University of Regina Press to officially launch

Posted: May 31, 2013 3:30 p.m.

To help define what U of R Press is and what it does a logo that was inspired by the Cree language and the Morse code was created, to both honour its roots and express a desire to communicate universally. Video: U of R Press

It is not every day that Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro congratulate a university on the launch of its university press, but then, it is a rare occasion when a new university press comes into being.  Jumping to the head of the class on the good wishes of these literary titans, University of Regina Press (U of R Press) officially launches at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Victoria BC on June 1st.

With a mandate to publish 30 books a year, U of R Press sets itself apart even further with the launch of the world’s first Reality Publishing Show. On June 1st viewers to www.uofrpress.ca will meet the people who take a book from manuscript form through to finished product. “In 25 years of publishing I have always been surprised at how little authors understand what happens in a publishing house,” says new Press Director, Bruce Walsh.

In a series of cinema vérité–style clips, the Press will show why a book moves from acquiring editor to managing editor to copy editor; what happens to it in design and production; why it can take years before it lands in the hands of sales and marketing and how they decide what to do with it.

“The audience for this programming will extend well beyond writers,” says Walsh, who rebranded McGill-Queen’s University Press to produce an unprecedented string of bestsellers and pioneered buzz club marketing, television advertising, and public opinion polling in the promotion of books.

To attract the writers U of R Press wants to publish and to get the media attention they deserve, “we can’t afford to do business as usual,” Walsh says. To aid in those efforts U of R Press has secured the services of Lexa Book Representatives, a sales force that sells books in Canada for the elite of American university presses (Princeton, Yale, Columbia, etc.). As the only Canadian press in this prestigious group, U of R Press immediately moves from a regional start-up to one with national presence.

Building upon the foundation of the former CPRC Press, U of R Press has 16 titles coming this season, including Clearing the Plains by James Daschuk, which chronicles a crime against humanity committed by Sir John A. Macdonald. Called a “tour de force,” the book reveals that our first prime minister starved aboriginal people to move them for white settlement. “Books like this make us work harder,” says Walsh. “They are too important to be ignored.”