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Book Publishing

You Hold Me Up, Orca Book Publishers

Poetry in Transit

Upstart and Crow

British Columbia is home to the second-largest English-language book publishing sector in Canada. B.C.’s publishers represent 18% of the English-language Canadian-owned publishing industry.

B.C. has 46 award-winning publishers that form the nucleus of the province’s dynamic publishing industry, 26 of which are literary publishers and members of Books BC. These 26 businesses make financial investments into the cultural output they produce and share profits from that creative content’s sale.

All publishers are employers and entrepreneurs who support families with incomes and professionals in the field with meaningful work about which they are passionate.

Publishing companies are central to a broader network of 270+ businesses in B.C. that contribute to B.C.’s book culture and economy. Book publishers ensure our province’s unique perspective is delivered to the world via this beloved storytelling medium. See a list of book publishing and related businesses in Creative BC’s Knowledge Hub and in the Book Manager Directory.

#BCCreates books I ♥

Recent Impacts

It’s important to note that this industry activity generates a portion of the additional incremental total GDP attributed to the Multi-Creative Industry Services segment of the creative industries overall.

$74

Total GDP in B.C.

$80M

Direct Output in B.C.

679

Total Jobs*

3,288

People incl. Freelancers*

A Note on Total Jobs and People

*Measures hours worked, in terms of number of positions, not the number of people working or sharing these positions. Due to the freelance nature of the creative industries, this methodology is a proxy only and typically underestimates the number of workers in the sector.

**Prior to the pandemic, Creative BC’s count of estimated freelancers was at 108,000 people, aggregated from a variety of industry sources, including the B.C. motion picture industry’s Below-the-Line Labour Market Study, 2018, and Staying in Tune: A Study of the Music Industry Labour Market in British Columbia, 2019. By using CIERA™ year-over-year job growth insights as multipliers, the count of freelance workers has been estimated for this report. As available, new information generated through industry’s own real-time research will be used by Creative BC to improve this annual estimate.

***Presently, the video game segment is the only industry clearly measured by North American Industry Classification Codes (NAICS). Therefore interactive and digital media (IDM) figures represented by CIERA™ are limited to this segment of the industry, excluding other storytelling-based interactive and digital media such as virtual reality and augmented reality.

The Book Publishing Industry Mapped Across the Sector Value Chain

Some of the “culture industries” as defined by Statistics Canada contribute to more than one creative industry, therefore these NAICS cannot easily be attributed to a single creative industry, nor can their business activities be proportionally allocated. In these cases, their economic contributions have been aggregated into CIERA™’s Multi-Creative Industry figures. Outlined bullets below are Multi-Creative Industry Services that do contribute to some extent to this value chain. See Multi-Creative Industry Services impacts.

See full annual CIERA™ tables and multiple years of data here.

 

Research + Reports

Recent industry insights and impacts of B.C.’s creative industries.

CIERA™ | Creative Industries Economic Results Assessment

Bringing public datasets into our story

View Creative BC funding programs

Associations

Association of Book Publishers of BC (Books BC)

The Association of Book Publishers of BC (Books BC) is a trade association, founded in 1974, whose aims are to foster an environment in which our members will flourish and to expand an awareness of the value of books in all our lives. The organization is a regional affiliate of the Association of Canadian Publishers.

Canadian Independent Booksellers Association

Founded in 2020, the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association (CIBA) offers programs and services to Canadian independent booksellers and advocates to support the strengthening of the independent bookselling sector.

Indie bookstores are an invaluable part of Canadian culture. In cities and towns across Canada, these stores are intrinsic to the fabric of their communities, convenors of important conversations, and contributors to vibrant local economies.

 

Resources

Read Local BC

Launched in 2015 by the Association of Book Publishers of BC, Read Local BC is a project that celebrates the vibrant community of authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries that make up our province’s literary landscape.

BC Book World

BC Bookworld is British Columbia’s author and publishing newspaper. Since 1987 the publication has been published four times per year, as Canada’s largest-circulation independent publication about literature.

The newspaper is available via more than 675 non-virtual distributors, or by subscription.

View BC Bookworld issues online here.

Funding

BC Arts Council Funding Programs

The British Columbia Arts Council (BCAC) nurtures and supports arts and cultural activity in communities across British Columbia.  From community arts in rural and urban centres, to individual artists, professional performing arts companies, Indigenous artists and cultural organizations, art galleries, local museums and music festivals – BCAC supports a range of activities while engaging with artists and communities to inform policies and programs.

B.C. Book Publishing Tax Credit

The book publishing tax credit program applies to book publishing corporations that carry out business primarily in B.C.

You can claim this refundable tax credit if:

  • You’ re a Canadian-controlled corporation carrying on business primarily through a permanent establishment in B.C. with book publishing as your principal business, and
  • You receive a base amount of Support for Publishers contributions under the federal Canada Book Fund (CBF) before April 1, 2021.
    On March 10, 2021, the government proposed extending the B.C. book publishing tax credit by five years to include the base amount of Support for Publishers contributions under the federal Canada Book Fund (CBF) received before April 1, 2026.

Eligible book publishers may receive a credit of up to 90% of the base amount of Support for Publishers contributions received in the tax year.

Access Copyright Foundation

The Access Copyright Foundation promotes and supports Canadian culture by providing grants intended to encourage the development and dissemination of publishable Canadian works.

Recent News

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