Little by little, Toronto magazine stores continue to shut down—but there is still demand
When Edith Yang was a little girl, she dreamed of having her own library. She always loved to read and write. These passions led to a degree in Chinese language and literature. Later, in August 2005, she entered the magazine business with her husband. She says, “I never thought I would have a bookstore.”
Unfortunately, the award-winning store, part of the dwindling Press Internationale chain and located in downtown Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, will soon be no more. Last month, news broke that the store, which has been operating for nearly twenty years at 537 Bloor Street West, will close its doors on December 31.
Yang’s store carries over 1,500 magazine titles that cover niches such as specialty magazines in science, gaming, anime, gemology, sculpture, and many others. So, when the news broke that the store was shutting its doors, several loyal customers took to X (formerly Twitter) to express their feelings.
That’s so sad, I love that store! They carry so many magazines I never see anywhere else!
— Toronto Caroline (@TorontoCaroline) October 16, 2024
One of the best places for magazines & newspapers in the whole city! A true palace to print in a world overtaken by digital mis/disinfo, slop and hate.
— Matthew Gray (@mdhgray) October 15, 2024
At its height, the chain had four stores in Toronto. Magazines Canada awarded Yang’s franchise Retailer of the Year in 2016. “The first five years, 2005 to 2010, the magazine business was good,” she says. In the early 2010s, she began to notice the decline in demand for print magazines as online magazine subscriptions became the norm.
Yang never thought her store could close because of its connection with the Presse Internationale chain. One of the main reasons the store is closing is the incoming hefty rent increase starting December 1. The landlord will be raising Yang’s rent by sixty-four percent per month. Another is that the lower demand for print magazines means lower revenue. “We used to have sixty copies of The Economist every day,” says Yang. She says that daily newspapers such as The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Sun have also been delivering fewer copies to her store.
Yang’s business success in magazine retail has been up and down, governed by factors “we cannot control,” but she still has hope for print magazines. Yang plans to move to a new location within The Annex and has kept the Presse Internationale name despite the original franchise’s closure. However, she is concerned that the new location, which is situated on the second floor, will pose accessibility issues for many of her customers. Presse Internationale’s Annex closure is a loss for print magazine consumers in downtown Toronto, but many regulars look forward to Yang’s relocation. In the meantime, there is still over a month to shop their collections of specialty magazines.
Nicola Hamilton, founder of Issues Magazine Shop at 1489 Dundas Street West, also maintains hope for print magazines. She opened her shop two years ago in Toronto, hoping to draw attention to the art and design of magazines.
The store with over 300 titles sometimes sends customers to Yang’s shop if they don’t have what the customers are looking for. “They have done such a good job with their vast collection,” says Hamilton. Issues focuses more on independent magazines local to Toronto, such as Serviette and Bully Magazine.
Hamilton believes that print will survive even as publishers continue to go digital. She recalls first hearing the phrase “print is dead” in pop culture from the film Ghostbusters in 1984, but “TV did not ruin magazines and newspapers for us then,” she says, “and the internet won’t now.”
“It’s really easy to believe that print is dying as a medium if we don’t actually have places to encounter magazines,” Hamilton continues. “Our physical spaces to hold them, to touch them, to buy them, to look at them, to encounter them are important.”
Magazines Canada is at the forefront of aiding Canada’s condition with print media, a national nonprofit association dedicated to supporting and advancing Canadian magazines through retail distribution, government advocacy, professional development, and research services. Rebecca Rosenblum, membership and communications manager at Magazines Canada, says Yang’s store was awarded Retailer of the Year in 2016 because of its “diversity of offerings and their support of the community.”
Rosenblum hopes that Yang’s Presse Internationale will get back on its feet and is looking forward to the new relocation. Although there are not many magazine retailers in Toronto, she mentions several bookstores in the city that hold magazine stands, such as Type Books and BMV, and even outside the city, such as Paragraph in Montreal. “They’re not ephemeral,” she says. “People save magazines. They flip through them when they’re looking for an idea. They remember magazines. There will always be a place for them in our communities.”
