About First Choice Books, Its History, Services and Values

Our city's waterfront, Creative Commons license Pat David

Our city’s waterfront

About First Choice Books — History

First Choice Books is part of a more than 60-year-old independently-owned and operated bindery company, which was founded by Rudolf Adamek in 1958. Adamek trained as a bookbinder in Poland before WWII, and started the business while with the Canadian military.

By 1988 the company was formally incorporated, and in 1993 then-owners Shy and Angel Riyasat added the self-publishing arm of the business, First Choice Books. Current owners Patrick O’Connor and Melanie Perkins purchased the combined companies in 2011.

The proud printer for several Poet Laureates, a winner of an Alcuin award for printing poetry and sponsors of writers’ festivals and awards and members of writers’ clubs and a national association of book binders is all within our abilities. We publish both fiction and nonfiction.

Victoria Bindery

We moved to our new premises in 2016 which now occupies 4500 square feet. As a one stop-shop for self-published authors, we offer in-house digital printing in both black & white and colour, design services, and a full bindery operation which produces soft cover books, hard cover books, eBooks, websites and custom work. We continue to design and develop our own lines of printed products, including calendars, magnetic lists, and notebooks.

About First Choice Books’ Affordable Services – All Under One Roof

With all of our operations under one roof, we offer affordable, effective and efficient professional publishing and printing services including eBooks. Our dedicated, knowledgeable staff are here to help authors every step of the way through the publishing process. We also offer website design.

These values are key to our success:

  • Proud service to authors across North America and worldwide
  • Respect and positive engagement with our clients in furthering their goals
  • Environmentally sensitive commitment to the publishing process
  • Reliable and consistent maintenance of a high standard of product
  • Professional service with a personal touch
  • The incorporation of over 60 years of experience into daily assistance to the writing community

Commitment to Protecting the Environment: Lean and Green Initiative

Lean and Green logo
One of the first rules of green business is to do more with less. Reducing waste is in the best interest of not just the environment, but our business and clients. Having an environmental plan saves money by reducing costs and thus the savings can be passed along to customers.

 

Some of the environmental guidelines we follow:

  • Turn off equipment at night to save energy.
  • Most lights linked to motion detectors so turn off automatically.
  • Building heated and cooled by ducted heat pump.
  • Employees and owners are making an effort to take transit, also to cycle and to walk to work – 54% of employees do this.
  • Use eco-friendly materials – can print on 100% recycled paper.
  • Introduced paperless system in the shop to reduce waste and save on printing and toner costs.
  • Recycle toner containers, used equipment and all byproducts of the publishing process (soft plastic, hard plastic, paper, metal, pallets, machinery, compost lunch leftovers, etc.)

All of the paper we use is FCS and, we maximize our print layout per sheet of paper, thus reducing paper waste substantially, while offering you great prices for printing your book.

First Choice Books record #EarthDay2019
First Choice Books’ record for 2018 #EarthDay2019