Sad news about Raincoast Books

It took me several months of unreturned emails to the publicity contacts, but I finally have figured out why Raincoast Books have been so quiet on the hockey book front this fall.

Raincoast has always been one of my favorite publishers because of the incredible quality of design and structure they invest into their projects. I would have paid them to have had Legends of Team Canada published under their banner.

In conversation with Chris Mizzoni, author of Clancy With The Puck, I learned it was announced way back in January that Raincoast will stop publishing books after 2008. The company cites rising costs associated with the high Canadian dollar as the reason.

The truth is probably now that the Harry Potter books are finished, they do not want any part of the seemingly always perilous condition of the Canadian publishing industry.

The company will return to it's core business of wholesale distribution.

It's really a loss for hockey book fans. Like I said, Raincoast has put out some beautiful books over the past number of years. The Legends series, The Game We Knew series, the Remembering series and many children's books were all awesome products.