C'mon Coach, put me in!

Our final session in the literary stream was on publishing with Christina Palassio, Managing Editor of Coach House Books. Coach House Books is pretty special, not only because it’s one of the few publishing houses in Canada that prints its own books, but also because it’s been responsible for putting some of the best Canadian lit on bookstore shelves. And if you’re one of those people (admit it) who cracks open a book, sniffs it, and runs a finger down the page before deciding whether to buy, then you’ve probably caught yourself saying “Mmmm… Coach House” more than once.

The Coach House offices and printing facilities are in fact housed in two beautiful old coach houses on bpNichol Lane, just behind St. George Street. Although Kasey and I were, as always, steadfastly focused on the business of learning, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we were both taken by the premises. When we climbed the stairs to the second story, we each announced – independently but in near unison – “I want to live here!” Apparently this is not an uncommon response.

We met Editor-in-Chief Alana Wilcox, and Publisher Stan Bevington, who was the founder and original publisher of The Coach House Press (predecessor to Coach House Books) and was recently awarded the Order of Canada. Congrats, Stan! The session was on book publishing in general: how authors get signed, what the process is, how a book gets promoted and published. We talked about promotion, print runs, which factors determine the number of books printed, and the sad lack of profitability in book publishing. We also saw the press itself in action. The printed pages are manually fed through a series of different machines, including one that folds the signatures and another that glues on the covers. And, in case you thought it couldn’t get any better, there’s also a night watchman who manually collates the signatures into books. ‘Nuff said.

I love you, Coach House Books.