Ottawan publishing sustainable hardcover books
OTTAWA — Alex Simon believes reading is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and that good books should be as wellcrafted as the stories they tell. The transplanted American who moved to Ottawa with his Canadian wife three years ago to raise their family, started Century Press to create high-quality editions featuring leather-bound covers, cotton paper and a sustainable business model built on local production and repurposed materials.
In this interview, Simon explains his vision and discusses the significance of the first release, a luxe but affordable edition of The Great Gatsby that’s scheduled to come out in June.
Q: What possessed you to start an artisanal bookpublishing company in 2021?
A: I’ve always loved reading old books, and felt such a connection through reading wellmade, vintage-style books. It just made the process of reading much more enjoyable and added a lot of texture and life to reading books, versus reading on a Kindle or something like that. But I recognized that you don’t have a whole tonne of options. You go to Indigo and buy a paperback, or if it’s new you can buy a hardcover. But these are mass-produced objects, and a lot of them are not even printed in the U.S. or Canada.
Q: What’s your alternate vision?
A: Specifically, I want to not just make a nice-looking book, I want to change how hardcover books are made, which hasn’t undergone any type of evolution in 20 years or more. I want to focus on using sustainable materials and fund local production here in Canada.
Essentially, it’s a rethinking for people who collect and buy books, to have these books that are really enjoyable to read and to display and that are going to last for a long time.
Q: How old are you?
A: I’m 32. I definitely fall into the millennial age. Of course, you think of the people who have nice books in their house, maybe a library, they’re my parents’ generation. But from the pre-orders, it’s been a really interesting range of demographics that are interested in the books. There’s a cohort of people who have preordered the book who are my age or younger. I think it’s reflective of a few different trends: You can get any book you want delivered to your house but we’re living in a time when people want less things, but nicer things.
Q: Tell me about your local producers.
A: The printer is Ian Bristow, based out of Cornwall. He has this old-school Heidelberg Windmill printing press that’s probably 70 years old and he maintains and fixes these machines. They make really cool printed objects. With COVID, there had been decreased demand from people who needed wedding invitations, etc., so there was mutual interest in doing something new, which was applying this letterpress technique to doing books. And the bookbinder we’re working with is Laura Shevchenko, a third-generation bookbinder in Smiths Falls. A lot of this knowledge is transmitted in this oldfashioned, apprenticeship model, and I think it’s important to reimagine how their skill sets can be used so they can keep that knowledge alive a little longer.
Q: Why did you choose The Great Gatsby for your first publication?
A: One of the primary reasons is a practical business decision because The Great Gatsby entered the public domain this year, which means the money I would have spent on copyright I can funnel into local, high-quality production. The other thing is that I wanted to choose a novel that, year over year, sells hundreds of thousands of copies.
But at the same time, I felt a little apprehensive because I’m focused on Canadians, and F. Scott Fitzgerald is not a Canadian author.
Q: How did you approach that dilemma?
A: I decided to add some Canadian content to create an edition that adds value to the materials and production of the book. I worked with an economics professor, Miles Corak, who lives in Ottawa, a mile from me, and asked him to write an introduction on income inequality and intergenerational socio-economic mobility to recontextualize and reframe a lot of the themes of the novel for the current era.
Q: Did he have some cautionary words for you in starting this type of business?
A: (Laughs) A few. Publishing is a notoriously lowmargin business. But no one has really approached it from this angle before, and I think there’s interest from a consumer perspective. These products and these books have a real sense of place, and are made with a sense of intention. I eventually want to attract contemporary Canadian content creators, authors and illustrators to make a really special, nice hard copy that people will want to have in their house, and that will last 100 years.