Sutherland House Books President Ken Whyte sits in his Toronto office, on Sept. 18, 2024.Galit Rodan/The Globe and Mail
Kenneth Whyte’s non-fiction imprint Sutherland House Books is buying publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside, broadening the genres it can offer and bringing in a back catalogue that includes works by Tomson Highway, Northrop Frye and Caroline Pignat.
The sale gives Whyte a backlist of books and the revenue that comes with it, which he has sought since he started up Sutherland House Books last decade. It also marks the end of nearly six decades of family ownership for Fitzhenry & Whiteside.
The publishing house was founded in 1966 by Robert I. Fitzhenry and Cecil L. Whiteside, and later taken over by the former’s daughters, Sharon Fitzhenry, who died in 2023, and Holly Doll, the most recent chief executive officer. “It’s the hardest decision I’ve ever made,” Doll said in an interview. But she conceded: “It’s time that new eyes, new perspectives take over.”
As Doll explored selling Fitzhenry & Whiteside in recent months, she came up with two stipulations for a buyer: it had to be Canadian, and would need to promise to honour authors’ and illustrators’ contracts, so their books would continue to be distributed and promoted.
This is just what Whyte, the former top editor of Saturday Night, the National Post and Maclean’s, was seeking in an acquisition. Sutherland House specializes in narrative non-fiction, and has published dozens of titles from authors such as Paul Wells, Steve Paikin and Lydia Perovic. Though he has plenty of titles now, even when Whyte started work on the press last decade, he hoped to buy up a catalogue of back titles that would bring in revenue as he built up his new brand.
When Whyte announced his publishing house in 2018, it came with news that he would acquire Ontario artisanal press The Porcupine’s Quill, but the deal fell through after uncertainty over whether its Canada Council for the Arts grants would transfer to the new owner. (The council’s recipient database shows that Fitzhenry & Whiteside last received a grant in 2023.)
Fitzhenry & Whiteside began as a distributor of U.S. imprints, eventually entering the publishing game as the sector consolidated. Its imprints – Fifth House, Red Deer Press and Whitecap Books – publish a range of fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, cookbooks and more.
“I can remember the very first time I saw a Fitzhenry & Whiteside book in Audreys Books when I was about 20 years old, and I’ve always admired the company,” Whyte said, referencing the celebrated independent bookstore in Edmonton, where he began his career. “It’s nice for us to be in a position to keep something going into the future that the Fitzhenry family has worked so long on.”
Whyte said that for the time being, those imprints and Sutherland House would operate as separate companies until he and his team had the chance to review their combined operations. He did not disclose the sale price. “It was a chance to acquire a catalogue that’s really deep – about 1,400 titles deep – and still generating good sales,” Whyte said.
