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Both editions of The Perilous Trade are published by McClelland & Stewart.  The original hardcover edition, subtitled Publishing Canada’s Writers, is still in print.  The revised, updated edition, subtitled Book Publishing in Canada 1946-2006, is available through bookstores and online at the publisher’s suggested retail price of $26.99 CDN / $21.95 US.

The Perilous Trade

About the Book

The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada’s Writers is the first study of contemporary book publishing in English-speaking Canada.  Part history, part memoir, the hardcover edition was released by McClelland & Stewart in 2003.  It received advance praise from author and former publisher Mel Hurtig, who called it “a truly marvelous book for all those interested in Canadian authors and publishers and the books they create.”  Critic David Staines, general editor of The New Canadian Library, said, “Authoritative and utterly balanced, The Perilous Trade is an essential, indeed indispensable, companion to the development of our literature of the last fifty years.”

The publisher writes:

“Canadian publishing is the stuff of a good novel.  As author, critic, industry analyst, and co-founder of New Press, Roy MacSkimming is uniquely qualified to write about this unpredictable industry.

“MacSkimming takes us behind the headlines to draw memorable portraits of the mavericks, gamblers, entrepreneurs, political activists, and true believers who against all odds have given us Canada’s greatest cultural achievement.  With a keen eye for character and incident, he weaves their tangled relationships with authors, literary agents, booksellers, and each other into an entertaining narrative, rich in previously untold anecdote and personal recollection.

“The Perilous Trade is the first book to relate how Canadian publishers large and small succeeded in nurturing a literature of remarkable brilliance and diversity.  MacSkimming tells their story with insight, eloquence, and élan.  The Perilous Trade will fascinate all who love Canadian writing.”

After several weeks on the Maclean’s bestseller list, The Perilous Trade was named a Globe & Mail Best 100 Book of the Year and a finalist for the National Business Book Award.

In 2007 McClelland & Stewart published a revised edition in paperback under the title The Perilous Trade: Book Publishing in Canada 1946-2006.  The paperback edition contains a new final chapter updating developments in the industry and highlighting online publishing and marketing.

Roy MacSkimming is also publishing “The Perilous Trade Conversations,” a series of edited interviews with Canadian publishers conducted for the book.  The series is appearing in the literary periodical CNQ: Canadian Notes & Queries, edited by John Metcalf and published by Daniel Wells at Biblioasis, a literary press in Windsor, Ontario.  Conversations appearing to date have included Robert Weaver in CNQ 69, William Toye in CNQ 70, and Jack McClelland in CNQ 71.  Watch for a conversation with Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson in CNQ 72.

Excerpt

At twenty-five I was the junior partner in New Press.  And at first I would be the only one getting paid. In return I’d do the grunt work, starting with editing the authors of our first book, Carleton University English professors Robin Mathews and James Steele.  They were a distinctly odd couple: Mathews charismatic and dogmatic, Steele dryly cerebral. Learning book production on the fly while editing their manuscript, I received help from James Bruce, our printer’s sales rep, who conducted for me, as he did for many new publishers at the time, a veritable production workshop. When the cartons arrived from Hunter-Rose containing 3,000 shiny red and white copies of The Struggle for Canadian Universities, I parceled up books to match the invoices I’d typed, weighed the packages, slapped on postage, and drove them to the post office. I was back in the warehouse.

My partners were a slightly odd couple themselves.  Jim Bacque was smooth and rounded where Dave Godfrey was sharp and angular, amiable where Godfrey was combative, sweetly funny where Godfrey was sardonic.  As much as I liked them both, I soon realized they were oil and water.  Editorially speaking, the tensions between them, and between them and me, were exciting and productive. Together we generated great book ideas in a spirit of creative competition.  But the three-way partnership was also fraught with hidden frictions and complexities, and mutual comprehension was a constant challenge.

Early in 1970 we agreed to publish with the House of Anansi an “instant” book on the hot local issue of the Spadina Expressway.  The trick was to produce the book, written by David and Nadine Nowlan, at record speed, since public opinion had to be rallied against the expressway in time to influence a crucial vote at Toronto City Hall.  Dennis Lee at Anansi would edit the book, I’d produce it, and New Press would handle sales, distribution, and finances.  Dennis and I agreed on a revenue-sharing formula between the two presses.

Dennis came up with a brilliant title: The Bad Trip: The Untold Story of the Spadina Expressway. Working feverishly, he gave me an edited manuscript just under the wire.  I spent all night in the typesetter’s office proofreading the pages and rushed them at dawn to Peter Maher, the art director at Macmillan, who was moonlighting for us on design.  Hunter-Rose printed the little paperback in time to allow us to fill several thousand back orders, reap fabulous publicity in the Toronto media, and accelerate the Stop Spadina movement.  The crucial vote was won: the expressway would not proceed.

Writing, editing, and producing The Bad Trip had taken just eight weeks, and Dennis and I claimed an unsubstantiated Canadian record, duly reported in Quill & Quire.  The Bad Trip sold out and made a profit.  But before long, a shadow fell across our victory; Dennis and I had neglected to write down the terms of our deal, and we remembered them differently. It was an honest difference of opinion, but we both felt wronged.

The Bad Trip’ssuccess was an affirmation nonetheless.  The establishment publishers would never have taken on such a book, for a whole host of reasons, both practical and political; obviously, changing times demanded a new generation of activist publishers willing to do things differently.  But being part of that generation was never simple. It was always one damn thing after another.