Kevin Potvin is the publisher of The Republic of East Van, a small independent newspaper in Vancouver, and was the owner of the beloved Magpie magazine store on Commercial Drive, which closed down this week after 14 years in business. The experience of Magpie is not unrelated to the major shift that has taken place in people’s reading habits from print publications to online sources of news and commentary.
Potvin spoke with Am Johal at his store while he worked the cash register on his last day of work.
Am Johal: Magpie is a Commercial Drive institution. A lot of people are going to miss this place. You’re closing down while Tim Horton’s is about to open up down the street. What’s going on here?
Kevin Potvin: The timing is amazing. Fried dough is more important than magazines, I guess.
What were the factors that led to your small magazine shop shutting down?
Three things: wireless Internet, consolidation of magazine distribution and the high costs of housing, food and gasoline. At the end of the day, you can’t eat magazines.
It’s a behavioural change. Everyone recognizes it. Rather than have magazines or newspapers, people have laptops. Multiply that by millions and you can see that the cafe dweller culture has changed. I’ve been here 14 years. It’s the length of an average career. We got picked over really fast.
I’m one of them. I have a laptop. Even in the midst of this store and all these magazines here, even though I have a store with everything in it, even I find myself surfing the Web. There are some downsides to this obviously. I can’t compete with something that is free and that has more possibilities than I could possibly have.
It’s like trying to keep silent films going in the 1920s. The impact was huge for both sides. I had contracts going with these little mom and pop suppliers, one in Texas, one in Berkeley.
They would compete with each other. They had higher discounts on materials. They would try to find new and interesting titles. With consolidation the last five or six years, many went out of business, many merged. In the end very few distributors were left. They don’t compete for small businesses like mine. We had a low circulation, interesting magazines âe” the new suppliers only looked at the bottom line. My store thrived on highly specialized low circulation magazines. I could count on two hands how many [copies of] People magazine and Newsweek I sold all these years. But Just Jazz Guitar and others, I sold thousands.
The consolidation of distributors, the Internet, and the increase costs of housing created a perfect storm.
Why did all of this happen so suddenly?
Not that long ago, there was no Internet. What happened is the publishers of these small magazines went online so they wouldnâe(TM)t have to print. They were in it for the love, not the money. They just wanted to disseminate the knowledge.
The first to jump were the publishers and the readers.
Your shop is such an institution and it’s really sad to see it go. What are you up to next?
In terms of this being a Commercial Drive institution unto itself, I was excited about getting single-minded newspapers, running a bookstore and small paper, not producing much material reward.
I will continue to publish my paper after the store closes. I’m excited about the possibilities here, the dailies are having issues; small niche weeklies are actually thriving. Small, independent stores are more likely to advertise with locals. The same technology that killed my store allows me to publish my newspaper. A little over $500 to produce my paper and I can do distribution with my beater Toyota. It’s the ultimate low overhead business.
Do you have any nostalgia for this place already?
The one thing that struck me is that I finally recognized the role the store played in the neighbourhood. I was shocked by the overwhelming support and sympathy from people. It will cause me to have some deep reflection in the coming months. It’s a phenomenon. Being at the center of it [has been] a fascinating, enriching experience.
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