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News
Rockpool Publishing has launched Sweet Hearts Press, a new imprint that is aiming to "revolutionise the gift industry".
Sweet Hearts Press will feature a range of gift products, including reading journals, mindfulness puzzles, niche books and wrapping-paper books.
The new imprint will officially launch on 1st July 2025 and its books will be available globally through Simon & Schuster’s distribution partners.
A major literary gathering with a focus on connecting authors with the publishing world is coming to North Vancouver in June.
The Vancouver International Publishing Conference (VIPC) will be held at the Wallace Venue at The Shipyards in North Van on June 8, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
With panellists from major publishing houses, literary agents and authors from across North America, this is an event to be on the calendars of both publishing professionals and aspiring authors.
Megan Williams, North Shore based CEO and founder of the Self Publishing Agency, Inc., is organizing the event with members of her team. She’s hoping to provide information and expertise not typically accessible in the Vancouver area.
Alan Windram was a part-time theatre nurse with a passion for musical theatre when he began working with a children’s theatre company travelling to nurseries and schools in Scotland and the north of England. “I’d never worked with kids before, so it was scary times,” he jokes. However, he “loved it” and when it wound down, he decided to turn to writing for children himself, self-publishing a series called Mac and Bob. After he reached out to children’s author and lecturer Vivian French to find an illustrator, the two became friendly and French was so impressed by the production quality of his books that she decided to publish her next title with him. So began Little Door Books.
French’s picture book, Captain Crankie and Seadog Steve, illustrated by Alison Bartlett, was published in 2016. Following advice from literary agents, Alan and his wife Susan decided to continue working with established writers. “We were really keen to bring new illustrators into the publishing world, so we went round degree shows, we found people online and at Bologna on the illustrators’ wall, and built up a database of these amazing illustrators that we wanted to bring up by putting them with known authors,” says Alan. He continues: “It’s finding the right person for the right story, and it’s worked really well.”
Academic publisher Emerald Publishing has acquired now publishers.
Founded in 2004, now publishers is a source of academic content, publishing research monographs, journals and Foundations and Trends, with strengths in the areas of business, economics, computer science and engineering.
The sale comprises over 50 books, 14 peer-reviewed journals and 28 Foundations and Trends serials. The Foundations and Trends collection includes some of the top-ranked journals in their respective fields including FnT Machine Learning (the top-ranked journal in computer science in Scimago). The research journal collection complements Emerald’s existing journals collection in business and economics.
Zac Rolnik, President and CEO, now publishers, said: “We started now publishers with the intention of creating a unique publishing concept focusing on quality and author service. I believe we have lived up to that goal. But with time and changing technology, we saw the need to be part of a larger organisation to deal with the myriads of changes in the marketplace.
Articles
When Hachette Book Group acquired Workman Publishing, HBG CEO Michael Pietsch observed that Workman was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, remaining independent trade publishers left in the U.S. Based on available data, a case could indeed be made that Workman was the largest of its kind. Which has raised a question in publishing circles: why are there so few independent publishers of size? There is a dearth of what can be called midsize publishers that fall between the Big Five and the many independent publishers with sales of $20 million or less.
The Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade division, with 2020 sales of $192 million, was what could have been considered a mini-major before it was acquired by HarperCollins. The Scholastic trade group, with sales of $355 million in the fiscal year ended May 31, is a major player in the children’s trade market, but as part of a $1.3 billion publisher, it is clearly not independent. Other trade publishers that could be considered midsize that are also part of larger companies are Disney’s publishing division and Abrams, which is owned by the French company La Martinière Groupe, which was itself acquired by Media Participations.
Signing a contract with even a brand-name traditional book publisher initially feels like a ticket to Nirvana. You may expect, for example, your new publisher to set you up with a big fat advance, a multi-city promotional tour, your very own personal PR rep and multiple copies of your book on every bookshelf in the nation (and Canada) for as long as you and your book shall live.
But to understand how book publishers really work, study this list of what I call the four great “myths” of traditional book publishing. Then, by all means, proceed to seek out a publisher if that’s your goal but do so with your eyes wide open. Your relationship with your publisher will run much smoother if you recognize its pitfalls as well as its glories.
You've had the killer idea, you've developed your book characters, planned and plotted, and found the motivation to finally write the novel you've always dreamed about.
You may even have found an agent. But when it comes to a publishing a book, how does the industry actually work?
There are so many stages, so many edits and buzzwords - it can feel impossible to navigate. Before my first novel, Five Steps To Happy, came out last year, I felt utterly lost, confused about the role of an editor and full of questions about the publishing process.
If you feel the same, fear not. In this piece I'll explain the publishing industry, rounding up the people who know to answer the most common questions about writing a book.
Not so long ago, writing and publishing your own book was just a pipe dream for many of us.
It wasn’t so much getting the words down on paper which was putting us off.
It was more the expense of either finding an agent and a publisher or paying through the nose to print dozens of copies yourself which might have ended up unsold and gathering dust in the garage.
But that is resoundingly no longer the case. Digital publishing and online booksellers such as Amazon have been an absolute game-changer.
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