Some Amusing Observations on Andrew Lawton’s Book “The Freedom Convoy”

I hope the Indigo ban backfires and makes the book sell more copies

I know Andrew Lawton slightly. I think I was on his radio show a couple of times in the pre-pandemic era. In any event, I know him well enough that when we ran into each other at the George Jonas Freedom Award ceremony for Tamara Lich in June, we each recognized the other. 

I ordered his book The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World on Amazon on June 20, 2022, four days before its official release. Much to my surprise, my copy still hasn’t arrived—more than a month later. Amazon tells me it might be in my hands by August 8.

 

I presume the delay is due to the fact that the book became an unexpected bestseller, with far more orders than Amazon or anyone else expected. Currently, Amazon ranks it as the #1 top-selling book in International Politics, and #2 in Books overall. That in itself gladdens my heart. 

Even the Globe and Mail ranks it as #1 in hardcover non-fiction. See here. 

The book has 146 ratings on Amazon but it’s averaging only four stars. There appears to be some kind of campaign going on (whether co-ordinated or not) to drive down its ratings. Sixty-nine percent of the ratings give it five stars, but a whopping 23% of the ratings give it only one star. 

Amazon lets shoppers know whether or not the people who rate a product actually purchased it on Amazon. As I scroll through the five-star comments, I see review after review that have the “Verified Purchase” label attached to them, indicating that the reviewers did at least buy the book from Amazon, whether or not they’ve taken the time to read the book. But as I scroll through the one-star comments, I can’t find a single one (out of 35) that has the “Verified Purchase” label. It appears that none of the negative reviewers bought the book—or at least, not from Amazon—but are simply rating it in the hope of discouraging others from reading it. 

Many of the one-star reviews are one-liners. My favourite, I think, is the one where the pot calls the kettle black. It’s entitled “Terrible”. It says “Horribly written. So many mistakes throughout. I would give 0 stars but it’s not an option! There’s a very good reason Indigo/ chapters wouldn’t sell this book in there [sic] stores! Absolute garbage! It’s fictional!” This person needs to learn the difference between “there” and “their” before he / she goes around complaining about other people’s errors. 

However, that comment brings me to the topic of Indigo’s decision not to carry the book in its stores. I don’t often shop at Indigo, even though there’s one at the shopping mall half an hour from my home. However, my recollection is that its stores usually have prominent displays of books that are current bestsellers. But Lawton’s book, apparently, has been deliberately banished from the store despite the Globe and Mail ranking. 

I wrote to Indigo to express my displeasure with this state of affairs and to notify them that I would boycott their stores until they changed their policy on this book. I received the following reply from Anna in Customer Service: 

“This book is in fact available through our website, Indigo.ca, and can be purchased by any of our customers at this link [link omitted in accordance with my boycott]. We believe that access to books fuels discussion and can bring about change. We are committed to representing the diversity of Canada in the books and products we sell, feature, and promote. By selling online, we are actually making the book more readily available to everyone. 

“Indigo is a truly OMNI channel retailer [KS—whatever that means] and the distinction between store and online is not separate for us. A customer can order the book online and pick it up in any one of our stores across the country, therefore any book is available “in-store” within a very short period of time. With 15 million titles, we cannot carry all books in store at all times, but a customer can order, ship-to-store, and then and visit their local store to pick it up, or have it delivered to their home.

“We hope this provides some clarification around this subject.”

I wrote back to Anna that this wasn’t good enough. I’m particularly annoyed by the part about “fuelling discussion” when they have deliberately omitted this bestselling book from their normal display of bestsellers in an attempt to suppress its sales. Also annoying was the suggestion that I could order it online and have it shipped to the store, where I could have the dubious pleasure of driving for half an hour to pick it up. Why on earth would I do that? If I were going to order the book online, I’d have it shipped to my home, not to the nearest store. 

So Indigo’s answer was entirely facetious. 

Please, readers, if you’re going to order this book, don’t order it online from Indigo. 

Andrew, if you happen to read this, I wish you all the best with your sales. Indigo’s ban may be a blessing in disguise due to all the publicity. Thanks for reporting from Ottawa. Thanks for writing the book. Keep up the good fight. 

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