ECW Press
ECW Press is a Canadian book publisher located in Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. They started publishing trade and scholarly books in 1979.
Not to be confused with Extreme Championship Wrestling or WWE ECW.Founded
1974
Jack David and Robert Lecker
Canada
Jaguar Book Group (Canada)
Baker and Taylor Publisher Services (USA)
Turnaround Publisher Services Ltd.(UK & Europe)
New South Books (Australia & New Zealand)
Bespeak Audio
Jack David and David Caron
11-50
ECW Press publishes a range of books in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, sport, and pop culture.[1] In 2015, Publishers Weekly listed ECW Press as one of the fastest-growing independent publishers in North America.[2]
History[edit]
The company was founded by Jack David and Robert Lecker in 1974 as a Canadian literary magazine named Essays on Canadian Writing. Five years later, ECW published its first books—trade and scholarly titles. It started with two principal series: the Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors (ABCMA) and Canadian Writers and Their Works (CWTW). Through the 1980s, ECW upgraded its typesetting facilities, published reference titles and began to service third-party clients, creating books for corporations to use for promotional purposes and events such as anniversaries.
In the 1990s, ECW re-commenced trade publishing and expanded its scholarly and reference lines for high school and public libraries. They started publishing a mix of commercial books alongside their literary books,[3] such as pop culture books (the first being The Duchovny Files: The Truth Is in Here by Paul Mitchell, published in 1995, a biographical dossier on actor David Duchovny that includes episode guides of The X-Files),[4] sports books, and genre fiction.[1]
Robert Lecker left the company in 2003.[3]
ECW produced its first audiobook in 2009 and expanded its operations in 2015. ECW launched the audiobook imprint Bespeak Audio, focusing on Canadian production of Canadian books, in 2017.[5]
