The house that Orca built: Victoria publisher thrives in tough times

Katherine Dedyna, Times Colonist

Published: Sunday, November 15, 2009

In the precarious world of Canadian publishing, there's a word for Victoria's Orca Book Publishers: Success.

Orca celebrates its quarter century in business this year. It has grown from publishing one book -- current president Bob Tyrrell's Island Pubbing guidebook in 1984 -- to ranking as one of the top Canadian publishers of books for children and youth. It introduces 65 new titles a year, and every one of them is written by Canadians, with the vast majority printed in Canada.

"I think 25 years in any business is a milestone," says Tyrrell, Orca's co-owner and founder, sitting in the book-filled front office on Balmoral Road. "In 25 years, we've never had a year that our revenue didn't grow."

Company president Bob Tyrrell, left, and publisher Andrew Wooldridge show off some of the 600 titles the company has published.

Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist

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That said, it's only been five years since he stopped using his house as collateral on the business loan that kept things afloat. Orca is now the largest publisher of children's books in Western Canada.

"There are not too many independently owned publishers in Canada doing any better than we are these days," Tyrrell says.

The company carves out its niches but avoids trends. "You can't keep doing the same things over and over again," says Andrew Wooldridge, co-owner and publisher.

It's a comfortable power seat for someone who started out as a warehouse worker there 18 years ago and has done just about every other job in the place.

For the last five years, the publishing house has been located in an actual house -- a comfortable yellow vintage building backed by a huge warehouse that was once a horse barn for long-gone dairy.

That setup is "a pretty good embodiment of the company right there," says Carolyn Wood, executive director of the 33-member Association of Canadian Publishers. It's an attractive house publishing bestselling books with an efficient distribution machine attached to it, she says.

"To do well in publishing, you need a particular combination of passion -- especially for children's books -- with a hard head for what makes business work. And that's what Orca has managed to harness together," Wood says.

"To be able to survive in Canadian publishing is an achievement in a harsh landscape but Orca goes way beyond surviving -- they flourish," says Wood. They've grown to mid-size when even mid-sized publishes are becoming "a very rare species" in Canadian publishing and are "greatly admired" by the industry.

This year, two Orca books are among five short-listed nominees for the Governor General's prize for children's literature: A Thousand Shades of Blue by Robin Stevenson and Sister Wife by Shelley Hrdlitschka

Its distribution arm is crucial: 60 per cent of its output is for the American market, which is why even a publishing house begun by a former English teacher uses American spellings. And Orca also distributes other publishers' titles to the U.S. market.

For a business closing in on $4 million in sales per year, why such a discrete sign outside the house?

Well, without being rude, Orca already rejects most of the 200 submissions flooding in online every month, dealt with by some of the 16 employees installed in a friendly array of nooks and crannies. The last thing they need is a steady stream of curious and writerly passersby traipsing through the door to check things out.

Tyrrell and Wooldridge share the company history -- resisting the impulse to finish each other's sentences -- flanked by examples of the 450 books they have in print. It's a broad range, from the picture book Buttercup's Lovely Day to What World is Left, a teen novel about the Holocaust.

But when they talk of what has sold a million copies, it's Orca's so-called Hi-Lo books for reluctant readers that feature high-interest stories told for readers with limited vocabularies.

"We completely stumbled into this market and it's those books that have fuelled the growth of Orca," Wooldridge says. Schools and public libraries are onboard big-time with Orca offerings and those markets are not nearly as volatile as the retail trade.

Even so, success in Canada means that, along with every other Canadian book publisher, Orca relies on funding from the Canada Council and Department of Canadian Heritage.

In October, Labour Minister Rona Ambrose announced that $2.35 million would be distributed to B.C. publishers to support ongoing production and promotion of books by Canadian authors, industry-wide projects to increase the visibility of Canadian titles online and internships in the publishing industry. Among the 25 publishers to receive aid, Orca got $215,333.

"It's the nature of the beast," Tyrrell says. Book shelves are still dominated by U.S. and U.K. publications taking advantage of the economics of large scale.

One of Orca's most prolific authors, Eric Walters is also published by household names Penguin and Doubleday. Is Orca the same calibre as the big houses?

"There's no question," says Walters, who sells 150,000 books a year. "They are such a unique Canadian success story. When other people are talking about the recession and laying off people and they can't sell books, and Orca just keeps doing well. They're smart; they know what their market is and they know how to go after it and they handle it very nicely.

"And I've said for the longest time, Bob Tyrrell is one of the smartest guys in the business, period."

Tyrrell's smooth succession plan, mentoring Wooldridge, is another sign of that, Walters says. " I don't think it's even hiccuped."

Tyrrell, now 61, is semi-retired but still in the office, just for shorter days. Back in the beginning, he thought publishing might be an easy gig after Island Pubbing sold 12,000 copies.

"And then I drove cab, and did house renovations on the side and went back to teaching for a short while."

At 43, Wooldridge concentrates on new ideas without buying into trends. On deck for spring are the new adult-oriented Raven Books -- a series of easy-to-read novels that can be finished in a night or enjoyed by the huge number of adults who struggle with literacy.

"We try to stay away from trends," Wooldridge says. "They always end, like the vampire trend. We've learned to do what works for us and what sells: Good stories."

"And good writing," Tyrrell continues. "I believe we devote more energy to the editorial process than lots of houses do."

Editing is in-house; not freelanced out.

"Orca is a great book publisher," says Sheryl McFarlane, whose Waiting for the Whales is Orca's all-time best seller at about 140,000 copies. One of the first children's books that Orca published, it won the Governor's General's Award in 1992. McFarlane found Orca "fabulous" to work with -- and she's speaking not just as an author but as organizer of two Children's Book Festivals in Victoria and a former chairwoman of the Victoria children's literature roundtable. She is no longer with Orca -- when her longtime editor moved to Fitzhenry & Whiteside several years ago, she moved, too, but she's quick to recall Orca's openness and innovation. For instance? When author Andrea Spalding wanted to work with a First Nations artist for Solomon's Tree, Orca was "just wonderful" about such things as smudge ceremonies to bring First Nations culture into the mix.

Orca also pioneered putting out booklets listing authors who wanted to speak to schoolchildren or put authors who wanted to visit Victoria in touch with the roundtable to set up events and has long supported community causes. Even its recent anniversary bash included a fundraiser for Read Victoria.

"That's the kind of stuff they do," McFarlane says. "They're not afraid to take chances, which I think is pretty cool in this market.

"They're a really wonderful Canadian book publisher and we in B.C. should be very proud, because there's nothing else like them here."

kdedyna@tc.canwest.com

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