About Orca
Founded in 1984, Orca Book Publishers is an independently owned Canadian children’s book publisher based in Victoria, British Columbia. With over 1,000 titles in print and more than 80 new titles a year, Orca prides itself on creating award-winning, bestselling books and showcasing Canadian authors and illustrators to Canada and beyond. At Orca, we believe that every child deserves access to books that inspire curiosity, critical thinking, a deeper understanding of the world around them—and are fun to read!
Orca publishes beautiful board books and picture books, chapter books, middle-grade fiction, graphic novels and nonfiction for curious kids. We also create books for striving readers that include decodable phonics and hi-lo fiction for middle school and high school students. Orca strives to produce books that represent the diversity of the human experience to help young readers of all backgrounds, abilities and identities see themselves reflected in the books they read. We are mindful of this in our selection of books and have a particular focus on stories that celebrate Indigenous stories, people with disabilities and people who identify as LGBTQ+. We believe that providing young people with exposure to diversity through reading creates a more compassionate world.
In addition to our publishing program, Orca is proud to provide sales and distribution to a curated list of publishers in Canada and the United States as Orca Book Distribution. Orca has two distribution warehouses, one in Victoria and the other near Bellingham, Washington.
Most of our staff work at the main editorial office in Victoria in a large yellow house built in the early 1900s. We also have staff that work remotely from Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and other parts of British Columbia. Our office and warehouses are on land that is occupied by people who are largely not indigenous to this area. We live and work within the traditional territories of the Lkwungen (Esquimalt and Songhees), Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’new, T’Sou-ke and W̱SÁNEĆ (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum) peoples. We are grateful for the natural beauty and resources we have access to and aim through the books we publish to play a part in raising readers and citizens who will have a great understanding of our history and this land.
Fast facts:
- Our responsible publishing practices include printing books in Canada when possible and when not feasible in countries that respect human rights and safe working conditions. We use Forest Stewardship Certified paper and make every effort to reduce, reuse and recycle.
- We aim to make our books accessible for all readers and our titles are available in multiple digital formats for reading on a variety of devices.
- For the last decade, Orca has sponsored multiple scholarships at the University of Victoria and Camosun College in addition to supporting a variety of local causes and organizations such as The Good Food Box, 1000 x 5 Project.
- We are long-time members of the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (Books BC) and are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and create community with our publishing colleagues.
Media Contact:Andrew Wooldridge, Publisher |
Rights Inquiries:Ruth Linka, Publisher |
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
