Did You Know Canada Has a Public Directory of Book Publishers?

“A word after a word after a word is power.” 
— Margaret Atwood, “Spelling”

Illustration of a map of Canada marked with book icons and examined through a magnifying glass, with the text “Did You Know? Canada has a Public Directory of Book Publishers?”

There are thousands of book publishers operating across Canada, from large publishing houses to independent presses and people publishing under their own imprint names. But where can you find them? In the Canadian ISBN Publishers' Directory of course.

The Library and Archives Canada maintains a searchable Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory containing information about publishers that have registered through ISBN Canada.

It is one of those useful Canadian publishing resources that is easy to miss unless you already know it exists. If you're publishing in Canada, it's definitely worth checking to ensure that all of your information is correctly listed and that any links they have are current and working.

What Is the Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory?

The short answer is, this directory contains information supplied by English-language publishers that have received their ISBNs through ISBN Canada. 

What is an ISBN?

An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is the 13-digit number used to identify a particular book, edition and format. In Canada, eligible publishers can receive ISBNs free of charge through Library and Archives Canada. I wrote more about that process in my earlier post, ISBNs in Canada and why I'm using IngramSpark.

The Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory takes some of the information connected to those ISBN accounts and makes it publicly searchable.

What Can You Search For?

You can search the directory by:

  • publisher name
  • keyword
  • city
  • province
  • ISBN

A search result may include the publisher’s address, email address, website, telephone number and ISBN prefix.

That means you can use the directory to look up a publisher you already know, identify the Canadian publisher connected to an ISBN or browse publishers located in a particular part of the country.

Screenshot of the Library and Archives Canada Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory search page, with “little goodbyes press” entered in the Publisher Name field.




Who Is Listed?

The directory includes many different types of Canadian publishers both currently active as well as ones from the past. Alongside well-known publishing houses, you can find small independent presses, educational organizations, associations, and self-publishers who publish under their own imprint names. Of course, since we use ISBN Canada for our books, Little Goodbyes Press is there too.

Seeing all of these names together gives a much broader picture of Canadian publishing than you might get from browsing the shelves of a large bookstore. Books are being produced by publishers of every size in communities across the country.

Screenshot of the Library and Archives Canada Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory showing Little Goodbyes Press in the search results.




Who Is Not Listed?

What's not in the directory.

French-language publishers are not included because they get their ISBNs from Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. For listings of French-language publishers, see Bottin des éditeurs francophones canadiens (French only).

Government of Canada publishers are also not included.

A Useful Canadian Publishing Resource

The Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory can be helpful for authors researching Canadian presses, librarians or booksellers looking for publisher information, and readers who want to learn more about where a book came from. It is also simply interesting to explore. You can search by your province, enter the name of a press you recognize or use an ISBN from a Canadian book to see what information appears.

Search the Canadian ISBN Publishers’ Directory


You can explore all of our current titles on our Books Page.

If you'd like to help share our works, visit our Libraries Page for circulation details and ISBNs.

Our books are available through major retailers including Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Waterstones.


Location: Canada

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