ABOUT US
Wharfinger’s Press is an independent publishing house that carries the vibe and esthetic of the historic Port Haney Wharf, hanging over The Mighty Fraser River. Sturgeon swim within the water’s depths while eagles soar calmly overhead and thoughts are encouraged with each whistlerumble of a passing train. The aim of WP is to provide a platform for both unique Canadian voices, and writers abroad.
We prefer the outsiders, outliers, misfits, rebels, under-privileged and under-represented.
At Wharfinger's Press, we work with our authors directly as they pursue their own their literary journey. We aim to be as transparent as possible with our process in order to provide a unique, cooperative opportunity which benefits our authors in the moment, and through their future endeavours.
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** Although we are not 'officially' accepting manuscript submissions at the moment, our mailbox is always open.
Feel free to send us a message regarding any sort of inquiries you may have. **
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What is WP? Why is WP?
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We are a small, cooperative publishing organization. We focus on the author or artist first, and their work second, and at all times we work closely with our authors to help with whatever is needed to break the barriers that exist for many writers (especially the neurodiverse). We don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts and we are not a vanity press. We believe in taking on the bulk of the risks involved in publishing a title, as all proper publishers should, and we put our full energy behind projects we believe in. Our artists, authors, and the editors and staff, are all paid from shared royalties. It’s in our interests to work to increase sales so that we can recover our costs but that is not our prime concern. This is a labour of love, and we are drawn towards passion projects.
We started Wharfinger’s Press because we wanted to build a community of writers from underserved backgrounds and learn together through the process. We aim to show readers and writers alike what is possible, and help provide a fresh platform for emerging, unique talent that isn't restricted by genre or market trends.
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We started WP with no capital, and our interest is in helping talented artists and writers with neurodiversities develop their craft and get to experience how books are made and promoted. Very few organizations (even author’s societies) actually support authors of talent to achieve their publishing aims, without signing up to expensive classes or buying books about how to get published. Many publishers make big claims, but we have chosen to make small claims instead. We have nothing but our own talent, experience and our developing network of supporters; libraries, local government organizations, bookshops, business owners, normal people, volunteers, shut-ins, the neurodiverse, and also anyone on the margins of society who needs a referral, advice, or help.
We have found that established writers and publishers, even small ‘independent’ ones fiercely protect their own and ring-fence the industry with pejorative and arbitrary lists of what a publisher needs to do before they are recognised as ‘legitimate’. This can mean, for example, that a micro-publisher has to have already published several books before they are eligible to join the distribution networks or receive the help that ‘independent’ and ‘small’ presses share in order to keep their costs down. Under current Canadian Council for the Arts regulations, we aren’t even recognized as a publisher (which we dispute). Other advice you may receive from so-called ‘industry professionals’ or ‘experts’ to avoid publishing services companies may be largely well-intentioned (though it often is not - there are many scams) but in this changing industry, everyone is scrambling to define legitimacy and to point fingers at people who operate differently, and call them ‘vanity presses’. Keep in mind that while these sorts of scams are everywhere (NEVER pay money to be published) this is an invented term, which has a shifting definition that is used for the convenience of the person who is using it.
New, small publishing ventures usually fail and it isn’t hard to see why; if you’re starting out trying to do the right thing in micro-publishing you’ll soon find that you have to have published a certain number of books before you’re eligible to receive a lot of the help that’s available. This is made harder at every turn by unnecessary pejoratives. We find ourselves stuck between the Scylla of the ring-fenced publishing cabals, and the Charybdis of the wagging fingers that decry people like us who have to earn a living while we build our publishing house under a not-for-profit framework.
We have almost no budget, but we have made remarkable things happen nevertheless.
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Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
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"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent Van Gogh
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