In a digital age, Ken Whyte ventures into the publishing world

Anna Porter, founder of the now-defunct Key Porter Books, once remarked that publishers chase government subsidies that keep them "working at subsistence-level pay, employing people at equally ridiculous wages, and paying taxes for the privilege."

So why would one of Canada's most prominent magazine and newspaper editors make a move into the book publishing industry?

It had something to do with a mid-life course correction. When Ken Whyte, the former editor of Maclean's magazine, the National Post and Rogers Publishing, hit his mid-fifties, he asked himself what he wanted to do with the next stage of his life. That led him to the decision to launch The Sutherland House, an independent book publisher. According to Ken Whyte, the publishing market is doing just fine, thank you very much.

"If you look at North America over the last decade, the growth has been in independent presses ...so it's a bit of a moment for the independents."

And, he says, independent book publishing is "going the opposite direction that the retail end of the business is, where everything's run by one big box chain and Amazon and the independent book sellers are struggling." 

The Sutherland House will publish only non-fiction, with a focus on biography and history because, Whyte says, "It's what I'm good at, it's what I've been doing all my life, and there's not really a publishing house in Canada that's dedicated to that kind of literature."

Click 'listen' at the top of the page to Michael's full interview with Ken Whyte.