When I spoke to my grandson’s Grade 2 class recently, I showed the cover-flat for my next book. (Children of Chaos, to be published by Tor in June, 2006, thanks for asking.) One of these perceptive seven-year-old future literary critics just glanced at the exhibit and right away said, “It looks like a Horror!”

True. It does, although it’s a Fantasy. But the most horrible thing on it is not the art, but rather the price: “$25.95 US, $34.95 Can.” With the exchange rate currently around $0.86, a fair Canadian equivalent would be $30.00. It’s not just my work.  Every time I contemplate buying a book I look at the two prices and my wallet screams “Ripoff!” I suspect most Canadian buyers react that way. It must hurt sales to some extent.

So I always complain about prices, just on principle. This time my long-suffering editor, Liz Gorinsky, spelled out the problem for me in more detail than I have seen before. Here’s the story.

Canada’s cultural protectionist policies survived the free trade treaty. Tor is not allowed to sell its books directly to bookstores, but has to work through a Canadian distributor. That adds a middleman, who wants to make a profit, and the book is deliberately priced higher to protect Canadian producers. Furthermore, the price depends on something called the “grid” which is an agreement between publisher and distributor, renegotiated every few seasons. In any case, prices are set a long time before release and can never be quite in step with reality. I confess I can recall how a falling Canadian dollar used to help us. Now the loon flies high and we suffer.

So it’s not the publisher’s fault and if there is malice involved, it does not lie south of the Great Undefended Border. I am all in favour of supporting Canadian culture. I would rather have somebody else pay for it, that’s all.