Theytus Books is a leading North American publisher of Indigenous voices and the oldest Indigenous-owned and operated publishing house in Canada. The press was founded in 1980 with a mission to preserve and share Indigenous knowledge and creative work, and its name comes from the Salish language, meaning “preserving for the sake of handing down.”
Theytus’ list includes a certain emphasis on preserving and promoting Indigenous languages. The site is designed to reflect this through special support for Indigenous characters and by highlighting bilingual works published in both English and Indigenous languages, such as we see in the example below of Shane Koyczan’s poetry collection, Inconvenient Skin (nayêhtâwan wasakay in Cree).
The site also plays an important role in helping make Theytus’ catalogue more widely available, especially through direct sales to individual readers, educators, librarians, and community organizations. That direct sales channel represents a significant proportion of Theytus’ annual sales, and the website is designed to make managing and promoting those sales as easy and efficient as possible for the Theytus team.
Holistic development, automation, and support
Theytus was looking for a website solution that was very well supported. We started by building a highly automated and stable site that used ONIX data to its full advantage. As the press keeps their ONIX feed updated, the site will always be fresh and up to date. Day to day, it requires zero effort to look and feel professional, and to showcase the important work Theytus is bringing forward.
As with all ReaderBound projects, we also manage hosting for the site, as well as periodic security management and updating. For a bit of extra support, we took on Theytus’ IT needs such as DNS management, email account management, and other tasks connected to the website. If the Theytus team needs help, they simply get in touch and we take care of it. We update content where needed, support new staff, and generally keep things running smoothly.
Preserving a legacy
The website plays an important role in supporting Theytus’ goal of preserving and promoting Indigenous cultures and voices. The site is a home for the press’ backlist and is ready for new titles at any time. It elevates the web presence of its books, authors, and illustrators. It makes advanced web tools available to a small press. And, it offloads the large burden of thinking about and managing IT.
