Pacific Northwest Spotlight

Arsenal Pulp Press
VANCOUVER, B.C.
Talonbooks
P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY . C O M
Heritage Group
VICTORIA, B.C.
Orca Book Publishers
Regional
Spotlight
Pacific
Northwest
THE
University of Washington Press

Amazon Publishing
SEATTLE, WASH.
Mountaineers Books
Third Place Books
Sasquatch Books
PORTLAND, ORE.
Tin House
EUGENE, ORE.
Powells Books
Dark Horse
Timber Press
Harvest House
Blackstone
ASHLAND, ORE.
THE REGIONS ENTERPRISING PUBLISHERS AND
BOOKSELLERS MAKE FOR A DYNAMIC BOOK MARKET
The Independent Spirit Flourishes in the
Pacific Northwest
By Anisse Gross
The area is home to

hundreds of presses that
reflect the values of the
region
he Pacific Northwest (PNW), also referred to as

Cascadia, is flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the
west and the Rockies to the east. While there are
different definitions of what the PNW comprises, this report on the region will focus on
Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. PNW
residents tend to be shaped by their surroundings, informed by
and in touch with the natural world, and invested in preserving
indigenous culture and wildlife. They also tend to be imbued
with a sense of individualisma legacy of the frontier spirit.
That attitude is reflected in the books that are released by the
areas publishers. While many houses focus on regional topics,
others publish books on a wide range of subjects.
imprint of Simon & Schuster, which

allows it to focus its distribution
efforts on reaching out to mindbody-spirit stores. Some of Beyond
Words bestsellers include The Secret
by Rhonda Byrne and Masaru
Emotos The Hidden Messages in Water.
Beyond Words is really looking to
publish things that shift something
in people, says senior marketing
coordinator Whitney Diffenderfer. The intention for us is to
publish books that will make a difference in peoples lives.
Becker & Mayer
With almost 30 years in the business and 200 employees,

Blackstone Audio, based in Ashland, Ore., has roughly 12,000
titles and is one of the largest independent audiobook publishers in the country. Blackstone publishes about 150 titles per
month and manufactures, markets, and distributes audiobooks
for Hachette and HarperCollins. Among the many publishers
Blackstone licenses audio rights from is Disney.
Blackstone also works with several major author estates,
including those of Ian Fleming, Gabriel Garca Mrquez, and
George Orwell. In some cases Blackstone produces the audiobooks and retains the audio rights, while in a few cases it is the
distributor. Blackstone has a studio in New York City and an
office in the downtown Portland area, next to Powells Books.
CEO Josh Stanton says that half of Blackstones business is
digital, but were quite pleased that 50% is still physical
sales. Blackstone has seen strong growth in the past decade,
partly thanks, he says, to the proliferation of smartphones and
MP3 players. Audio used to be everyones second thought and
now its really in the forefront, he notes. Its been really fun
to see that reversal happen.
Blackstone is also getting into the print game. In 2016, it
formed Blackstone Publishing, releasing titles in hardcover and
e-book formats. Its a bit of a reversal, Stanton says. Most
Becker & Mayer is a packager and publisher located in Bellevue,

Wash., that was acquired by the Quarto Group in August, giving
the U.K.-based publisher its fifth location in the U.S. Ken
Fund, COO of the Quarto Group, observes that the acquisition
includes the assets of Becker & Mayers book group as well as its
SmartLab toy division.
Fund says that Becker & Mayer is roughly a $20 million business, with $13 million on the book side and $7 million from the
toy division.
Fund notes that plans are in place for Becker & Mayer to start
publishing under its own brand. Another plan is for the SmartLab
toy division to be more of a book-plus business with a science
and math line, rather than being a pure toy line. He says Becker
& Mayer will remain in Bellevue: We like to leave the creative
people where they are. It encourages them to be independent.
Beyond Words
Beyond Words Publishing in Hillsboro, Ore., publishes in the
mind-body-spirit category. It also releases self-help and inspirational books. It has about 400 titles on its backlist and publishes about 15 titles each year.
Beyond Words has a partnership with Atria Books, an
Blackstone
continued on p. 36
32 P U B L I S H E R S W E E K L Y N O V E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 1 6
available at bookstores and online
washington.edu/uwpress
Looking for BettY MAcDonALD
ice BeAr
The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I

By PAULA BECKER
The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon

By MICHAEL ENGELHARD
$29.95 HC
$29.95 PB
A thorough and illuminating biography that, with any

luck, will lead a new generation of readers to MacDonalds own remarkable work.
Washington Post
Engelhard digs deeper, tracing how the polar bear

came to occupy its place in contemporary culture and,
in the process, suggesting what the mechanics of
iconography say about us.
BBC Wildlife Magazine
Also of Interest
A YeAr right here
BirDs of the PAcific

northwest
Adventures with Food and Family

in the Great Nearby
By JESS THOMSON
$28.95 HC
Jess is a smart, funny, straightshooting writer with a great sense

for food, and her A Year Right Here
is no exception.
A Photographic Guide
By TOM AVERSA, RICHARD
CANNINGS, AND HAL OPPERMAN
$28.95 PB
900 COLOR ILLUS.
APRIL 2017
Molly Wizenberg, author of A

HomemAde Life and deL Ancey
400 MAPS
Discover more than four hundred bird

species in this quintessential regional
guide for birding devotees at any level.
Pacific Northwest Spotlight
W e l c o m e t o P o rt l a n d !
AMAZON BECOMES
A PUBLISHING FORCE
Sandra Bishop Fiona Kenshole
TransatlanticAgency.com
WomenInPublishing.com
LITERARY ENTERPRISES
6312 SW Capitol Highway #503
Portland, Oregon 97239
Tel: 503-496-4007 Fax: 503-496-4008
betsy@amsterlit.com www.amsterlit.com
AmsterLit.com
Literary-Arts.org
PlaywriteInc.org
MaryBisbeeBeek.com
Chip MacGregor
Brian Tibbetts
Amanda Luedeke
MindbuckMedia.com MacgregorLiterary.com
MFA & BFA in

Creative Writing
IndigoEditing.com
PDX.edu/creative-writing
A LITERARy CITY!
Since its launch in 2009, Amazon Publishing has steadily ramped

up its program to the point where it is the largest publisher in the
PNW. Through 14 imprints and offices around the world, Amazon
will publish about 1,000 titles in 2016. Jeff Belle, v-p of Amazon
Publishing, says, In a few short years, weve created a business
that is on par with the Big Five publishing houses in terms of
quality, service, and sales.
There are several highlights from the company this year,

including Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy (Little A), which was longlisted for the Man Booker prize, and Marcia Clarks Blood Defense
(Thomas & Mercer), which was a #1 Kindle bestseller with a starred
review in PW. And Amazons childrens imprint, Two Lions, published
Pulitzer Prizewinner Jane Smileys first picture book, Twenty Yawns,
illustrated by Caldecott Honorartist Lauren Castillo.
The majority of Amazon Publishings sales are digital, including
downloadable audio, which has been a significant growth area for
the company. Were now the second-ranked publisher in the U.S.
Kindle store in terms of sales, Belle says. Amazon Publishing
takes advantage of Amazons Kindle First program, which allows
readers access to releases a month ahead of official publication
and which now has more than five million subscribers. Among the
Amazon authors who have benefitted from Kindle First is Emily
Bleeker, whose first novel, Wreckage, was a bestseller and whose
second novel, When Im Gone, has reached one million copies sold
across print and digital.
While most of Amazon Publishings sales are digital, Belle says
that the company is seeing growth in print sales. As we have
published more nonfiction and general trade, we have seen our
print sales on Amazon significantly increase, he explains.
One of Amazon Publishings biggest investments has been in
translations. Through the AmazonCrossing imprint, the company
committed $10 million over a five-year period, starting in 2015, to
publishing works in translation. Belle says Amazon decided to
double down on translations, because its a hugely underserved
area, the opportunity is significant, and we feel like were particularly
well positioned to do it. Belle says that though Amazon Publishing
is best known for its commercial fiction, it remains committed to
literary fiction as well. I dont see our success with commercial
fiction casting a shadow on the literary fiction weve publishednot
at all, he notes. Ive been very happy with our literary list, and were
going to make even greater strides here next year.
Amazons books come from three primary sources, Belle
says. Agents submit books to us every day, just as they do other
publishers. We also look at books that have been published
around the world for opportunities to translate them and help them
reach a larger, global audience through AmazonCrossing. And we
work with authors who have published through Kindle Direct
Publishing to help break them out to a larger readership. Were
going to continue sourcing from all three areas. Two of those areas
are hugely underserved. But its a big world. Belle concludes with
a sentiment perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the PNW:
Theres plenty of room for everyone.
A.G.
W e l c o m e t o P o rt l a n d !
TimberlineReview.com
BackwordsBlog.com
NotAPipePublishing.com
BlueSkirtProductions.com
Atelier26Books.com
OvercupBooks.com
FutureTenseBooks.com
HawthorneBooks.com
ForestAvenuePress.com MicrocosmPublishing.com
JorvikPress.com
TimberPress.com
er, Milk
s affecting as Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer,

ing kinship to the work of Anas Nin and Jack
ssic American tale of wanderlust, updated for
dditional layers of heartbreak. In the sea of
n island.
or, Jealous Witness: New Poems
e memoirall snap, verve, and eloquence, it is

Diva of the Demimonde, and a love song to life
or, Geek Love
ughter with a sophisticated academic pedigree,

ny career, but chose to become a stripper. This
milieu offers a unique perspective on a thriving
ndemned or ignored, while painting portraits of
te, smart, and entrepreneurial. With language
glorious, she preaches new paradigms regarding
omen who work in it. Part coming-of-age story,
ve letter, Magic Gardens makes a valiant case for
hatever they may be.
$14.95
Memoir / Womens Studies
Vivacide.com
TinHouse.com
OSUPress.OregonState.edu
UniversityofHellPress.com
YesYesBooks.com
PropellerBooks.com
RippleGrovePress.com
Ooligan.PDX.edu
now buy a book!

continued from p. 32
houses do print, then audiobook. We

did it the opposite direction, because
of all the opportunity weve had [to
take advantage of our connections].
Chatwin
Phil Bevis, owner of Arundel Books
in Seattle, a store that also releases
fine-press art and poetry titles,
founded Chatwin Books, a trade
imprint, with partner Annie Brul.
Chatwins first title came out in 2015, and it has released 13
books to date, with three more slated for the rest of 2016.
Beviss impetus for starting a trade line was coming across
titles that wouldnt fit under the Arundel Press umbrella, such
as the 19-volume series by Greg Perkins, Darkness Before
Mourning, which took over 40 years to complete.
Having a press and a store in the same location has several
advantages, and, according to Bevis, if nothing else, we dont
have to look to venues for our publication parties.
Coffeetown
Coffeetown Press was founded in 2005 in Seattle and publishes fiction and nonfiction. It has two imprints: Camel Press,
ROBER T W ILLI A M S A NDFORD
North America
in the Anthropocene
RMBs latest manifesto invites the reader to

separate the hype from the hope in relation to
climate change and humanitys dangerous new era.
Available from Publishers Group West
ISBN 9781771601801 hardcover $16
Think outside
which focuses on genre fiction, and

Fanny Press, which specializes in
erotica. Coffeetown releases 2436
titles per year and associate publisher
Jennifer McCord says, Mystery forms
the core of what we do.
Initially, Coffeetown was focused on
POD and e-books, but it got into print
titles in 2015. Its books are distributed by Epicenter/Aftershocks Media.
Publisher Catherine Treadgold says
that memoirs, especially from people who have media platforms, have been a strong suit for the press, including Chef
Interrupted: Discovering Lifes Second Course in Ireland with Multiple
Sclerosis by Trevis Gleason, and Beauty and the Breast: A Tale of
Breast Cancer, Love, and Friendship by Merrill Joan Gerber.
Epicenter
Focusing on regional titles is the guiding light of Epicenter
Press, the largest trade publisher of nonfiction books about
Alaska. Since it was founded in 1988, Epicenter has published
more than 175 books covering topics such as history, memoir,
biography, adventure, and Native American culture. The press
has an office in Washington to help offset the expense and added

time of shipping books to and from Alaska and to reduce warehousing costs.
Phil Garrett, sales and marketing director at Epicenter Press,
says that when the company started, there were around 30 publishers in Alaska. Now Epicenter is one of the few remaining.
He credits Two Old Women by Velma Wallis, which has sold
more than a million copies worldwide and has been translated
into 18 languages, with helping the company stick around.
In addition to Alaskan bookstores, Epicenters titles do well
in tourist hot spots such as airport stores and cruise ships.
Garrett notes that Alaskan publishers sell more books in spring
and summer, when the tourists come on the cruises, than
during the holiday season.
Garrett says that because of Alaskas
remote location, Epicenter often
receives submissions through the social connection of the

grapevine, noting that theres not a whole lot of cold calling
from someone living in the lower 48. He adds, In Alaska,
everyone knows everybody else.
This month, Epicenter released the 40th anniversary edition of Iditarod Memories, a collection of Iditarod posters by
musher-artist Jon Van Zyle, including limited-edition
lithographs.
Forest Avenue
Brian Juenemann, executive director of the Pacific Northwest
Booksellers Association, says that there are some new smaller
players on the publishing scene that are really energetic and
smart. He singles out Laura Stanfill of Forest Avenue Press:
She has so much energy and is connecting people not just for
herself. Shes just one of those mavens.
Stanfill founded Forest Avenue in 2012. I dont think I
would have ever started a publishing company if I werent
here in Portland, she says. She started by publishing Oregon
writers, a choice that she says quickly earned me the respect
of local writers, but also bookstores and local media. Two years
after releasing its first title, Forest Avenue landed national distribution with Legato Publishers Group.
continued on p. 40
We seek to expand horizons

through fine art, illustration, and
architectural photography, with
an eclectic catalog of unique
publications for adults and children.
800 227 1428

www.pomegranate.com
PROUDLY INDEPENDENT AND FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1968.PORTLAND, OREGON
A HOT SPOT FOR COMI
Dark Horse
PORTLANDS PREMIER
INDEPENDENT COMIC BOOK
PUBLISHER
In Milwaukie, a suburb of Portland, Dark Horse has been publishing

comics for the past 30 years. Randy Stradley, v-p of publishing, founded
the company with Mike Richardson in 1986. Dark Horse puts out an
average of 350 comics per year. The indie publisher also operates Dark
Horse Digital, an e-book store, and has added mainstream novelists such
as Chuck PalahniukDark Horse will serialize a graphic novel adaptation
of Palahniuks Fight Club. Dark Horse has 120 employees with an additional 45 working for its retail armThings from Another Worldwhich
has four store locations: Beaverton, Milwaukie, Portland, and Universal
City.
Fantagraphics
TM
Fantagraphics is a Seattle-based comics publisher celebrating its 40th

anniversary this year. The company currently has 15 employees and puts
out 7585 titles per year. Fantagraphics is primarily known for comics
and cartooning-related books, but it publishes art books and literary fiction, including works by National Book Awardnominee Stephen Dixon.
The publisher also has had a public storefront gallery space for the last
10 years, and while the gallery space doesnt bring in revenue, it breaks
even and provides a way for Fantagraphics to advertise its presence to
the community at large and hold events.
Oni
RICK AND MORTY IS & 2016 CARTOON NETWORK. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NICKELODEON INVADER ZIM IS & 2016 VIACOM
INTERNATIONAL, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ALL OTHERS 2016 THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. ONI PRESS LOGO AND ICON & 2016
ONI PRESS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ONI PRESS LOGO AND ICON ARTWORK CREATED BY KEITH A. WOOD.
Former Dark Horse employee Bob Schreck

founded Portlands Oni Press with Joe Nozemack
in 1997, with the goal of publishing stories that
they felt were being overlooked. At the time there
werent a lot of nontraditional comic book genre
stories, Nozemack says. We looked for books
we thought had the potential for a large audience,
that might have been getting overlooked because
they werent traditional comic books.
Oni moved into licensing, including such properties as Kevin Smiths Clerks and The Blair Witch
Project. It also moved into kids books and graphic
novels, particularly those aimed at girls, a readership that it felt was overlooked by other comics
publishers. Nozemack emphasizes that, over the
past 10 years, theres been a huge growth in
female comics readers: Sandman kind of helped
bring in the first batch of female readers, and
then the manga boom definitely helped, and now
all the movies and TV shows and cartoons that
have been much more friendly to the female audience. On the topic of diversity in comics,
Nozemack says, Comics have always had a
diverse group of characters, but I think now what
were seeing is more openness from publishers
to hire diverse artists and writers as well.
Oni has a film and production arm, Oni
Entertainment, that has brought films, including
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, to audiences. This year
marks the launch of a new adult imprint,
Limerence Press, and Oni continues to look for
ways to expand into new outlets.
Nozemack says that when he moved to
Holiday Kits for
CS AND GAMING
Portland from Houston, starting a business was really easy because the
cost of living was pretty low. An influx of newcomers since then have led
to surging rents, but theres also a silver lining: a larger consumer base.
The extra population that has come here has helped as well, he says.
I think its part of why we pretty much have a comic shop in every neighborhood in town.
Every Gift List
Paizo
Paizo Publishing, based in Redmond, Wash., is one of several companies
in the region started by former employees of Seattles gaming and trading
card giant Wizards of the Coast. Paizo began by publishing magazines
that supported Wizards Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. When
the terms of Paizos license with Wizards ended in 2007, Paizo decided
to focus on being a game publisher. Their main product is Pathfinder, an
RPG that was launched in 2009.
illustration by remko troost
According to Erik Mona, publisher and chief creative officer of Paizo,

95% of the companys products are books and game accessories that
support the Pathfinder game. Paizo also has an extensive outreach program called Pathfinder Society. If you think of it in terms of World of
Warcraft, which is a massively multiplayer online game, we consider
Pathfinder Society a massively multiplayer off-line game. There are 65,000
players in that campaign, Mona says. Pierce Watters, director of sales at
Paizo, adds: We have organized play in every continent in the world
except Antarctica. Well, we have people
playing it there, but they have trouble reporting
the results.
Mona notes that the PNW is host to a
strong gaming community, speculating that
people in tech careers often have personal
interests that tend to fantasy, sci-fi, and
gaming in general. Tabletop gaming as a
whole has really exploded in the last five or
six years, and the PNW is an area of major
interest, he says.
In 2017 Paizo is launching a new RPG
c o m p l e m e n t i n g Pa t h f i n d e r c a l l e d
Starfindera fantasy science-fiction
role-playing game. Since the beginning,
people have asked us when we are going
to do science fiction, Mona says. My
business philosophy is when people ask you
for something, theyll probably trade you
money for it.
A.G.
Now part of The Quarto Group
QuartoKnows.com
W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M
39

continued from p. 37
Stanfill is also on the board of directors for PubWest and is

affiliated with Women in Portland Publishing. As an author
herself, Stanfill says she realizes what its like to be on the other
side of the desk. Putting out two to four titles per year allows
her to spend quality time with authors, walking them through
every step of the process.
Future Tense
In addition to having books published
by Tin House and Harper Perennial
and being a veteran employee of
Powells Books, Kevin Sampsell runs
his own small Portland-based press,
Future Tense Books. Founded in 1990
as a way to publish Sampsells own
zines, Future Tense now releases two to
three titles per year, with many of its
authors going on to big houses.
Being a springboard for authors to go on to bigger presses
is one of Sampsells goals, and he cites Wendy C. Ortizs
memoir Excavation, for example, as one of the presss bestsellers that has garnered its author a large following. Chloe
Caldwell and Chelsea Martin are among Future Tense debut
authors who have gone on to larger houses.
Harvest House
Harvest House, which was founded in Eugene, Ore., in 1974,
is one of the top publishers of Christian titles in the U.S. More
than 100 million Harvest House books have been sold worldwide, and the press publishes roughly 135 titles each year, with
a backlist of more than 1,200 titles.
Harvest House releases mostly nonfiction titles, with a wide
range that includes cookbooks, and though it has published
fiction in the past, it has decided to stop acquiring fiction titles.
Additionally, the company has had a presence in the gift book
market since 1994, working with fine art illustrators and
Christian authors.
Some of Harvest Houses biggest titles include those in
Stormie Omartians Power of a Praying series, which has sold
more than 35 million copies, according to Bob Hawkins Jr.,
president of Harvest House Publishers and son of founder Bob
Hawkins Sr. Other big titles include The Bondage Breaker, The
Daily Bible, and Before You Say I Do.
Hawkins Jr. says that its sales channels have shifted, noting
that the indies used to be the dominant player, but now its
the chains, citing the companys move into stores such as
Hobby Lobby and Michaels in an effort to broaden our base
of accounts.
Hawthorne
Rhonda Hughes started PrintVision, a book print-production
company, in 1992, and while working on high-quality titles for
Chronicle, McGraw-Hill, and Sasquatch, she realized that she
wanted to form a
press. I wanted to
be an editor, and I
did not want to
move to New York
to get a job, says
Hughes, who still
lives in Portland.
PrintVision,
whose main clients
are Fantagraphics
and Gibbs Smith, was lucrative enough to permit Hughes to
found Hawthorne Books in 2001. Her background in printing
has allowed Hawthorne to build a reputation for high-quality
books, featuring archival paper, sewn bindings, matte lamination that is nonscuffable, and double-scored flaps that can be
used as bookmarks.
Hawthorne puts out four titles of literary fiction and nonfiction per year but has some heavy hitters on its list, including
Clown Girl by Monika Drake, Chronology of Water by Lidia
Yuknavitch (which was just optioned for film), and all of Po
Ballantines books. Hughes built her list by reaching out to
writers she liked as well as writers in the community.
Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead, one of Hawthornes bestselling books, was blurbed by Cornel West, and The Well and
the Mine by Gin Phillips sold 40,000 copies, and Hawthorne
sold paperback rights to Penguin.
Hughes is excited about the debut memoir Narrow River,
Wide Sky by Jenny Forester, pubbing in May 2017. Were putting a lot behind this title because it has the ability to break
out, she says.
Laughing Elephant
Seattles family-run Laughing Elephant was founded in 1969
by Harold and Sandra Darling. The publisher focuses on vintage childrens books, illustrated books, and related gift items.
Publisher Benjamin Darling, one of Harold and Sandras two
sons, says that almost all of the pictures used in the companys
books and gift products are of collectible antiques that his
father amassed over the years. Aside from books, Laughing
Elephant produces a wide variety of paper products, including
greeting cards and vintage luggage labels.
Most of Laughing Elephants
sales are through indie bookstores
and retail gift shops, but it also
looks for alternative spaces where
gift items might be sold. Gas stations are a fantastic market,
Benjamin says. The press does about
20% of its business on Amazon. If I
had to make the bulk or a good deal
of my money off Amazon Id be
scared, he notes. As we saw with

Hachette, they squeeze you and squeeze you until... They hope
not to kill you but they might accidentally.
Microcosm
Microcosm Publishing, which celebrates its 20th anniversary
this year, has a history that founder/publisher Joe Biel calls
pretty unique in about every way. Biel started the company
when he was a teenager upon discovering punk rock. He felt
that it was his calling to be the publishing arm of punk rock.
Over the years, he grew the business, and it now has a staff of
11 and 350 titles in print, with 34 titles for 2016.
Microcosms list focuses on nonfiction, including but not
limited to DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and
social justice. Biel says that the
theme of his list is that the book has
to make the reader feel good and to
create resources for people to make
their own ideal lives and change the
world around them in positive ways.
Microcosms bestselling title is
Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable
Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs, and
other popular books include Wild
Fermentation by Sandor Katz and This
Is Portland: The City Youve Heard You Should Like by Alexander

Barrett.
Microcosms sales channels are as unique as its titles. Indie
bookstores comprise only 3% of the presss sell-through. The
company focuses on alternative retail outlets such as gift shops,
boutiques, record stores, and even indie groceries. Its biggest
customer? A taco shop in Tokyo. We really strategize around
anywhere that isnt selling books. Those places are our best
customers, Biel says.
Mountaineers
Seattle-based Mountaineers Books is
the publishing division of the
Mountaineers, a 106-year-old outdoor and conservation nonprofit.
With 700 active titles, the list
focuses on outdoor sports, how-tos,
travel, mountaineering literature,
adventure, lifestyle guides, conservation photography, history, and
biographies about those who have
contributed to the world of mountaineering. Its first title,
Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, published in 1960,
remains a top seller for the press.
10 yearsof
1 World
84 Awards
650 Titles
1,000,000 Players
and ALL the goblins!
JOIN THE ADVENTURE AT PAIZO.COM/PATHFINDER
Core Rulebook
$49.99 HC
$24.99 SC
Beginner Box
Starter Kit
$34.99
Bestiary 6
March 2017
$44.99 HC
Paizo, Paizo Inc., the Paizo golem logo, Pathfinder, and the Pathfinder logo are registered trademarks of Paizo Inc.; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a trademark of Paizo Inc. 2017, Paizo Inc.
41

The presss Skipstone imprint features guides to sustainable
living and its Braided River conservation photography books.
Publisher Helen Cherullo says she is very proud of Braided
River because it has allowed the publisher to print groundbreaking photographically driven conservation books that help
inspire people to become involved in the greater efforts to protect North Americas wild places from development and other
threats.
Cherullo says almost half the companys sales come from the
outdoors market and half through the book trade, noting that
the publisher is seeing new growth in the indie stores. She adds:
Ive talked with other publishers and Amazon is the part of
our business thats growing. Theres no doubt about it. Were
grateful for that, but were concerned because we see what its
done to the landscape of indie bookstores.
Ooligan
Though associated with Portland
State University, Ooligan Press is
not a university press in the traditional sense. It is run by the universitys publishing program and
puts out three trade titles per
year, which are distributed
nationally and internationally by
Ingram.
PSUs graduates end up all
over the world, according to Per
Henningsgaard, assistant professor at PSU and director of
publishing at Ooligan, but he
says the biggest contingent stays
in the PNW. The challenge for
these graduates is that most PNW
houses are small, with low turn- over. If you have 20 people
on your staff in Portland, youre a major publishing house here,
he notes.
Pomegranate
Pomegranate Communications, a leading publisher in art books
and gift products, made the move to Portland in 2013 after
being based in the Bay Area since 1968. The family-owned
publisher has 30 people in its Portland location and five in its
U.K. office, which handles sales for Europe.
Publisher Katie Burke, who started with Pomegranate in
1975 and became publisher in 1996, says that one of the advantages of having a large gift list as well as a large book list is that
the company can try out imagery and text in its gift line and
then develop that property into books. Weve always done
that, Burke says. There was a period in the 90s where we were
doing a lot more books than we are doing now, she adds,
noting that changes in the marketplace have made Pomegranate
more judicious about book titles.
The product mix of Pomegranates

gift line has changed somewhat over
the years. When we started out, we
were a poster publisher, and we dont
do posters anymore, Burke says.
Pomegranate has done calendars
since the mid-1970s, and calendars
are still a strong category for it.
Leslie Davisson, sales and marketing director at Pomegranate, says
puzzles have been huge for
Pomegranate, and she notes that puzzles have reinvigorated
the bookstore channel for us. One of the challenges of being
in Portland, she adds, is getting out of the New York mindset and getting reviewers to pay attention to the books that
we publish.
Ripple Grove
With two great childrens specialty bookstores and a thriving
literary community, Portland seems like the perfect place for a
small childrens press. Thats exactly what husband-and-wife
team Rob and Amanda Broder thought when they moved there
in March 2013 and started Ripple Grove with a focus on picture
books for children ages 26.
The press has been doing great since then, Rob says. Its
been terrific. We receive submissions daily to our in-box, and we
are aggressively looking for stories for 2018 and beyond.
Ripple Grove has three titles in 2016 and three slated for
2017, and Rob says he hopes to grow that title count, but
that at the moment he and Amanda arent receiving titles
that are resonating with us. Recently, the press acquired the
rights to a Harry Chapin song, Mr. Tanner, which is being
turned into a picture book. The press is also changing distribution to Small Press United.
Sasquatch
Seattles Sasquatch Books celebrates its 30th anniversary this
year. Together with its new childrens imprint, Little Bigfoot,
Sasquatch is one of the regions leading indie publishers.
Sasquatch senior publicist Corinna Scott says that all of the
companys titles are tied to the Pacific Northwest in some way.
With roughly 1,000 titles published to
date, Sasquatch has seen its best sales in
the Northwest Best Places series; other top
sellers for the press include Encyclopedia of
Country Living by Carla Emery, Book Lust
by Nancy Pearl, The 52 Lists Project by
Moorea Seal, O Is for Orca by Andrea
Helman and Art Wolfe, and A Boat, a
Whale & a Walrus by Renee Erickson.
Hannah Vianos S Is for Salmon: A Pacific
Northwest Alphabet is the first title published under Little Bigfoot.

In 2012, Sasquatch partnered with Penguin Random House
Publisher Services, broadening its distribution reach and giving
the company room to focus more on publishing and marketing.
Sasquatch sales last year were up 35% compared to 2012.
Timber
Portland-based Timber Presss early focus was on publishing
gardening books, but Kathryn Juergens, director of marketing
and publicity, says that the press has expanded to include
regional field guides, general-interest
books about the PNW, and natural
history titles, as well as a very successful line of foraging guides.
Gardening is still the dominant category for the publisher, but its field
guides have been so successful that the
company has done titles for regions
outside of the PNW, including a field
guide to the wildflowers of New
England.
Workman Publishing has owned
Timber Press since 2006, giving it the advantage of Workmans
strong gift-sales team, according to Juergens. The press puts
out 3035 titles per year, and long-standing bestsellers
include Bringing Nature Home and Dirrs Encyclopedia of Trees
and Shrubs.
The work that we do is very much defined by the region that
we live in, Juergens says. We spend a lot of time outdoors.
The natural world that surrounds us definitely informs our
publishing program. We value the environment, conservationthe importance of the natural world and honoring it.
On the topic of rising concern about the natural world and
climate change, Juergens says, The area that weve always published in is now growing in terms of popularity and awareness.
The press has published environmental titles for decades; its
not the press that is meeting the market, but the market that
is meeting the press.
Tin House
Another major player in Portlands indie press scene is Tin
House Books, which was formed by Tin House magazine about
10 years ago. With a backlist of more than 100 titles, the press
puts out around 1820 books per year, many of which are based
on articles from the magazine, or by authors who have taught
at the Tin House Writers Workshop, such as Joy Williams and
Charles DAmbrosio.
Tin House editor Tony Perez echoes the sentiments of many
PNW publishers when he talks about the pool of talented
authors in the region, highlighting the fact that Tin House has
published two books by Powells Books employees: Alexis
Smiths Glaciers and Kevin Sampsells This Is Between Us. Perez
says that Tin House has access to writers who are outside of the
gaze of the New York literary world.
Perez says that fiction is Tin Houses

bread and butter but notes that he
hopes to add more nonfiction titles.
One recent nonfiction book from the
press is The Coyotes Bicycle by Kimball
Taylor, which Perez calls a deep dive
investigation into a particular form of
border crossing.
Tin House has a satellite office in
New York City. Its incredibly valuable, Perez says. Itd be naive to
think wed have the same sort of cachet
with agents [without the satellite
office]. I do think its really important
to have a presence there, but I feel
lucky that I get to live here and work
in publishing.
Univ. of Washington
Based in Seattle, University of Washington Press is the PNWs
largest and oldest university publisher. It has published more
than 4,000 titles since it was founded in 1920, and it currently
publishes 5060 new titles per year.
Editor-in-chief Larin McLaughlin says University of
Washington Press releases trade and academic books that focus
on topics related to social justice, race and gender, and environmental issues, as well as Native American and AsianAmerican titles. McLaughlin notes, We acquired some of the
first Asian-American literature, citing No-No Boy by John
Okada as one of the presss bestsellers in this category. The
press has also launched a number of
new series in the past several years,
including two feminist series, a
Global South Asia series and an
Indigenous Confluences series, which
McLaughlin says prominently features PNW tribal communities.
Director Nicole Mitchell says that
the PNW has been at the forefront
of social justice issues and civil rights
issues concerning race and gender,
and our publishing program is fully
aligned with those areas. In addition, Mitchell notes,
University of Washington Press was a pioneer in publishing
books on the environment when the field was just emerging.
Mitchell says that University of Washington Press has
received two grants from the Mellon foundation this year:
one for the Indigenous Digital Publishing Initiative (in partnership with the University of British Columbia Press) and
the other for a diversity fellowship in publishing, in partnership with three other university presses (Duke, MIT,
and the University of Georgia) to diversify the pipeline in
publishing.
43
B.C. Presses Broaden Their Reac

Publishers in the Canadian province see
opportunities at home and in the U.S.
By Anisse Gross
hile a border separates British

Columbia from
the rest of the
Pacific Northwest,
the parts of the region either side of that
border have much in common. For
starters, both have thriving publishing
scenes. I dont want to call California a
wasteland, says Kevin Williams, president and publisher of Vancouvers
Talonbooks, but the number of publishers in the PNW is amazing.
When Bennett Coles, publisher of
Promontory Press, moved to the
region 25 years ago, it was a sleepy
corner of North America, he says.
And then some things happened.
Seattle became the coolest city in
North America, with Pearl Jam,
Frasier, Starbucks, Microsoft, and
Amazon. And Vancouver had Expo and
the Olympics. However, while the
PNW has always had a laid-back vibe,
the hippieness is kind of gone, Coles
says. The professionalism has grown a
lot in the last 25 years. Everyone is a professional now.
B.C. publishers are trying to increase
their presence in the U.S. One way to
achieve this is to spend more time over
the border. This years Pacific Northwest
Booksellers Association trade show in
Tacoma saw the largest turnout of B.C.
publishers ever. For the last two years,
B.C. publishers have come to the PNBA
show on a grant from the Western
Canada Diversification Fund. Andrew
Wooldridge, publisher of Orca Book
Publishers, says that more B.C. pub-
lishers are participating in PNBA in part

because they are thinking of the region
as a larger region, rather than just a
Canadian or U.S. region.
Arsenal Pulp
The B.C. publishing industry benefits
from the financial support of government grants from the Canada Council for
the Arts and from the B.C. Arts Council.
For Vancouvers Arsenal Pulp Press, the
grants are immensely helpful. Arsenals
publisher Brian Lam
says that the grants,
that support things would be much

harder, Lam says. We wouldnt be able
to take risks on Canadian poets or short
story authors. Wed have to focus more
exclusively on commercial categories.
This is important because Arsenal
Pulp focuses on titles by a range of
authors and in a range of subject matter
and was one of the first publishers in
Canada of LGBTQ titles. The press has
had some big successes in that category,
such as Blue Is the Warmest Color, a graphic
novel that was made into a film that won
the Palme dOr at Cannes, and When
Everything Feels Like the Movies, a YA title
about a gay teen, which won the
Governor Generals Literary Award.
Lam says that the company has
extended its reach into the U.S., and that
U.S. sales now represent 55% of Arsenals
total.
Caitlin
which began in
the 1970s, are
premised on the fact that books in the
English language are dominated by
American and British publishing. The
grants are intended to offer Canadian
publishers more of a level playing field
and to foster the growth of Canadian
literature at home, he says. Those
grants have enabled us to keep alive our
Canadian-author titles, even when the
bottom line may not be that commercial,
but culturally the books are very
important.
The financial backing allows Arsenal
to take more chances on titles. Without
Caitlin Press has had long-term success

with regional titles. Publisher Vici
Johnstone, who bought the company in
2008, says that Caitlin started as a feminist press, but shifted to include regional
titles. When she bought Caitlin, the
backlist had 66 titles, but only eight of
them were still selling. The first thing
I did was aggressively increase the list of
books, Johnstone says. Were over 200
now. I also kind of refocused [the list].
Part of Caitlin Presss mandate is to
publish works about rural living and
rural stories, Johnstone says. Our tagline is Where Urban Meets Rural. What
that means for me is that so many of our
resources are developed in the rural areas
but most of our people live in the city.
Johnstone says that theres a big market
of urban dwellers who are very interested
in whats happening in the rural regions.
Even with the addition of regional titles,
Johnstone started the imprint Dagger
Editions this year, focused on publishing
h and Band Together

literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry
by and about queer women.
time, he says, the company has grown

and changed a lot from being a small
regional trade publisher. Were now

much larger and much less regional. Our
focus is much more on the school and
library market rather than trade by itself.
We used to publish many more adult
titles at the beginning, now were completely a childrens publisher.
One of the reasons for the shift is that
New Star
Vancouvers New Star Books started as a
scruffy little publishing outfit,
according to publisher Rolf Maurer. It
didnt have an original owner. It was a
bunch of hippies and activists who
wanted to change the world, who came
together and founded it.
What began as a literary supplement
in a newspaper has grown into a small
press that focuses on maintaining its literary roots while publishing titles about
politics, social issues, and local history
and culture, as well as poetry and
fiction.
One of the dynamics in publishing is
the pressure to grow by adding titles,
Maurer says. Thats also a strategy that
has its risks. He
cites Merchants of
Culture by sociologist John B.
Thompson. He
has a very compelling argument
why medium is
the wrong size for
a publisher and
why the publishers
that survive and
thrive are either the small presses at one
end, or the huge presses on the other.
Weve seen it many times here in Canada.
The smaller presses that have striven to
become a little bigger, the moment
theyre in the middle of the road they get
flattened. We are quite happy to be small
sized doing five to 10 books a year.
Orca
Some B.C. presses are moving away from
focusing on regional titles. Publisher
Andrew Wooldridge has been with Orca
Book Publishers for 25 years. In that
45

Orca has a staff of 24, a very active
backlist of 850 titles, and it publishes an
average of 85 titles a year. Digital is a big
part of its business, currently at 25% and
growing. The U.S. now accounts for
65% of its sales.
Promontory
kids books travel much better,
Wooldridge says. The market is much
larger so you can publish not just for
your region. Orca has also developed a
niche of publishing titles for struggling
readers. Wooldridge says that Orca
wants to publish more books on social
justice, plus more nonfiction. And, with
the environment and issues of climate
change becoming increasingly central,
the presss series Orca Footprints focuses
on titles around environmental topics
such as extreme weather and climate
change.
Promontory Press was founded by an

author who wanted to change the
industry. Publisher Bennett Coles selfpublished his first book,
Virtues of War, in 2010. It
sold 2,000 copies in two
years and won an award,
and as a result Coles got
picked up in a three-book
deal with Titan Books. I
looked at the publishing
industry and I didnt like
what I found, Coles says. I
saw that it was so hard for a
first-time author to break in.
Owl
a year in the lives of
north american owls
Images and text by Paul Bannick

Over 200 images, 208 pages, 10.75 x 9.5,
Hardcover, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-59485-800-0
Advertised in the 2016 PNBA holiday catalog
Over 30 NOrThWesT eveNTs

scheDuleD ThrOugh sPriNg 2017
More than 650 owl lovers packed Seattles
Town Hall for the books launch
This is the kind of book that

makes one marvel at our planet.
William Dietrich,
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
An independent nonprofit publisher

Available where books are sold and at
www.mountaineersbooks.org
Once youre in, youre in, but getting in

is so hard.
When he started Promontory, Coles
began with a traditional publishing
model but experimented with offering
authors services and hybrid publishing,
but he dropped both efforts after running into various hurdles. But Coles still
has the same goal he began with, of
making the industry more accessible to
debut authors: We focus on first-time
authors. Thats always been our specialty.
Even though were just doing
traditional publishing now, I
still want to keep that going.
I still believe that we owe it
to talented new authors to
give them a shot at the
market.
To that end, Promontory
makes sure to have ongoing
marketing support for its
titles. We never stop marketing our books, Coles
says. Theres no such thing
as a backlist for us.
Promontory is open to all types of
books. While mysteries and thrillers are
its mainstay, Coles says that he [doesnt]
want to be that publisher that says, we
dont take your kind. He adds: Were
open to all newcomers. If something
wows us, well take a shot at it.
Simply Read
The B.C. press Simply Read was established by Dimiter Savoff, a former architect turned publisher, in 2001. The
Vancouver-based press puts out an
average of 20 titles
a year, most of
them childrens
picture books.
One area the
press has done
well in is books
published in the
winter season,
because theres
not that many
around, Savoff
says. Three sea-

sons in a row weve published books in
the winter season and they are selling out
in two months.
Simply Read suffered some fallout
when Target closed its Canadian stores
in 2015. Savoff says that the retailer
returned 80-something percent of the
books, causing a financial setback.
Savoff says that the company has recovered and that going forward he plans to
get more into chapter books. He is also
excited about the presss latest and most
successful YA title, Whalemaster from
Michael Moniz, calling it Moby Dick
meets Pirates of the Caribbean.
Royal BC Museum
This year, Michelle van der Merwe
assumed the role of publisher at Victorias
Royal BC Museum. The museum is celebrating its 130th anniversary and has
published for
125 years. The
first 50 years
was mostly
checklists and
reports and scientific monographs, van der
Merwe says.
The museum
began publishing for the
general public
in 1942, starting with its handbook
series, which van der Merwe says is one
of the presss most recognizable set of
publications, with some of its handbooks
having been reprinted six times or more.
The press puts out three to six titles a
year including reprints, and van der
Merwe says that theres a huge amount
of potential to increase that number,
which is one of her goals.
The Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples,
first published in 1975, is still the
presss top-selling title. The most recent
reprint alone has already sold over 8,000
copies. Its got a long life and we sell a
lot of those in the States, van der Merwe
says.
Heritage Group
B.C.s the Heritage Group is home to
three affiliated publishers: Heritage
House Publishing, Rocky Mountain
Books, and TouchWood Editions as well
as Heritage Group Distribution. Rodger
Touchie is president of all of these companies and publisher at Heritage House.
Each company operates as a separate
entity with its own staff and unique publishing program but occupy the same
building in Victoria, which allows the
individual presses to share overhead,
administrative costs, and distribution,
ameliorating the pressures they face as
small to mid-sized publishers. Across
the Heritage Group, sales were up 24%
in 2015 over 2014. Thats huge,
Touchie says. It was a really great year.
Touchie credits Heritage Group
Distributions strong network and POS
tracking system for providing a wide
reach, allowing the publishing houses to
enter many nontraditional accounts,
such as gift shops along the highways
and marinas up and down the coast.
With approximately 2,000 customers in
B.C. and Alberta, the distributions wide
reach is huge in terms of giving us a
broad opportunity to get our books out
there as soon as we publish, Touchie
says. Thats a key thing that distinguishes us from other houses. The
building up of the smaller stores is a
strategy to not be so vulnerable to the
big box or chains.
Touchie says for Heritage House
Publishing, roughly 90% of its titles
are regional. The press first book, Wagon
Road North, remains a bestseller with
over 140,000 copies sold to date, and the
list focuses on books that celebrate the
history and spirit of western Canada,
with most penned by Canadian authors.
Regional titles combined with the recent
boom in tourism is a recipe for success.
He notes that its been a very strong
couple of years for tourism in Western
Canada. Touchie feels its a good time
to target the regional market because of
the vibrant tourism,and cites the huge
growth of the cruise ship business into
Victoria as another contributing factor
BETTER
TOGETHER
40 YEARS OF
PUBLISHING
EXPERTISE
FEBRUARY 911
THE BENSON HOTEL
PORTLAND, OREGON
REGISTER NOW
WWW.PUBWEST.ORG

to rising sales. Tourism is up around
15% here. That leads to obviously more
people buying books. Heritage House
is also doing more collaborations in the
U.S. market, citing three recent copubs
where Heritage has sold U.S. rights to
the University of Washington Press.
Publisher Don Gorman took over
Rocky Mountain Books in 2006. At
that time, RMB
was publishing two
to three very utilitarian regional
titles per year, he
says. While the
press had and continues to have a very
strong backlist,
Gorman wanted to
grow the company substantially, he says. So I

ramped everything
up. Thinking outside the box, the outdoor publisher went
from two to three
titles to around
2030 titles annually,
with as many as 40
books some years.
Gorman realizes
that this represents a
massive increase, but
feels that, because there arent more
bookstores and big-box retailers
opening, in order to grow, publishers
have to start publishing better and publishing more if they can.
The topics that RMB covers include
adventure travel, mountaineering,
guidebooks, and outdoor photography.
Were not trying to do things we
havent done in the past. Everything
were doing is sticking to our core

mandate, Gorman says, though
RMB did add kids books about outdoor pursuits three years ago.
RMB sells through outdoor
retailers, Costco, and indie bookstores, and it does 25%35% of its
business online, an area that Gorman
says is not only very important but
growing. Booksellers are in a
really tough position. They are
being presented with more titles
per season than at any point in publishing and bookselling history. I
totally understand when a bookseller
looks at our catalogue and doesnt feel
like they have the customer base to
support them. The next step is for that
customer to go online.
For RMB the challenge is getting
the attention of the media.
Because it is a niche publisher,
Gorman says that sometimes
its difficult to break out of that
label and get picked up for coverage even within the book
industry. Our name is Rocky
Mountain Books. No one in
Toronto or New York is going to
take us that seriously, which I
totally understand.
But Gorman has come to the
conclusion that being a strong
regional niche publisher is actually
a fantastic thing, he says. It works
really well. The minute you dont
beat yourself up about being
accepted outside of your community, its such a beautiful gig.
With 212 active titles on its backlist and an average of 25 new titles a
year, TouchWood Editions is
shifting direction to focus more on
lifestyle titles in such areas as food and
wine, home and garden, and pets, says
associate publisher Taryn Boyd. She
notes that, while she wants to make sure
that TouchWood titles each either have
a regional elementfor example, a book
written by a local chefor are specific to
the PNW (such as the title Food Artisans
of Vancouver Island), she is hoping that
TouchWoods new titles have more trade
reach. Boyd says that the presss shift in

direction is paying off. TouchWood is
raising the aesthetic quality of its titles,
and it aims to do a rebrand in the next
year. We want to freshen the whole
thing up and make it really relevant,
Boyd says.
Independent of Heritage, Touchie is
also president of Vancouvers Greystone
Books and equal partners with Rob
Sanders, publisher of Greystone, which
is known for its nonfiction list, particularly for books about the environment,
including titles by well-known Canadian
environmentalist David Suzuki. The
press hit a home run this fall with the
English-language edition of German
forest ranger Peter Wohllebens The
Hidden Life of Trees, which has sold over
42,000 copies in the U.S., according to
Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about
80% of print sales. They also had huge
success with 2015s Gut: The Inside Story
of Our Bodys Most Underrated Organ by
Giulia Enders.
Looking toward the future, many B.C.
publishers are focused on reaching out to
the States, not only in terms of sales but
also in terms of networking. Whether it
be in B.C. publishers increased presence
at PNBA, or in industry cross-pollination across the border of the two countries, B.C. publishers and the rest of the
PNW are cementing their ties.
Kevin Williams of Talonbooks says
that the press plans to strengthen its marketing in the U.S. and to send more of its
poets to the States for readings. I think
people do feel an affinity between the two
places, even more so when they start to
look at the books, Williams says.

Working Together
Some publishers in Vancouver have
found it necessary to band together in
order to fight the crushing real estate
market there, which has made it very difficult for publishers to find affordable
office space.
Vancouvers Arsenal Pulp is one of
four organizations, along with Anvil
Press, the Association of Book Publishers
of British Columbia (ABPBC), and
Talonbooks, that has spearheaded a new
initiative, the Literary Arts Centre
Vancouver: a single location that will
house a variety of the publishing communitys members.
Arsenals Brian Lam got involved, he
says, because weve moved four times in
the last 10 years, all because of rising
prices. This situation made Lam go to
the city of Vancouver for help. They
encouraged us to get together with other
literary organizations, and were now
working together with the support of the
because Waechtler notes that there are

fewer event spaces in the city than there
once were.
Talonbooks, Canadas largest independent publisher of drama, with a
focus on publishing native voices, joined
the Literary Arts Centre project because
it too was facing booming rental
increases. Talonbookss Kevin Williams
says that the center is our way of
hoping to get around the ever-rising rent
costs. Not only was real estate rising,
but so were taxes, forcing the publisher
to move every year or two, Williams
says. Aside from sheer financial advantages, Williams celebrates the social
possibilities the Literary Arts Centre
presents. The theater people have
already gone down this road and developed a shared space, and one of the
main comments was just how great it
was to have a larger circle of people
to socialize with. Thats a really big
benefit.
city, who have financed three feasibility

studies so far.
The Literary Arts Centre will not only
provide office space to literary groups
but will also serve as a community space.
The rationale for it has always been that
the rental costs have been such that some
of us are seriously considering whether
or not we can even stay in the city, Lam
says. So this would not only allow us to
stay but would provide a public component, a public face to B.C. writers and
publishers.
Heidi Waechtler, executive director of
the ABPBC, says that the Literary Arts
Centre initiative is now in the phase of
exploring properties and developing a
governance structure. In addition to providing a long-term lease at a reasonable
rate for its members, the center will act
as an incubator where those in the publishing community can share ideas, and
the center will also be able to function as
an event space, which is important
Looking for a career? Looking for a new job?

Look no further...
JOBP
ZONE
www.Publishersweekly.com/JOBZONE
Connect to the best job opportunities in the
publishing industry
New listings every day reach qualified professionals
every minute of the day
Refine the search for the best with the industrys leading resource
JOBZONE_1-2H6_28_12.indd 1
W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E 7/18/12
E K L Y2:43
.CO
PMM
49
Bookstores of Every Kind

The region is home to some of the best-known indies in the country
By Anisse Gross
revival of the independent bookstore sector

has been taking place
over the past few years.
That resurgence can
been seen in the Pacific Northwest,
which even before the indie rebound was
already a veritable bookstore mecca.
The quirks of the regions readers and
reading habits can be seen by looking at
different bestsellers lists. Brian
Juenemann, executive director of the
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association,

says that a comparison of the national
indie bestseller list from the ABA with
PNBAs own list points to these regional
quirks: This week nine of the 10 books
on our mass market are not on the national
indie bestseller list. Like Dune. Its perpetually on ours, right next to 1984.
Were the Dune people. Were a little bit
weird. If you share something off-kilter
with us, were not likely to be weirded out;
were more likely to say, tell me more.
Textual Visions
U Girl
The Days
MEREDITH QUARTERMAIN
Forcasts, Warnings, Advice
Award-winning author
Meredith Quartermains
second novel and seventh
book, U Girl, is a coming-of-age
story set in Vancouver in 1972,
a city crossed between love-in
hip and forest-corp square.
M.A.C. FARRANT
Fiction $19.95 240 pp

978-1-77201-040-4
ebook also available
Let yourself be excited and

delighted. Farrants artfully
spare stories averaging a
couple of paragraphs each
offer enough food for thought
(and mood) to keep you going
for months.
Fiction $14.95 128 pp
978-1-77201-007-7
ebook also available
Once in Blockadia
Reading Sveva
STEPHEN COLLIS
DAPHNE MARLATT
Once in Blockadia is a
collection of long poems that
questions the relationship
between human beings and
the natural world. Stephen
Collis visits the Tar Sands and
English lakesand stands in
the path of pipelines, where
on Burnaby Mountain he was
sued by Kinder Morgan, whose
lawyers noted: underneath the
poetry is a description of how
the barricade was constructed.
In Reading Sveva, Daphne

Marlatt responds to paintings
by Italian migr Sveva Caetani,
who grew up in Vernon, BC.
Similar to her award-winning
long poem, The Given, in
which Marlatt responds to the
death of her mother, Reading
Sveva imagines Caetanis
insular, family-bound life, the
late beginnings of her artistic
growth in 1960, and the
meaning of home.
Poetry $18.95 148 pp

978-1-77201-015-2
Poetry $19.95 88 pp
978-1-77201-016-9
Talonbooks
Portland Powerhouse
You cant talk about the PNW bookselling scene without talking about indie
chain Powells Books. One of the most
iconic bookstores in America, Powells,
founded in 1971, continues to be a
champion of indie bookselling. CEO
Miriam Sontz has worked for Powells for
32 years. When she started, Powells was
one store with 45 employees; now
Powells has around 500 employees at six
locations.
Its flagship storedubbed Powells
City of Booksclaims to be the largest
used-and-new bookstore in the world,
stocked with a million books and taking
up an entire city block. The stores mix
is constantly changing and being revitalized. One thing that makes Powells
unique, Sontz says, is that it started off
from a used-book perspective. She
explains, Weve always valued the content of a book regardless of its imprint or
origin. It doesnt matter if its used,
remainder, or new when determining if
its a good book. We treat all those titles
with the same respect. I think thats different. Thats very different from most
used bookstores and certainly different
from a lot of new bookstores.
Using feedback from its database, the
chain shifts its focus and resources to
whats trending or whats going to move
for them. In 1990 we got our first computerized system, so every book we
receive is in our system, and we have
pretty good database analysis to help us
better understand which sections are
growing, Sontz says. But she is quick to
add that theres another factor to Powells
success: bookselling intuition. I dont

want to underestimate this, but theres always just a combination of what you know and what you think will happen, Sontz
says. Its part data analysis and part putting your finger out in
the breeze and seeing which way its blowing. She believes that
this unquantifiable element is one of the key reasons why indies
have remained vital in the industry.
Powells also got a head start selling online, starting early in
1993. Sometimes seen by consumers as an alternative to
Amazon, Powells is the online version of shop local, Sontz
says. More and more people are thinking about how they spend
their dollars. However, Sontz adds that online sales for Powells
have been pretty stagnant over the last five years.
I feel like Im living in heaven, Sontz says regarding the
Pacific Northwest. Its a cornucopia. Its so bountiful and its
just getting better and better.
Portland is also home to many smaller indies, including two
childrens specialty stores: A Childrens Place Bookstore and
Green Bean Books. Located in the Alberta Arts District, Green
Bean Books opened in 2009. We opened in the middle of the
recession, owner Jennifer Green says, and everyone said dont
do it. Yet she reports that since opening the store has seen
consistent sales growth.
Portland ranks second to last among Americas most populous cities in households with children, but Greens neighborhood has seen an influx of younger couples moving in and
having kids, Green says. This neighborhood is chock-full of
kids five and younger.
Despite more young people, the store has had a hard time
getting its YA section to take off. Green says that its a matter
of waiting for the kids in the neighborhood to be old enough.
The store has 15% of its mix devoted to sidelines, Green says,
including six repurposed vending machines that dispense
things such as finger puppets and mustaches, creating an interactive experience for kids.
Green holds that elementcreating experienceto be her
stores mission. Our calendar is full of events, and were a community meeting place, which is great, Green says. Were
trying to get people to come here every day. Were creating not
just a bookstore, but an experience. Thats our whole goal. Its
all about community.
Lots of Variety in Washington

Seattles Third Place Books has three locations: Lake Forest
Park, Ravenna, and its newest location, Seward Park. The Lake
Forest Park store is 18 years old and has 15,000 sq. ft. of bookstore with a caf, a stage, a community room, and a common
area, all located in a northern suburb of Seattle.
Managing partner Robert Sindelar says that the idea for the
Lake Forest Park bookstore was based on the concept of a third
place. He explains, Its a gathering place, not your home, not
your work, but that third place in your life.
This original location has a mix of new and used books and
large seating areas where groups can meet. Since the developW W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M
51
Seattles Third Place Books opened its newest location in the Seward Park neighborhood in June.
books from british columbia. . .

and beyond
BECOMING UNBECOMING
Una
Among the most powerful
books published on
misogyny, sexual assault
and survival in recent
years. Popmatters.com
NOW AVAILABLE
HOME AND AWAY

Darcy & Randy Shore
A cookbook of recipes from
around the world, inspired
by how food not only
connects us all, but also
reminds us of home.
APRIL 2017
TOMBOY SURVIVAL GUIDE

Ivan Coyote
Ivan Coyote is by turn
eloquent, provocative, and
persuasive.
Vancouver Sun
NOW AVAILABLE
CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE

Sarah Schulman
Conflict is a balm against
comforting explanations
for violence and abuse,
ones we know arent true,
just easy. Village Voice
NOW AVAILABLE
books with bite from
arsenal pulp press

arsenalpulp.com
Distributed in the US by Consortium | Distributed in Canada by UTP
ment of the initial concept, however, consumer

preferences have changed.
Sindelar contextualizes the
development of the original store, saying, This
was when it seemed like
Barnes & Noble and
Borders were going to take
over the world. There were
threats from Walmart and
Costco, and there were
threats from Amazon that
didnt seem nearly as
threatening then as they
do today. But all of those
factors were in play.
At that time, Third
Place Books was unique
enough that the store,
which has to be driven to,
drew people from a wide
geographic areaa
strategy that Sindelar says
worked very well up
through 2008. Then the economy falls
apart, gas prices almost double, this
store is a store people drive to, he notes.
Very few people can walk to it. And
e-books launched right around that time
as well. That combination of factors
made a lot of indie bookstores take a hit,
but it definitely took a hit to this kind
of model, this indie suburban
superstore.
As a result, the companys two most
recent stores, the ones in Seattles
Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, are about 3,000 sq. ft. Third
Place opened the Seward Park location
in June of this year, because it noticed
growing density in the southern part of
Seattle (Seward Park is in southeast
Seattle) as housing prices elsewhere in
the city have been rising dramatically.
Another Washington independent
with multiple locations is Village Books,
which has a store in Bellingham and one
in Lynden; both focus on community. In
fact, Building community one book at
a time is the stores tagline. And its
not just a tagline, explains general manager Paul Hanson. The selling of books

helps to facilitate that mission [of building community]. It
drives all of our business decisions.
The store has roughly 350 author events annually, in addition
to which it hosts other events, without authors, that are based
around community building. Village Books also has a strong
partnership with the local library system.
Village Books was one of the first stores to get an Espresso
Book Machine, and while that machine is now gone, it helped
Village Books to build its in-store publishing program. The
store has its own imprint, Chuckanut Editions, which focuses
on local books. Chuckanut publishes the Chuckanut Reader, a
quarterly magazine that Village Books sends out to its customers, and Chuckanut is publishing its first full-color photography book, Nooksack Wanderings by Bob Kandiko, this
Christmas.
Suzanne Droppert took over Shotwells Bookstore in
Poulsbo, Wash., in 1996. She changed the name to Liberty Bay
Books, moved it across the street, and quadrupled the inventory. Then, in 2015, she opened a satellite store a half-hour
away in Bremerton. People in Bremerton, a military town with
a shipyard and submarine base nearby, asked for a bookstore,
Droppert says. She says that, while Liberty Bays Bremerton
store is doing well, itd be nice if we did a whole lot better.
People in Bremerton are out of the habit of going downtown
to shop, Droppert explains, because of the many shuttered
storefronts in the downtowns recent history. My goal is to
change peoples habits of shopping, Droppert says. Everybody
is used to clicking, and to come downtown, well, its a
struggle.
Despite the challenges, last year was Liberty Bays best year
ever, which was bizarre, Droppert says. Thats even taking out
the Bremerton store. I really think that that is due to the publishers giving us authors, bringing them to our schools and
communities. Being a small store, we really appreciate that.
Thats how we are making up in sales.
Phil Bevis of Arundel Books in Seattle says that he is
impressed with the new wave of bookstore owners. They have
real business plans and real experience in other fields to draw
on. Theyve lined their ducks up. Im really gratified to see the
general level of confidence and excitement in existing businesses and the quality of people opening new stores.
One example of the new wave of bookstore owners is Danielle
Hulton of Adas Technical Books and Caf in the Capitol Hill
district of Seattle. Danielle opened Adas in 2010 with her husband David Hulton. Danielle was a computer engineer for four
years until she realized that she wanted a career change that
would allow her to stay involved in the industry. Her idea? To
open a bookstore that had a focus on making STEM available
to the general population.
The original iteration of the store didnt include a cafe, but
Danielle realized pretty quickly that being exclusively a bookstore was not a sustainable business model. Luckily, a space
became available in the same neighborhood, and, with the help
Village Book has two locations. In addition to its flagship store in Bellingham,
Wash., the owners recently opened Village Books & Paper Dreams (above) in
Lynden.
of an architect, Danielle and David opened a new, design-driven

version of Adas that includes a cafe in November 2013. The
new store not only has the cafe, but also a kids section and a
coworking space available for rent. The stores sales are split
roughly down the middle between the cafe and the store.
Tom Nissley, owner of Seattles Phinney Books, worked on
the books team at Amazon from 20002011. But after winning
money on Jeopardy!, he decided to escape the golden handcuffs
of his jobnot to open a bookstore, however, but to write
books. His first book, A Readers Book of Days, came out from
Norton in 2013, but writing wasnt enough to sustain Nissley
financially. Thats when his neighborhood bookstore came up
for sale. The more he looked into the idea of opening a bookstore, the more he thought it was a good time to get into the
business.
That was in June 2014. Since then, Nissley has developed a
bookstore that, at only 1,200 square feet, thrives on its carefully
chosen selection and its ability to connect with its
community.
Nissley puts a lot of care into his weekly newsletter and into
Phinneys unique subscription book service, Phinney by Post.
What distinguishes Phinneys subscription book service from
other similar services is that Phinney chooses backlist titles. I
53

choose an obscure or underappreciated
backlist title that I think people dont
know, but that I love, Nissley says.
Even though Nissley is new to the
business, the store is up again this year,
he says. Its gone kind of as wed hoped
so far. Its been fun to see how a small
store works, and what the value of it is
and how much people appreciate it.
A Tough Go in Vancouver
The soaring rents in Vancouver have left
the city with no indie bookstore downtown. Even Indigo closed its superstore
in favor of a smaller format, Indigospirit
Outlet.
Vancouver is not a great place now for
bookstores, Ronald Hatch of Ronsdale
Press says. We used to have some really
splendid bookstores here, but now we
have maybe three or four for a population
of a million.
The change in Vancouvers bookstore
environment has changed Hatchs business. The big change over the last
1520 years for us is weve lost a lot of
our habitat, he says. The ecology of
bookselling has really changed and
driven out most of the kinds of booksellers that sustained the kind of publishing that we do and that other smaller
and regionally based presses count on.
That has been a huge factor, bigger than
Amazon, I think, in shaping our work.
Its much harder to put books in front of
peoples noses.
However, Mary-Ann Yazedjian, president of the B.C. Booksellers Association
and manager of Book Warehouse (a division of Black Bond Books) in Vancouver,
sees reasons for optimism. When Book
Warehouses former owner Sharman
King wanted to retire five years ago, he
put his chain of indie stores up for sale.
When his leases were up, if he couldnt
sell, he let his stores close one by one,
Yazedjian says. He got down to his last

storethe flagship store on Broadway.
Cathy Jesson, the owner of Black Bond
Books, an indie chain with 10 locations
in the suburbs, bought that last
remaining location, just to keep Book
Warehouse alive in Vancouver. That was
five years ago, and since then Book
Warehouse on Broadway has done so
well that two and a half years ago Jesson
opened a second Vancouver location.
There are no bookstores in downtown
proper, however, aside from used ones,
because of the prohibitive rents. There
are so many empty storefronts, its ridiculous, Yazedjian says. There doesnt
seem to be any sense of landlords wanting
to work with local indie businesses to
make it affordable.
Even though rents are high, so far
Yazedjian says that Book Warehouse
hasnt had problems with staffing and
that sales are up across the board for both
30 years of books
celebrating the
Pacific Northwest
Munros Books in Victoria, British Columbia has benefited from an increase in tourism.

of Book Warehouses stores.It was doom
and gloom about eight to 10 years ago
when Amazon got really big and popular
and started devaluing books like they do,
Yazedjian says. That has plateaued.
Area booksellers have gotten together
to more actively promote local bookselling. Yazedjian also credits Authors
for Indies, Canadas version of the States
Indies First campaign, for helping to
create awareness around supporting
indie bookstores.
Its a different bookselling story in
Victoria. Munros Books, started by Jim
Munro and his first wife, Alice Munro
(yes, that one), in 1963, remains a destination. It is now located in a heritage
bank building and is often named one of
the most beautiful bookstores in the
world. Jessica Walker, managing partner
at Munros, says that, despite the fact
that Jim Munro has retired, passing the
store on to four longtime employees, he
still owns the building, which allows
Munros Books to weather economic
pressures.
Victoria has a number of big independent bookstores that benefit from being
on the cruise-ship circuit. Walker says
that summers at the store are very busy
with people heading up to Alaska on
cruise ships. In part were blessed with
not only a really strong home community of readers and writers, but the additional bonus of a lot of tourists.
Business at Munros has been steadily
climbing back from the dark days of
2009, Walker says. We had a really
good summer this year. In part because
of the shift in the U.S. dollar in the last
year or so.
For Munros, the blessing of their location also has its drawbacks, mainly that
shipping is slow. We have to think
pretty strategically at Christmastime
because we dont get books in two days.
Most of the time we get them in two
weeks, so the time frame for responding
to demand is longer.
Bumps in the Road

Even though the PNW region is
booming, area bookstores face chal-
lenges. The influx of tech companies has

not only driven up the rent and changed
the character of the regions downtowns,
it has also helped to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Robert
Sindelar of Third Place Books says that
figuring out how to provide a livable
wage in Seattle is a challenge. He wonders how he can ensure that his staff can
afford to live near the stores.
Another challenge facing stores is the
cultural one of consumer habit.
According to a recent report, nearly half
of U.S. households have an Amazon
Prime membership. That news is making
some booksellers uneasy about the future
of shopping.
Its what Sindelar calls Prime culture. Hes amazed by how quickly
society has adopted using Prime as part
of everyday life: Theres a segment of
our population for whom Prime has
become as integrated into their lives as
googling something. To suggest not
using Prime is to suggest that when you
launch your browser you dont use
Google. If youre in the bookstore business thats scary.
Sindelar struggles with how to educate his customers about the disconnect
of the person who actively says, I love
your bookstore, but who spend his or
her book-buying dollars elsewhere. He
says that customers, even regulars,
come into the store and, if hes out of
the book that they need, they buy it
online. To them theres no disconnect
there. They dont think they are being
a bad customer. They feel like they are
supporting me, Sindelar says. He
notices that customers are willing to
spend money on things that stores have
in stock on that day. Otherwise, theyre
going online.
whereas indies are unique. You can get

a book anywhere. So why go into an indie
store? Bevis asks. The answer is
because its going to be different. That is
the real reason for the upswing in the
indie market right now.
To be completely clich, there is kind
of the belief that, if you build it, they
will come, Sindelar says. If you do it
right that is. Im a huge believer that
there is a thirst for and continues to be a
thirst for what we provide, but you have
to put it close enough to people.
Some booksellers believe that there is
room for online book shopping and
bricks-and-mortar booksellers to exist
side by side. Amazon cant ever replicate the experience that Adas Technical
Books and Caf provides, Danielle
Hulton says. I think a lot of our regular
customers buy from both Amazon and
us and Im okay with that. I also think a
lot of our customers work at Amazon,
From the sea to the slopes, explore

with picture books from
SIMPLY READ BOOKS

Children will nd a lot to like
in little Wendell. KIRKUS REVIEWS
Wendell the Narwhal

by Emily Dove
9781927018668 $16.95 U.S. HARDCOVER
This winter, visit the quirky

ski resort village of Slush Mountain!
Operating in Amazons
Shadow
Amazon may loom physically near to

Seattle booksellers, but it cant offer
what the indies do: a unique bookstore
experience. Experience is the key, Phil
Bevis of Arundel Books says. He adds
that chains are the same in all towns,
Slush Mountain
by Bjorn R. Lie
9781927018828 $16.95 U.S. HARDCOVER
WWW.SIMPLYREADBOOKS.COM
55
Someing new
for everyone
from
From the bestselling

author of Wayward
Pines and Dark Matter
and now a television
series on TNT.
From New York Times

bestselling author
Patricia Cornwell
comes a comprehensive
and intriguing
expos of one of the
worlds most chilling
cases of serial
murderand the
police force that
failed to solve it.
Dugoni drills so deep

into the troubled
relationships among
his characters that
each new revelation
shows them in a
disturbing new
lightan unholy
tangle of crimes
makes this his best
book to date.
Kirkus Reviews
Fly-by-the-seat-ofyour-pants pacing and

page-turning twists...
Moral Defense by
former Los Angeles
prosecutor Marcia
Clark has it all.
Associated Press
A spellbinding thriller
from the bestselling
author of The Einstein
Prophecy.
Prophecy
Longlisted for the

2016 Man Booker
Award Kennedys
prose is lively and
assured.
New York Times
Book Review
A Publishers Weekly
Best Book of 2016
and Philip K. Dick
Award Winner.
Things go terribly
wrong for these
engrossing characters
in Catherine
McKenzies latest
tour de force
Truly riveting!
Mary Kubica,
New York Times
bestselling author
of The Good Girl and
Pretty Baby
The pair behind

Theodor Seuss Geisel
Award winner You
Are (Not) Small
are back with another
giggle-inducing
tale about (not)
being scared.
Will charm animal

lovers of all stripes.
Kirkus Reviews
Available from your preferred wholesaler or direct from
BrilliancePublishing
2016 Brilliance Publishing, Inc.
cindy aooly photography

To m N i s s l e y o f
Phinney Books says that
he, too, takes Amazons
decision to open bricksand-mortar stores as a
form of tribute, though
he realizes that it definitely could threaten
existing indie bookstores
to have that kind of competition. As a former
Amazon employee, he
has something of an
insider view. When I
left Amazon they really
thought that the physical
book was going to be
dead in five years,
Nissley says. I think
they are doing it for
branding reasons and to
get people into Prime
Danielle Hulton, co-owner of Adas Technical Books and Cafe in the Capital Hill district of Seattle, says her store offers
and
to sell devicesthey
an experience that cannot be replicated by Amazon.
arent really bookstores.
Nissley further notes that by making
and our store speaks to those technically
books the center of attention of the
minded people. Its actually great.
stores, at least for now, Amazon is
Additionally, Amazons much publiacknowledging that physical books
cized decision to open bricks-andarent going away.
mortar stores doesnt have indies
Sindelar adds, Years and years ago it
sweating too much. Miriam Sontz of
was just shaking your fist at Amazon or
Powells finds it to be a form of flattery:
B&N or whoever deserved some fistIts an acknowledgement that theres
shaking at the time. About seven years
something that goes on specifically with
ago or so we made a conscious decision
bookstores thats not reproducible
as a company to say we cannot define
online.
ourselves in their shadow. Either what
She points out that for people who live
we do is unique and has purpose and
in neighborhoods where indie bookpeople are willing to pay for itor what
stores dont exist, readers have little
we do doesnt serve our communities and
choice but to use Amazon.I think the
well have to close.
leverage that Amazon has is that there
Nissley agrees. As an ex-Amazon
are many communities that do not have
person
coming into this business, the
that
kind
of
alternative,
Sontz
says.
Exploring Guides and
main thing I took away from that is
When you dont know what youre
Coloring Books for Seattle,
that I dont have to compete with
looking for, shopping online can be
Tokyo and Portland
Amazon. Im doing something really
extremely frustrating, she adds.
different. Six or seven years ago it was
Various engines have tried to tell you
$14.95 | Perfect Bound Soft Cover
a different story, but I think my cuswhat you might like, and those have all
ISBN 978-0-9898972-2-8
tomers are very conscious of why they
been abject failures. Theres nothing like
are coming into my store. They are not
talking to a human being about the book
Colorful Cities, LLC
expecting what they get from Amazon.
you should read. I think that has value.
I dont worry about competing with
I think that value is being more and
www.colorfulcities.com
info@colorfulcities.com
them. I just offer something so difmore understood, just as the number of
ferent.
e-books selling has declined.
Where will you

explore today?

Pacific Northwest Spotlight

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Pacific Northwest Spotlight

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Arsenal Pulp Press

Orca Book Publishers

University of Washington Press

The Independent Spirit Flourishes in the

The area is home to

he Pacific Northwest (PNW), also referred to as

imprint of Simon & Schuster, which

Becker & Mayer

With almost 30 years in the business and 200 employees,

Becker & Mayer is a packager and publisher located in Bellevue,

available at bookstores and online

Looking for BettY MAcDonALD

The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I

The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon

A thorough and illuminating biography that, with any

Engelhard digs deeper, tracing how the polar bear

A YeAr right here

BirDs of the PAcific

Adventures with Food and Family

Jess is a smart, funny, straightshooting writer with a great sense

Molly Wizenberg, author of A

Discover more than four hundred bird