Publishers Group Canada (PGC) is the distribution affiliate of Publishers
Group West (PGW) in Canada. The PGC office, located in downtown Toronto, represents
to the Canadian marketplace approximately eighty of the publishers distributed by
PGW in the States, including Avalon Publishing Group, Taunton, Grove Atlantic, New
World Library, as well as a number of other publishers from the U.K. and Canada;
Egmont and House of Anansi to name a few.
*For more information please visit http://www.pgcbooks.ca/ |
Process
PGC represents its client publishers to the general book trade
as well as to specialty accounts throughout the country. Depending on a particular
title’s appeal and strength, our staff will target the appropriate accounts for
the strongest representation. PGC has eight field sales representatives covering
independent bookstores and specialty retailers while national accounts such as Chapters/Indigo,
Costco, and Amazon are covered from our Toronto office. While we maintain a separate
sales and marketing organization from Raincoast, back office functions have been
consolidated. This includes warehousing, credit & collections, and customer
service. All of this is centralized in Raincoast’s state-of-the-art distribution
centers operating in Vancouver, British Columbia and Mississauga, Ontario. As reported
in the annual Quill & Quire survey, Raincoast is the premier warehouse/distribution
operation in the country.
Principals
Sarah MacLachlan, President of PGC, has been running the
Canadian company for five years. Prior to her taking the helm at PGC she had been
VP of Marketing and Publicity for Little, Brown Canada for 11 years. Sarah has been
working in the Canadian publishing industry for 17 years.
Graham Fidler is the National Accounts Director, and has been with the company for
five years. He came to PGC from the sales force at General Publishing Group and
previous to that he had been with Reed Canada. Graham has been involved in the Canadian
book business for 12 years. |
Market Overview
The Canadian
market is comprised of one very large national chain that is composed of a number
of different brands; Indigo and Chapters are the superstores that can be found across
the country and Coles and Smiths are the smaller locations usually located in malls.
The more traditional independent book retailers comprise about 25% of the market.
Costco, Walmart, and SAM’S Club are other accounts that we aggressively go after
as well as libraries, both school and public. Our market is dominated by the large
chains, but we try very hard to get our publishers books into as many other outlets
as possible. We have very good relations with all our customers and with Raincoast
as our partner on the distribution side our service is second to none.
Quotes
“Wonderful books, superb
service.”
—John Schneider, Book City, Toronto
“They offer everything an independent bookstore could ask for: great sales people;
speedy and accurate service; and a wide range of unique books.”
—Winona McMorrow, Pages Books, Toronto
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Sales and Marketing
PGC’s sales and marketing processes
closely mirror those of PGW in the U.S. PGC participates in all PGW pre-sales meetings
as well as the three PGW sales conferences held each year. For our Canadian field
reps, PGC conducts two Canadian sales conferences a year. Client publishers are
always welcome to participate in the Canadian meetings. PGC also creates catalogs
for use in the Canadian market while some publishers may choose to provide their
own catalogs.
Publicity & Advertising
PGC has an in house publicist who promotes our publishers books
to the media and will also organize and execute author tours and events as our publishers
desire. We feel that promotion and publicity are essential tools in the marketing
and selling of books in Canada and having a publicist devoted to the promotion of
our publisher’s titles is a priority. We work to coordinate our promotion efforts
with the publishers’ own publicity plans and leverage any momentum built out of
the U.S. market.
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Capabilities
The PGC in house sales
support staff provide an essential link with our client publishers. Publishers receive
weekly sales reports from our major chain, Indigo/Chapters. Also, publishers are
updated on their opportunities to participate in co-op with both independent and
chain stores, as well as other advertising opportunities that come up throughout
the year.
Operations, Accounting & Finance
While our sales office is in Toronto, all warehousing,
credit & collections and customer service are based in Vancouver, British Columbia
and Mississauga, Ontario. Shared with Raincoast, client publishers and customers
both benefit from state-of-the-art distribution centers and information systems.
In several years recently, Raincoast has been ranked the number one Canadian distributor/warehouse
(by booksellers) as reported in the annual Quill & Quire survey.
Reporting
Publishers have 24-hour a day access to their sales and inventory
through our state of the art extranet system.
Terms & Conditions
Our terms and conditions vary from publisher
to publisher. A full draft contract with terms is available for interested publishers. |