About Book*hug Press
Founded in 2004, Book*hug Press is a radically optimistic Canadian-owned publisher working at the forefront of contemporary book culture. Our tagline, ‘radically optimistic,’ reflects our belief that optimism and joy are essential for success in independent literary publishing. We specialize in daring and inventive, groundbreaking and adventurous literary fiction, literature in translation, poetry, and creative nonfiction. We publish critically acclaimed, award-winning literary books with a strong and trusted brand. We champion emerging and established culturally diverse writers whose work contributes meaningfully to contemporary society, writing that challenges and pushes the boundaries of cultural expectations.
Book*hug Press has left an impressive mark on the Canadian independent publishing landscape. Our books are known for making significant contributions to contemporary literary culture, and readers turn to us for engaging, thoughtful, intelligent, and thought-provoking books. This success was helped by our early promise to remain open to change and adapt to the evolving needs of the culture to which the press contributes. We have worked hard to build a highly supportive community of core readers around the press and consistently engage in promotional activities to reach new audiences and markets year after year.
We are deeply committed to advancing and integrating equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in all our publishing activities. We prioritize submissions from equity-deserving writers marginalized by attitudinal, historical, social, and environmental barriers based on race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, economic status, age, gender, and sexual orientation. These equity-deserving groups include but are not limited to women, Indigenous writers, writers of colour, racialized writers, writers with disabilities, Deaf writers, and writers of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
We’re proud to be part of Canada’s vital independent publishing community. We champion and support Canadian and international voices and stories, and produce and manufacture all our books in Canada. What does this mean? It means we mainly work with Canadians on our books from start to finish, including authors, editors, proofreaders, translators, designers, sales reps, distributors and wholesalers, printers, booksellers, marketing and publicity professionals, to get them into the hands of as many readers as possible.
We are proud to be a Certified Canadian Publisher, an important designation from the Association of Canadian Publishers that promotes awareness and education of the domestic publishing industry among key stakeholders, including booksellers and readers. We’re proud to be a certified accessible publisher through eBound’s Digital Certification program for producing ePUBs that meet a full range of accessibility features required to support the needs of all readers, including those with print disabilities and learning differences. This includes ensuring our ePubs have structured navigation and headings, embedded page numbering from the print edition, described images, and built-in discovery data that describe each book’s accessibility features.
We support our writers through attentive editing and by facilitating dialogue about the spaces and traditions in which they work. We help expand their readership through creative and strategic marketing campaigns. We produce attractive, elegant editions with careful attention to design aesthetics. We simultaneously publish print and accessible digital books and distribute them through as many channels as possible to reach a wide audience.
In Canada, our titles are sold by the Manda Group and distributed by the University of Toronto Press Distribution. In the US, the Independent Publishers Group (IPG) sell and distributes our titles in the American market.
Some of our notable authors include Shani Mootoo, Maria Stepanova, Olga Ravn, M. NourbeSe Philip, Lee Maracle, Lisa Robertson, Chelene Knight, Jacob Wren, Marianne Apostolides, Jess Taylor, Joni Murphy, Johanna Skibsrud, Rune Christiansen, Mona Hovring, Sandra Ridley, and more.
Our books and authors receive regular recognition and acclaim in the media and from literary awards. Our authors have been nominated for and won national and international awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the Giller Prize, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the League of Canadian Poets’ Book Awards, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the International Booker Prize, the Lambda Literary Awards, the Publishing Triangle Awards, the Stonewall Book Awards, the Firecracker Awards, the Foreword INDIES Awards, the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, the Big Other Book Awards, and more. Our authors have also been shortlisted for and won provincial literary prizes, including the Trillium Book Awards, the Atlantic Book Awards, the Quebec Writers Federation Awards, the Manitoba Book Awards, and the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. At the municipal level, our books have been nominated for and won the Toronto Book Awards, the City of Vancouver Book Award, le Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, the Ottawa Book Award, and the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. Other nominations and wins include the Archibald Lampman Award, the Fred Cogswell Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the Betsy Warland Between Genres Award, the BMO Winterset Award, the Nelson Ball Prize, and the Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design.
