. I know a lot of people aren’t huge fans of Miss Coulter, but she was a pleasure to deal with—professional, kind (extremely) and she met her deadlines. Nobody believes me, but it’s true. It didn’t hurt that most of her books hit number one.
TEST Originally published October 2006
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