Raincoast Publishing

Founded in 1979 by Allan MacDougall and Mark Stanton, Raincoast Books started as a book distribution and wholesale business. Raincoast launched its publishing program after co-publishing Nick Bantock’s highly successful Griffin & Sabine series with Chronicle Books in 1991. Other early successes included the Uncles John’s Bathroom Reader serires, and of course the Harry Potter series.

In 2002, Raincoast Books acquired the Polestar imprint, featuring literary fiction and poetry, creative non-fiction and outstanding teen titles. Raincoast also acquired Press Gang Publishers, a provocative press responsible for developing some of the most important feminist and lesbian books in North America.

By 2007, Raincoast was the fourth largest independent trade publisher in Canada (according to BookNet Canada), and has been nominated for or won every major national and regional literary award in Canada, including the Governor General’s Award for children’s fiction (for Allen Sapp’s illustrations in The Song Within My Heart).

In January 2008, the company decided to focus on its core distribution business. Spring 2008 was the final season of frontlist titles, but select backlist will remain in print.

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Raincoast’s Commitment to the Environment

Raincoast Book uses Ancient Forest Friendly paper in more than 90% of the books we produce. We were awarded the 2003 Ethics in Action Award for our commitment to lessening our impact on the world’s forest and global ecosystems.

This award recognizes Raincoast’s ecologically responsible paper use in its daily operations and in the printing of its published books, including the Harry Potter series. As the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter books, Raincoast garnered unprecedented national and international media attention, including special recognition from author J.K. Rowling.

More recently, Raincoast has been working with Green Press Initiative in the US to further our commitment, and to help spread the word about ecologically responsible alternatives across North America. For more information about this campaign, see the websites of Markets Initiative and Green Press Initiative

For more details on Raincoast’s Ancient Forest Friendly policy, see www.raincoast.com/ancientforestfriendly/.

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Associations and Acknowledgements

Raincoast is proud to be an active member of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, the Association of Canadian Publishers, and the Canadian Booksellers Association.

Raincoast would like to thank the British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage for their support of our publishing program.

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