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The story of Self-Counsel Press
Self-Counsel Press was the first in the world to produce a divorce guide or any do-it-yourself legal guide. Here co-founder and president Diana Douglas recalls the origins of her company.
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Back in 1971, if you had wanted a simple uncontested divorce, it would have cost you $800 in legal fees. Even though lay people had the right to represent themselves, you still needed the services of a lawyer because the legal profession guarded the process as well as the necessary legal forms.
That year I met a young articling law student named Jack James who had been approached by a lady friend who couldn't afford the $800 for a divorce, so he coached her and provided the actual forms. The name of any law firm being conspicuously absent, this divorce caught the attention of court reporters.
By the time her court date arrived, the room was packed with local media. The judge, who perhaps would not have been so gracious without them, played to this large audience and helped her through the process. The cost of this divorce was $29 and it was widely reported throughout B.C. We were besieged with mail from people begging for the "information.";
That was the start of Self-Counsel Press. From the beginning the goal of the press was to empower people, at an affordable price. This is still the goal today.
I had started out working in Albert Britnell's bookstore in Toronto. It's long gone now but it was very prestigious! Not only did I cause a customer to scream at me within the first week working there-how was I to know you don't ever, ever touch Glenn Gould's hands?-I also accidentally set off the fire alarm. The ensuing madhouse of lumbering fireman with big dripping hoses snaking throughout the multi-level store, tripping up the Rosedale matrons, nearly gave dear Mr. Britnell, Sr. a heart attack.
We moved to Vancouver where I worked for Duthies' Books. I remember fondly Bill and Mackie Duthie. And of course I remember bookseller Binky Marks who ran the downstairs paperback section and who realized his dream by dying in the arms of a hooker at a book show, or so the story goes.
I never worked in a publishing house but I learned what I knew by osmosis, just listening to my dad, Jim Douglas and his stories, as he was starting up J.J. Douglas Ltd.. It was a free education. Years later, after he had retired from Douglas & McIntyre, I was able to pay for his consulting advice but at the family rate. As we good Scots know, that is at least 25% higher than the going rate.
Everything I really needed to know about running a publishing company I learned while running a dairy farm. Long hours, poor pay, shoveling you-know-what. As well as finding out that cows are not the docile and sweet animals that you think they are.
Jack and I became business partners and life partners, but neither partnership would last.
Our BC Divorce Guides were being cranked out as fast as possible on an old AB Dick Press, which kept breaking down. We sold that AB Dick Press, without telling the bank that unfortunately held a collateral mortgage on it, and used the proceeds to pay for a decent-sized print run from an Ontario printer. The bank readily forgave us as we were able to pay off the loan very quickly after that.
I sold my bookstore in New Westminster, and Jack and I devoted ourselves full-time to Self-Counsel Press. This was the same bookstore next to the New Westminster Public Library and the Dairy Queen where I would meet UBC librarian Basil Stuart-Stubbs for burgers.
At Self-Counsel Press we were hearing from many of our divorce customers; they were thrilled to have successfully represented themselves and saved lots of money in the process, but now they wanted us to help them 'help themselves' to incorporate companies, probate estates, write wills, handle small claims actions, real estate issues, landlord tenant problems. Most important of all, they wanted to know how to fight that traffic ticket!
We were dealing with a legal community that jealously guarded their lucrative territory. Jack struggled to find lawyers with the experience and progressive attitude to write the guides. Mainly our authors were young, fresh out of law school and willing to challenge the establishment. Now they, too, are the establishment, as QC's and judges.
While Jack was out signing up the authors, I was busy handling the production, sales, and distribution. And then it hit us: we had to get to Ontario fast to duplicate this core list of legal titles before another publisher followed in our footsteps. We quickly packed up and moved to Toronto for three months that winter, signing up authors and finding a sales rep.
Returning to Vancouver, we moved our operation into the downstairs floor of a house on the Upper Levels in North Vancouver, living in the upstairs portion. Eventually we had eleven people working in that house, and the one next door, before we moved in 1983 to an office/warehouse down near the Second Narrows Bridge where we remain to this day.
Back in the basement of that house we were expanding our legal titles into Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces. Increasingly our buying public was asking us to publish easy-to-read information to help them in their business ventures. We realized that the business titles of the day were American-based, written for MBA graduates and mostly published in hard cover.
The fact that 80% of all small business owners had only a high school degree convinced us to start producing step-by-step paperback titles for the small business person on subjects such as accounting, sales, marketing and business plans. Just trying to do my business on the phone with two little kids underfoot was a challenge.
My solution was to have a big bowl of Smarties on my desk and when the phone rang I would grab a fistful and throw them madly around the room for the kids to scramble after them. Not too sanitary but it did buy me a few minutes of quiet to conduct some business.
Jack, as a gift for me, had a small portable light table built so that I could continue to paste up our books in bed at night. Not romantic but effective. How many folks today can remember how we had to paste-up the book's pages from the typeset material on thick lined paper? A double spread was called "cats and dogs,"; I think. All the typos or corrections had to be glued in, line by line, really straight.
In 1983, my life-partnership with Jack was at an end. We got our divorce under the Companies Act and it cost a lot more than $29. I bought him out of Self-Counsel Press.
In 1987, I hired a consultant, referred to me by my father, to prepare a marketing plan to further our expansion into the U.S. When the plan was presented to me I asked this consultant to become my partner in the U.S. operation and to put her plan into motion. So began a wonderful business partnership. Self-Counsel Press expanded and flourished under her management, but more importantly I had found a great friend in Pat Touchie, who married Rodger Touchie, now her business partner in the very successful Heritage Group.
Self-Counsel Press has enjoyed a history of attracting really good people, many of whom worked with us for decades before retiring. They took pride in the quality of the titles they produced-justifiably so, as we have never been sued in 40 years. Self-Counsel, through their efforts, became a brand you could trust. I got into publishing serendipitously... hey, I could have stayed in dairy farming...and I realize now how incredibly lucky I have been to spend a huge chunk of my life in the publishing community.
Acceptance speech by Diana Douglas on April 19, 2012 at the Arbutus Club, Vancouver, receiving the Jim Douglas Award on behalf of Self-Counsel Press.
[BCBW 2012]
--
Back in 1971, if you had wanted a simple uncontested divorce, it would have cost you $800 in legal fees. Even though lay people had the right to represent themselves, you still needed the services of a lawyer because the legal profession guarded the process as well as the necessary legal forms.
That year I met a young articling law student named Jack James who had been approached by a lady friend who couldn't afford the $800 for a divorce, so he coached her and provided the actual forms. The name of any law firm being conspicuously absent, this divorce caught the attention of court reporters.
By the time her court date arrived, the room was packed with local media. The judge, who perhaps would not have been so gracious without them, played to this large audience and helped her through the process. The cost of this divorce was $29 and it was widely reported throughout B.C. We were besieged with mail from people begging for the "information.";
That was the start of Self-Counsel Press. From the beginning the goal of the press was to empower people, at an affordable price. This is still the goal today.
I had started out working in Albert Britnell's bookstore in Toronto. It's long gone now but it was very prestigious! Not only did I cause a customer to scream at me within the first week working there-how was I to know you don't ever, ever touch Glenn Gould's hands?-I also accidentally set off the fire alarm. The ensuing madhouse of lumbering fireman with big dripping hoses snaking throughout the multi-level store, tripping up the Rosedale matrons, nearly gave dear Mr. Britnell, Sr. a heart attack.
We moved to Vancouver where I worked for Duthies' Books. I remember fondly Bill and Mackie Duthie. And of course I remember bookseller Binky Marks who ran the downstairs paperback section and who realized his dream by dying in the arms of a hooker at a book show, or so the story goes.
I never worked in a publishing house but I learned what I knew by osmosis, just listening to my dad, Jim Douglas and his stories, as he was starting up J.J. Douglas Ltd.. It was a free education. Years later, after he had retired from Douglas & McIntyre, I was able to pay for his consulting advice but at the family rate. As we good Scots know, that is at least 25% higher than the going rate.
Everything I really needed to know about running a publishing company I learned while running a dairy farm. Long hours, poor pay, shoveling you-know-what. As well as finding out that cows are not the docile and sweet animals that you think they are.
Jack and I became business partners and life partners, but neither partnership would last.
Our BC Divorce Guides were being cranked out as fast as possible on an old AB Dick Press, which kept breaking down. We sold that AB Dick Press, without telling the bank that unfortunately held a collateral mortgage on it, and used the proceeds to pay for a decent-sized print run from an Ontario printer. The bank readily forgave us as we were able to pay off the loan very quickly after that.
I sold my bookstore in New Westminster, and Jack and I devoted ourselves full-time to Self-Counsel Press. This was the same bookstore next to the New Westminster Public Library and the Dairy Queen where I would meet UBC librarian Basil Stuart-Stubbs for burgers.
At Self-Counsel Press we were hearing from many of our divorce customers; they were thrilled to have successfully represented themselves and saved lots of money in the process, but now they wanted us to help them 'help themselves' to incorporate companies, probate estates, write wills, handle small claims actions, real estate issues, landlord tenant problems. Most important of all, they wanted to know how to fight that traffic ticket!
We were dealing with a legal community that jealously guarded their lucrative territory. Jack struggled to find lawyers with the experience and progressive attitude to write the guides. Mainly our authors were young, fresh out of law school and willing to challenge the establishment. Now they, too, are the establishment, as QC's and judges.
While Jack was out signing up the authors, I was busy handling the production, sales, and distribution. And then it hit us: we had to get to Ontario fast to duplicate this core list of legal titles before another publisher followed in our footsteps. We quickly packed up and moved to Toronto for three months that winter, signing up authors and finding a sales rep.
Returning to Vancouver, we moved our operation into the downstairs floor of a house on the Upper Levels in North Vancouver, living in the upstairs portion. Eventually we had eleven people working in that house, and the one next door, before we moved in 1983 to an office/warehouse down near the Second Narrows Bridge where we remain to this day.
Back in the basement of that house we were expanding our legal titles into Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces. Increasingly our buying public was asking us to publish easy-to-read information to help them in their business ventures. We realized that the business titles of the day were American-based, written for MBA graduates and mostly published in hard cover.
The fact that 80% of all small business owners had only a high school degree convinced us to start producing step-by-step paperback titles for the small business person on subjects such as accounting, sales, marketing and business plans. Just trying to do my business on the phone with two little kids underfoot was a challenge.
My solution was to have a big bowl of Smarties on my desk and when the phone rang I would grab a fistful and throw them madly around the room for the kids to scramble after them. Not too sanitary but it did buy me a few minutes of quiet to conduct some business.
Jack, as a gift for me, had a small portable light table built so that I could continue to paste up our books in bed at night. Not romantic but effective. How many folks today can remember how we had to paste-up the book's pages from the typeset material on thick lined paper? A double spread was called "cats and dogs,"; I think. All the typos or corrections had to be glued in, line by line, really straight.
In 1983, my life-partnership with Jack was at an end. We got our divorce under the Companies Act and it cost a lot more than $29. I bought him out of Self-Counsel Press.
In 1987, I hired a consultant, referred to me by my father, to prepare a marketing plan to further our expansion into the U.S. When the plan was presented to me I asked this consultant to become my partner in the U.S. operation and to put her plan into motion. So began a wonderful business partnership. Self-Counsel Press expanded and flourished under her management, but more importantly I had found a great friend in Pat Touchie, who married Rodger Touchie, now her business partner in the very successful Heritage Group.
Self-Counsel Press has enjoyed a history of attracting really good people, many of whom worked with us for decades before retiring. They took pride in the quality of the titles they produced-justifiably so, as we have never been sued in 40 years. Self-Counsel, through their efforts, became a brand you could trust. I got into publishing serendipitously... hey, I could have stayed in dairy farming...and I realize now how incredibly lucky I have been to spend a huge chunk of my life in the publishing community.
Acceptance speech by Diana Douglas on April 19, 2012 at the Arbutus Club, Vancouver, receiving the Jim Douglas Award on behalf of Self-Counsel Press.
[BCBW 2012]
Submitted on October 30, 2012 in By David.
