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Much admired as leaders of the sustainability movement, Chris and Judith Plant are recycling themselves, buying back their New Society imprint from D&M Publishers Inc. Here's the three-part story of how their healthy, homemade New Society imprint continues to live up to its name.

PHASE ONE
In 1985, Chris and Judith plant were back-to-the-landers of sorts, seeking the communal experience twenty miles down a gravel road from Lillooet, producing an environmental newspaper called The New Catalyst, a let's-fix-the-world endeavor that soon led them into publishing books.

Started in 1990, their fledgling publishing imprint called New Society eventually took over its sister company-New Society Publishers, Philadelphia-with whom they had worked for six years.

"We made a conscious decision to do our bit for the 'turn-around decade' that was called for by David Suzuki and others,"; says Chris 'Kip' Plant, "But somehow that turn-around decade turned into two decades.";

Based out of Gabriola Island, the Plants parlayed their dedication to "bioregionalism"; into a successful vehicle for promoting ecological consciousness and community action world-wide.

Having encouraged the use of recycled paper for books, the Plants received the James Douglas Award for outstanding publishing in British Columbia in 2003. By 2005, they were the first publishing company in North America, and only the second publishing company in the world, to declare themselves "carbon neutral.";

PHASE TWO
A family health problem prompted them to retire and sell New Society to Scott McIntyre's Douglas & McIntyre, often touted as the largest publishing house in Western Canada It's possible Lone Pine in Alberta might have greater sales worldwide. D&M was by then Vancouver businessman Mark Scott's company, since his purchase of the majority of the shares just prior to the acquisition of New Society, but McIntyre remained on board.
"Their list had integrity,"; Chris Plant said, "and we had obvious compatibilities with their Greystone imprint, David Suzuki's publisher.";

So D&M Publishers Inc. became a consortium of three imprints; New Society, Douglas & McIntyre and Greystone. The new owner, Mark Scott, was an acquaintance of Scott McIntyre. "One of the trickiest challenges any company faces is getting succession right,"; McIntyre said in 2012, "and I'm very proud of the path we are embarking upon.";

With McIntyre at the helm as its chairman, D&M Publishers Inc., filed for protection from bankruptcy in November of 2012, having accumulated debts exceeding $6 million, including more than half a million owing to authors.

The second phase of New Society-through no fault of the imprint-was in jeopardy. Judith Plant herself became one of D&M's major creditors because the full purchase of New Society by the D&M consortium had yet to be completed.
So what to do?

PHASE THREE
The Plants opted to come out of retirement and buy back their press, with the essential help of their financial angel, friend Carol Newell of Renewal Partners who had helped them from the outset.

Whereas almost the entire staff at D&M in Vancouver was rendered jobless by the business failure, New Society has remained stable, staff-wise, and they're now proceeding with a full spring list with the usual range of sustainability titles and one book with a distinctly local flavour.
Much admired as leaders of the sustainability movement, Chris and Judith Plant are recycling themselves, buying back their New Society imprint from D&M Publishers Inc. Here's the three-part story of how their healthy, homemade New Society imprint continues to live up to its name.

Signaling the phoenix-like resurgence of New Society, Hollyhock: Garden to Table (New Society $24.95) by Moreka Jolar and Heidi Scheifley reasserts the presence of a unique B.C. institution, Hollyhock, a centre for learning and well-being, B.C.'s Findhorn, created in 1982 on the grounds of the former Cold Mountain Institute on Cortes Island.
Near its ocean-view kitchen, the world renowned learning centre of Hollyhock boasts a spectacular organic garden.

Based on thirty years of cooking, Hollyhock: Garden to Table provides more than 200 new garden-inspired recipes as well as growing tips from Hollyhock's own Master Gardener, Nori Fletcher. Moreka Jolar has been a chef at Hollyhock for fifteen years and Scheifley is a certified gourmet natural foods chef who has cooked around the world.

The Plants' first B.C.-grown book upon their return to ownership harkens back to their roots in Lillooet-all puns intended-where communalism was viewed as a healthy and natural necessity. It's also a follow-up to Hollyhock Cooks (New Society 2004), co-authored by Jolar.

Now New Society also intends to deal head-on with 21st century technological challenges. "We're already selling all of our books as e-books,"; says Judith Plant, "and an increasing volume of sales are electronic.

"The real challenge is adapting as a publisher to the broader electronic culture. We must consider ourselves more as purveyors of information that can be parlayed in diverse forms than strictly as a producer of books alone. Being fluid in such a world is crucial.
"The intelligent, committed and passionate people on our staff, many of whom have spent most of their working lives with the company, are raring to go. So, yes, this amounts to a re-birth of sorts.";

This third phase of New Society will also provide an opportunity for a partial employee buy-in to the company. A portion of the shares are being made available for the staff to buy anytime, and a further portion can be bought at a very attractive price, provided certain sales and profitability targets are met. 978-0-86571-727-5

[BCBW 2013]