Michael Geist has an article in the March 15, 2010 Toronto Star with which I find myself in total agreement. The specific issue is about the move by Amazon.ca to gain government approval to set up a physical operation in Canada, including assuming responsibility for distribution of its products – rather than outsourcing that distribution through Canada Post.

Predictably, Canadian booksellers have objected and are lobbying the government against the Amazon proposal.

Over the last 20 years the world of bookselling has become increasingly borderless, with the result that more people than ever before are able to access more books than ever before, and at significant savings in cost – always a factor but more so than ever in these days of the world economic meltdown.

I well recall the day that the Borders bookchain opened its first Australian store, in about 1994, in Melbourne, not far from where I lived at the time. There was a massive outcry from Australian booksellers and chains. The end of the world – and their businesses – had arrived. So they said. While as patriotic as the next guy, as I browsed, open-mouthed, the stacks of that huge store (bigger than any bookstore I had ever been in), I shed tears of joy at the sheer range of books on the shelves. Titles I had never seen in an Australian bookstore. And you could buy coffee and wine and cake!

The result was not the death of Australian bookstores or chains, but a huge and much-needed shake up of the local industry. Competition, where none had existed before, drove this shake-up, and as far as I know, the industry is better off for it. Certainly the Australian book-buying public are better off.

Since then, the Internet has revolutionized book-buying, of both new books and second-hand and rare books. I am an avid browser in bookstores. But I also buy online. And here’s the thing. If I’m buying online I don’t care where the book comes from. I will shop around to get the best deal, which is surely the common practice. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Indigo.ca. Whoever has the best price, including postage of course, always a factor, is who I will buy from. More often than not, the source is actually Amazon.co.uk. The UK site has an awesome range; their prices, for some reason are often very good, postage rates to Canada are not at all bad – and if speed is an issue, mail, even surface mail from the UK, usually gets to Canada in half the time or less than something coming from the US (where doubtless everything is strip-searched, dog-sniffed, and read to make sure that Al Quaeda has not concealed anything between the pages).

Canadian booksellers raise concerns that, if they lose out to the Amazon behemoth, Canadian authors will lose out, local content will disappear. As a hope-to-be-one-day Canadian author myself (OK, Australian living in Canada author), I have no concerns on that score. Especially in light of the innovations that Amazon are making to encourage first time authors. Indigo, if they are serious about helping the locals and promoting Canadian writing and publishing, would do well to take a leaf out of Amazon’s book. Stop whinging about competition. Embrace it. Beat it. We will all be better off for it.