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Amazon Assembles List of the Most Well-Read Cities in Canada (But It’s a Secret)

amazonEvery so often Amazon baffles me.

Amazon put out a press release yesterday touting a list of the Canadian cities that bought the most books and ebooks per capita. The list doesn’t have any real surprises, but for some reason Amazon would not let me see it.

The criteria for generating the rankings is largely the same as the US-based list that Amazon released back in April  (only with more hockey). It’s based on book and Kindle purchases on Amazon ca over the 12 months ending June 2013. The tech hub of Vancouver ranked number one, with Calgary coming in second:

  1. Vancouver, British Columbia
  2. Calgary, Alberta
  3. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
  4. Edmonton, Alberta
  5. Regina, Saskatchewan
  6. London, Ontario
  7. Toronto, Ontario
  8. Ottawa, Ontario
  9. Winnipeg, Manitoba
  10. Kitchener, Ontario
  11. Burnaby, British Columbia
  12. Mississauga, Ontario
  13. Gatineau, Quebec
  14. Windsor, Ontario
  15. Richmond, British Columbia
  16. Markham, Ontario
  17. Surrey, British Columbia
  18. Halifax, Nova Scotia
  19. Hamilton, Ontario
  20. Brampton, Ontario

This list isn’t getting all that much attention in the press, which really doesn’t surprise me. Amazon made no effort to send out a press release, and when i went looking for the list Amazon hid it from me on their website.

No, seriously, if you go to the press release page on the Amazon website you will not be able to find this press release – at least not if you are in the US. I think you have to be in Canada to see the press release (don’t ask me why).

I read this story in the Vancouver Sun, but I could not find the list myself without using a moderate amount of Google-fu.

I suppose the detail about the hidden list doesn’t really matter, but I do find it strange.

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Comments


Olivier July 31, 2013 um 6:51 pm

Montreal is conspicuous by its absence, which should easily be explained by the hubris Amazon had for concluding that their client base are a representative sample of the Canadian population and can generalize based upon it. Obviously, a lot of people in Montreal read in French, and Amazon has not penetrated that market and their data set is alas skewed.


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