Raincoast Books
 | |
| Type | Limited |
|---|---|
| Industry | Book Distribution |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Founder(s) | Allan MacDougall, Mark Stanton |
| Headquarters |
 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Key people |
John Sawyer, CEO Allan MacDougall, Chairman of the Board Paddy Laidley, Executive VP Sales and Marketing Graham Fidler, Executive VP Publishers Group Canada |
| Products | Books |
| Employees | 90 |
| Website | raincoast.com |
Raincoast Books is a Canadian book distribution and wholesale company. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Raincoast was founded by Mark Stanton and Allan MacDougall in 1979 as a consignment wholesaler that shared overhead, warehouse space and staff with the pair's sales agency, Stanton & MacDougall. Today, Raincoast has over 90 employees and three divisions: Raincoast Distribution, Publishers Group Canada, and BookExpress.
Divisions
Raincoast Distribution
Raincoast Distribution provides Canadian representation to general trade and gift publishers from the United States and Canada. Companies distributed by Raincoast include Chronicle Books, Drawn & Quarterly, Hay House, Lonely Planet, Moleskine, and New Harbinger. Raincoast was awarded Book Distributor of the Year by the Canada Booksellers Association in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
Publishers Represented by Raincoast Distribution
- AMACOM
- Beginning Press
- Berrett-Koehler Publishers
- Bilingual Books, Inc.
- Blue Apple Books
- Chronicle Books
- Drawn & Quarterly
- Gibbs Smith
- Hay House
- Laurence King
- Lonely Planet
- Magnetic Poetry
- Moleskine
- The Mountaineers Books
- New Harbinger Publications
- Owlkids Books
- Parenting Press
- Pop Sandbox
- Portable Press
- Princeton Architectural Press
- Quirk Books
- Raincoast Books
- Silver Dolphin
- Thunder Bay Press
Publishers Group Canada
Publishers Group Canada (PGC) was acquired by Raincoast Books in 2000. Based in Toronto, Ontario, PGC distributes independently owned book publishing houses including Grove Atlantic, New World Library and Egmont Books in Canada.
BookExpress
BookExpress is a wholesale division supplying Canadian bookstores and retailers. BookExpress carries bestselling books from publishers including Random House Canada, Penguin Books Canada, HarperCollins Canada, H.B. Fenn, Andrews McMeel, Scholastic Canada, Diamond Book Distribution and Firefly.
Raincoast Publishing
Between 1995 and 2008, Raincoast Books was also a Canadian book publisher. The Raincoast publishing program produced a range of fiction and non-fiction titles for both adults and children. Authors who published work with Raincoast included Anne Fleming, Alison Pick, Colin McAdam, Nick Bantock, George Bowering, Paul William Roberts, Naim Kattan, Roy Miki and Bill Gaston. As a publisher, the company was noted for using high amounts of recycled paper in their books. On January 7, 2008, Raincoast announced that they would cease to publish new books due to the rise in the Canadian dollar.[1][2] Raincoast also ceased to be the Canadian publisher of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books in 2010.[3]