5 questions with WaveMaker Press

Welcome to a new instalment of our 5 questions with series. Today, we’re sharing an interview with Christer Bonner from WaveMaker Press Ltd, an Algonquin-owned and -operated press, located on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, British Columbia, Canada.

WaveMaker Press started its operations in 2020 to share their love of books with others. They believe in the power books have to uphold values and recreate norms, teach literacy, and entertain!

Here are Christer’s responses to our questionnaire:

1. Tell us about WaveMaker Press. Where are you located and what kinds of books do you publish?

WaveMaker Press is an Indigenous and family-owned company located in Nanaimo, B.C., on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw People. We created WaveMaker Press from a love of story, and a desire to be our own bosses doing work we enjoy. The name WaveMaker acts as our daily reminder to create products and share stories that make the world a better place, either by example or instruction, and to do so bravely when necessary. To this end, we publish books with social, cultural, and environmental content from Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors for audiences of any age.

2. What’s the single best thing you’ve done to promote your books to readers?

We continue to be pleasantly surprised by the success of promoting our books directly to readers through Meta platform ads. I customize modern templates in Adobe Creative Cloud Express and either “boost” a post or create an ad.

3. Describe the culture you’d like to foster among your colleagues and your readers?

Publishers are always watching what other publishers are creating. I think this is a really important practice for many reasons. For one, it keeps us striving for the highest possible quality of content and product. This directly benefits readers. It also, perhaps more importantly, allows us an opportunity to locate a gap — to see what no one is publishing. We then consider which readers are not being offered that story, instruction, or spark of an idea. I’d like to see a culture of healthy competition and co-operation among publishers where possible, such as more cross-promotion, like we do with A Dance Through the Seasons (WaveMaker Press) and Be a Good Ancestor (Orca Books). Find books for your “Related Products” on Webform — don’t leave it blank. To give a cheesy metaphor, we may all work in different publishing houses, but they exist in neighbourhoods, not on solitary islands.

As for fostering a culture for readers — they’ve probably heard this before — make trying different reads a habit, especially when it comes to children’s books. They aren’t a big time commitment, and they just might be an unforgettable experience.

4. What topics would you like to see more often in the books you publish?

There can never be too many “push the envelop / WaveMaking “ books available to readers of all ages. The beautiful thing about a story is how it can communicate difficult topics and issues, contextually, within a bigger picture. Merely touching on a sensitive or contested topic can have just as much effect on the reader by eliciting questions and questioning opinions. We would be honoured to publish more stories with big ideas in digestible portions, whether in the form of children’s books, short stories, or even novels.

5. What’s next for WaveMaker Press?

We have big plans for the next two years. One of our books will win an award, and we will be partnering with one of Canada’s top distributors. Once we are two years old, we’ll be recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts as a publisher, and therefore qualify for their grants. Then we will win even more awards! I might even get to the stack of paperwork for becoming a vendor with Indigo, although my priority is selling to independents. 

6. BONUS: What do you wish you had known about publishing when you were starting out?

Important things I’ve learned in our first year:

• Canada Council for the Arts does not recognize publishers less than two years old. 

• This is also the case for some publishing associations.

• How to use parent pages and paragraph styles in Adobe InDesign.

• Indigo consignment is not set up for publishers who pay royalties.

• It is far easier to get our books distributed by one of Canada’s best distributors than it is to get our books into Indigo.

• Covers wider than 17” front to back need a large format printer and are more expensive.

Thank you Christer for taking the time to answer our questionnaire! Read more instalments of our 5 questions with series here.

Are you a small publisher, library staffer, or Canadian independent bookseller interested in being featured in our 5 questions with blog series? Send us an email!