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D&M Publishers files for creditor protection

D&M Publishers, home to the Douglas & McIntyre and Greystone Books imprints, has filed for creditor protection and intends to restructure.

The Vancouver-based firm announced late Monday that it has filed a notice of intention under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. According to a statement, the company intends “to carry on its operations during this restructuring process” and has enlisted Bowra Group “to locate an investor or purchaser for its assets.”

New Society Publishers, a subsidiary of D&M Publishers with offices on B.C.’s Gabriola Island, is not affected, and its “business activities will continue as usual,” according to the statement.

Co-founded by Scott McIntyre, D&M Publishers, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2012, is one of the largest remaining Canadian-owned publishing houses. In July, McIntyre stepped down as CEO and the company appointed a new publisher.

D&M Publishers is known for high-quality non-fiction and art books, as well as titles with a regional focus. The company had recently bolstered its fiction program under the Douglas & McIntyre imprint, publishing Daniel Poliquin’s 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize nominee A Secret Between Us and the science-fiction anthology Darwin’s Bastards, edited by Zsuzsi Gartner.

In 2010, Douglas & McIntyre won reprint rights to Johanna Skibsrud’s Giller-winning novel The Sentimentalists, originally published by Gaspereau Press. Earlier this year, Carmen Aguirre’s memoir Something Fierce, which appeared on the D&M list*, won CBC’s Canada Reads competition.

D&M is distributed in Canada by HarperCollins Canada. It has a long-standing agency agreement in place with Farrar, Strauss and Giroux that is set to expire at the end of the year.

In 2007, a majority share in Douglas & McIntyre was sold to a trio of investors led by Mark Scott, who went on to develop the digital publishing platform known as Bookriff.

Q&Q will continue to report on the story as more details become available.

 


*CORRECTION Oct. 23: An earlier version of this story reported Carmen Aguirre’s memoir Something Fierce was published by Greystone Books.

By

October 22nd, 2012

8:19 pm

Category: Book news

Tagged with: D&M Publishers