This is the 241st edition of SHuSH, the official newsletter of The Sutherland House Inc. If you’re new here, push the button:
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Five years ago last week, Sutherland House launched itself and its first book, Joe Berridge’s Perfect City, with a party at the City of Toronto Archives. I don’t believe I’ve shared the story of how we began.
Anna Porter is largely to blame.
I’d left Rogers Communications after three unfulfilling years as senior vice-president of public affairs. It wasn’t a job I’d asked for. I’d been rather happily working in media at Rogers for almost a decade, first as editor and publisher of Maclean’s, then as president of Rogers Publishing (which owned and operated fifty-five additional titles including Chatelaine, Canadian Business, L'actualité, and Hello! Canada), and finally as president of Next Issue Canada (the magazine app we built in partnership with Hearst, Time Inc., Condé Nast, and Meredith that would eventually become the basis for Apple News). The Nadir Mohamed retired as CEO of Rogers, Guy Lawrence replaced him, and moved me to public policy on the shaky assumption that someone who had been long involved in Canadian politic debates might help the company sort out its massive regulatory issues. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, but Guy at least ensured that if I hated it or it didn’t work out, I’d leave on excellent terms. I did.
That was sometime in 2017. I was in my mid-fifties and knew that I wanted to keep working, but I wasn’t sure what to do beyond keeping a safe distance from corporate life. I had many lunches, including one with Anna, who for three decades had been founder and publisher of Key Porter Books, one of Canada’s leading independents.
Anna had wanted to meet because she was interested in getting into the magazine business. She had eyes on Maclean’s and wondered if Rogers might sell it. I did my best to dissuade her, explaining how the business model that had sustained magazines for two centuries was irretrievably broken. We discussed the relative merits of acquiring an existing magazine versus starting a new operation from scratch, which led me to ask which route she’d take if she were starting again in the book business. Anna thought it would be feasible to acquire an existing book publisher. The penny dropped.
I’d been lurking around the edges of the book business my whole life. I did a lot of reviewing in my twenties and signed my first book contract around that time (never finished it). In the early 1990s, some friends and I looked seriously at opening a bookstore in Edmonton. This was on the eve of the big chainstores and Amazon simultaneously opening. I ended up moving to Toronto instead, bullet dodged. While at Rogers, I tried to launch a book-themed magazine, but couldn’t get support (it needed to be North American and Rogers was focused on the Canadian market). I finally did write several books of my own and enjoyed the experience.
For the rest of the lunch, I pumped Anna for information on the Canadian independent book publishing landscape. She described a stable, if not flourishing industry, which sounded great compared to magazines and newspapers. We parted and I spent the next six months trying and failing to acquire a publishing company.
One of my first stops was Jack David, founder of ECW. Someone had suggested he might be looking to divest. We arranged a lunch date. I forgot about it, something I do with embarrassing regularity. We made another date. Jack told me he’d already arranged his succession—he was handing off to the capable David Caron—but he was nevertheless full of wisdom and advice. He’s been my friend and book publishing sensei ever since.
I met with Kirk Howard, founder of Dundurn Press, one of the largest Canadian independents. He was looking to retire. I made him an offer that came well short of his expectations. I made another offer for a smaller independent in western Ontario; it also fell shy of the mark. I kicked the tires on three or four more presses. I struck a deal with Tim Inkster to buy The Porcupine’s Quill. It fell apart when the Canada Council, Tim’s largest source of funding, made it clear that his grants were not transferable unless I was prepared to publish the same mix of books that Tim published, and hand-print them as Tim hand-printed them. I wasn’t. That was that.
I decided to start a company from scratch.
In order to incorporate, I needed a name. I was leaning toward using my surname until my daughter explained that Whyte Books might be triggering. I named the company after the street we live on in Toronto, or, as my wife likes to say, for the house we’ll lose if this all goes south.
In retrospect, I might have tried harder to buy a used publishing house. Probably because there’s no analogue in the periodical world, I underestimated the value of the backlist you get with an existing operation—all those previous years of books that continue to sell and provide a stream of income with which to fund growth. A lot of my publishing peers derive 40 to 60 percent of their income from backlist. The Sutherland House backlist is kicking in now, but it’s taken five years.
On the other hand, I was attracted to the idea of the blank slate. Start from nothing, learn from doing, see where it goes.
The main benefit of having attempted to buy an existing publisher was that I was able to examine the guts of a handful of different companies to see how they worked, where the money came in, where it went out. That experience was invaluable as I got organized through 2018.
I needed manuscripts. A publisher is nothing without properties. I knew I wanted to publish narrative nonfiction and to sell books in Canada and the US. I began telling friends what I was up to and a couple of them had interesting projects. I called several agents I knew—Beverley Slopen and Michael Levine were especially helpful. Michael Enright, who seemed to think it preposterous that someone would try to start a publishing house in the twenty-first century, interviewed me on CBC’s Sunday Edition, which led to a boatload of submissions. I was able to cobble together an initial list of eight books.
On Jack’s recommendation, I took the list to Canadian Manda and University of Toronto Press Distribution. They agreed to be my Canadian sales agent and distributor, respectively. Again with Jack’s assistance, I lined up US sales and distribution with Baker & Taylor.
In the summer of 2018, I rented a small office in a walk-up building two blocks from home. Accustomed to team work and needing companionship, I began bringing Emmitt to the office with me. He mostly enjoyed the romp through the park on the way in and sniffing the garbage cans in the parking lot, but in time he became a contributor. I’d tell him what I was doing and why, discuss problems with him. He’d listen intently and suggest lunch. I designated him Employee No. 1.
I nevertheless needed part-time human help. I placed an ad, received a lot of resumes, and hired the first guy I interviewed, Matt Bucemi, a Cuban-American Ph.D. in English literature who’d recently moved to Toronto with his Canadian wife. Matt had only marginally more book publishing experience than me, but he was smart, willing, and great company.
We figured out how to get books printed, developed a marketing strategy, and by 2019 were ready to go. I had a five-year plan in mind. It was to start with eight books each of our first two years, and increase to between sixteen and twenty by year five without losing money, all proceeds being used to fund the increased volume of books.
The first two years were relatively leisurely. Eight books a year doesn’t take a lot out of you. Matt and I met in the office one day a week and mostly talked, although the work got done.
We did everything ourselves. I remember Matt watching me put cookies on paper plates at our launch party and asking if I found some elements of our operations demeaning. I tried to explain to him how much I enjoyed the menial tasks, whether putting cookies on plates or slipping books into envelopes, labelling them, and shlepping them to the post office. I loved going to the warehouse to pick up boxes of books. I hand-delivered a lot of our initial orders. The best part of start-ups is undertaking a long string of seemingly mindless chores and watching the outcomes accumulate into something approximating a living business. I’m not sure Matt was convinced.
At some point in our second year, Matt became a father and started looking for gainful employment. He wound up running the book publishing program at York University. We’re very proud of him.
Shalomi Ranasinghe moved seamlessly into Matt’s position straight out of undergrad at University of Toronto and before long was overseeing between twenty to thirty books a year and printing them on three continents.
Emmitt, unfortunately, didn’t make it to year three. Even when he wasn’t feeling his best in the last few months, he still insisted on showing up for work. He knew how dependent I’d become on him.
There are now five of us at the office—me, Shalomi, marketing director and den mother Serina Mercier, editorial assistant Leah Ciani, marketing intern Krithika Chandrasekar (our publicist Sarah Miniaci and designer Lena Yang are remote). We’re working out of the same building, but a bigger space upstairs. I go in most days, the others once or twice a week.
Higgins accompanies me on occasion. He is vying for the title of Employee 1B, but until he gets through a morning without expressing an intemperate opinion he’ll remain on probation. Frankly, he’s been outperformed by Shalomi’s Brimsley, whose onsite behaviour is exemplary.
It doesn’t feel like five years, mostly because there’s still so much we need to do and learn. We’ve published a lot of books of which we’re proud, and I’ve made a ridiculous number of mistakes, fortunately none of them fatal. We fulfilled the five-year plan, exceeding our expectations in terms of revenues and the number of books. At some point, I’ll report more thoroughly on what’s worked and what hasn’t.
In the meantime, heartfelt thanks to Anna and Jack, our fine authors, our wonderful team—and everyone who has bought a book from us or subscribed to this newsletter—for getting us this far.
Have a look…
Now available — Wells on Trudeau!
Sutherland Quarterly is pleased to announce that Justin Trudeau on the Ropes: Governing in Troubled Times by leading Canadian political journalist Paul Wells is now available to subscribers.
Launched in 2022, Sutherland Quarterly is an exciting new series of captivating essays on current affairs by some of Canada’s finest writers, available by annual subscription at the incredibly reasonable price of $67.99. Subscribe here. The books are also sold individually in stores for $19.95; this one will be available first week of May.
Justin Trudeau On the Ropes: Governing in Troubled Times
By Paul Wells
The worst decade in the history of the Liberal Party of Canada came to an end on October 19, 2015. Justin Trudeau swept to power, ending the ten-year rule of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Trudeau’s vision was relentlessly optimistic: the word "positive" was heard eight times in his victory speech, along with references to "sunny ways" and "hope and hard work." But the fates decreed that he would govern in darker times. His rookie government, itself mainly staffed by rookies in federal politics, had to learn on the job in an age of polarization, misinformation, and pandemic, while dealing with the rise of Trump and Brexit, a newly belligerent China, and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The moment needed more than a young PM's abundant charm. And almost from the outset, Trudeau has struggled to rise to the occasion.
A decade after he published The Longer I’m Prime Minister, the definitive portrait of Stephen Harper in power, Paul Wells, one of Canada’s all-time great political writers, turns his attention to Justin Trudeau, a man of talent, ambition, and trust issues in a time of mistrust.
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Our Newsletter Roll (suggestions welcome)
Art Kavanagh’s Talk about books: Book discussion and criticism.
Gayla Gray’s SoNovelicious: Books, reading, writing, and bookstores.
Esoterica Magazine: Literature and popular culture.
Benjamin Errett’s Get Wit Quick, literature and other fun stuff
Lydia Perovic’s Long Play: literature and music.
Tim Carmody’s Amazon Chronicles: an eye on the monster.
Jason Logan’s Urban Color Report: adventures in ink (sign-up at bottom of page)
Anne Trubek’s Notes from a Small Press: like SHuSH, but different
Art Canada Institute: a reliable source of Canadian arts info/opinion
Kate McKean’s Agents & Books: an interesting angle on the literary world
Rebecca Eckler’s Re:Book: unpretentious recommendations
Anna Sproul Latimer’s How to Glow in the Dark: interesting advice
John Biggs Great Reads: strong recommendations
Steven Beattie’s That Shakespearean Rag, a newsy blog about books and reading
Mark Dykeman’s How About This: Atlantic Canadian interviews and thoughts on writing and creativity.
J. W. Ellenhall’s 3-Page Book Battles: Readers help her choose which of three random books to review each month.
Donald Brackett’s Embodied Meanings: “Arts music films literature and popular culture.”
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Congrats and best wishes for the next five
Congrats on five wonderful years! Best Wishes for the next five - and more!