Highlights from the full feature. See Story in Quill and Quire December Issue.

Story by Shaun Smith. Copyright Quill & Quire

What would a publishing house be like if the marketing department ran the company? Kunati Books isn't exactly that, but it's close.

Publisher Derek Armstrong, along with editor James McKinnon, creative director Kam Wai Yu ... started the Ontario-based press in 2006, launching its inaugural list of eight titles in spring 2007 and following up with another five this fall. But for many years before that, Armstrong McKinnon and Yu ran an advertising firm called Persona Corp., which specialized, in part, in campaigs for book publishers...

... Tegge (VP of sales at IPG, Kunati's distributor) says the firms titles have "all good numbers for a small press, even for a medium-sized press... We're extremely pleased with them." Tegge noted that Kunati books are selling particularly well into insitutional libraries. "The reviews in Library Journal and Booklist have done a great job in getting libraries to pick up the books."

Armstrong says typical marketing efforts include everything from co-op placements to ads to blogs. Each book receives its own trailer, posted to YouTube.*  Authors are set up with a minimum of 10 blogging outlets, including author-dedicated web sites, many of which are run by Kunati or Persona, and Armstrong says they do as many as 20 book signings per month. 

Edmontonian Cheryl Kaye Tardif, (author of Whale Song ) says the house expects authors to take a very active role in promotion.... Tardif did a one-month "virtual book tour" in August and had 32 book signings in the greater Edmonton area lined up before Christmas, and she says she's seen results. "Four days after my official book launch, on April 17, it made Amazon.ca's bestseller list."

So far, all the authors — aside from Canadians Armstrong and Tardif, and one Briton—are American. (Kunati published Armstrong's novels The Game last spring and The Last Troubadour this fall." Floridian Carol O'Dell's memoir Mothering Mother... is a strong seller...

With a slogan rading "Provocative. Bold. Controversial," the press's mission is also unabashadely commercial. "We look at asomething and quickly reject it if we don't think it's commercially viable," Armstrong says...

Kunati's fall 2007 catalogue was titled "Evil Doers" and boasted of books containing murders, bigots, lunatics, heretics, and witches. The novels often push the boundaries and confront social issues. Andy Tilley's Recycling Jimmy is a comedy about assisted suicide. Richard Cahill's Truth or Bare is a "blackly funny" crime novel about strippers. Lynn Hoffman's bang BANG depicts American gun culture...

To read more, see the feature in Quill & Quire. 

* Persona Corp. and Kam Wai Yu invented the novel trailer or book video back in the late 1980s and continues to be a leader in trailer creativity.