Company type | Private (employee-owned) |
---|---|
Industry | Printing |
Founded | 1907 |
Founder | David W. Friesen |
Headquarters | , Canada |
Area served | North America |
Key people | Chad Friesen, president and chief executive officer Curwin Friesen, chairman of the board |
Products | Books, Yearbooks, Self-publishing, Consumer Packaging |
Revenue | CAD$96,000,000 (2019) 10% from 2018 |
Number of employees | 600 |
Divisions | Friesens Book Division, Friesens Yearbooks, Friesens Packaging, FriesenPress |
Website | www.friesens.com |
Friesens Corporation is Canada's largest printer of hardcover books. [1] They are employee-owned, specializing in hardcover books and yearbooks, and located in Altona, Manitoba, Canada. Friesens also operates a self-publishing subsidiary named FriesenPress, [2] launched in 2009. [3]
Friesens is Canada's largest printer of hardcover books. [1] Furthermore, it has been rated as one of Canada's best 50 managed companies by Deloitte and Touche on several occasions. [7] In 2018, Friesens was number 60 of the top 400 printing companies in the United States and Canada. [8]
On July 13, 2009, Friesens Corporation launched a self-publishing subsidiary called FriesenPress.
FriesenPress offers editing, design, distribution, and promotional support services to assist authors with self-publishing their books. As of 2021 [update] , its team of over 55 employees and 100 freelancers have partnered with thousands of authors on self-publishing over 7,000 book titles. [3] [9] [10] It is the largest company of its kind in Canada. [11]
In March 2021, the company shifted its headquarters to Altona, Manitoba and became a fully remote organization. [9]
Joanne Rowling, known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of Harry Potter, a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the Harry Potter series and was Rowling's debut novel. It follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school. With the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the fifth novel in the Harry Potter series. It follows Harry Potter's struggles through his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including the surreptitious return of the antagonist Lord Voldemort, O.W.L. exams, and an obstructive Ministry of Magic. The novel was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada. It sold five million copies in the first 24 hours of publication.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2001 guide book written by British author J. K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. The original version, illustrated by the author herself, purports to be Harry Potter's copy of the textbook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel of the Harry Potter series. It includes several notes inside it supposedly handwritten by Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, detailing their own experiences with some of the beasts described, and including inside jokes relating to the original series.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the third instalment in the Harry Potter series. The novel follows Harry Potter, a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner from Azkaban, the wizard prison, believed to be one of Lord Voldemort's old allies.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series. It follows Harry Potter, a wizard in his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and the mystery surrounding the entry of Harry's name into the Triwizard Tournament, in which he is forced to compete.
Quidditch Through the Ages is a 2001 book written by British author J. K. Rowling using the pseudonym of Kennilworthy Whisp about Quidditch in the Harry Potter universe. It purports to be the Hogwarts library's copy of the non-fiction book of the same name mentioned in several novels of the Harry Potter series.
The Harry Potter Lexicon is a fan-created online encyclopedia of the Harry Potter series.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the seventh and final novel in the Harry Potter series. It was released on 21 July 2007 in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.
Mary GrandPré is an American illustrator best known for her cover and chapter illustrations of the Harry Potter books in their U.S. editions published by Scholastic. She received a Caldecott Honor in 2015 for illustrating Barb Rosenstock's The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art. GrandPré, who creates her artwork with paint and pastels, has illustrated more than twenty books and has appeared in gallery exhibitions and periodicals such as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal.
Altona is a town in southern Manitoba, Canada, about 100 km south-west of Winnipeg and 158 km north of Grand Forks, North Dakota. The population at the 2021 Census was 4,390 residents. Old Altona was founded in 1880 by Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites from the Russian Empire. It is surrounded by the Municipality of Rhineland. Much of the surrounding area is devoted to farming and agriculture-based business.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a fantasy novel written by the British author J. K. Rowling. It is the sixth novel in the Harry Potter series, and takes place during Harry Potter's sixth year at the wizard school Hogwarts. The novel reveals events from the early life of Lord Voldemort, and chronicles Harry's preparations for the final battle against him.
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's conflict with Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and Muggles.
Quill & Quire is a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry. The magazine was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, with a publisher-claimed readership of 25,000. Quill & Quire reviews books and magazines and provides a forum for discussion of trends in the publishing industry. The publication is considered a significant source of short reviews for new Canadian books.
Since first coming to wide notice in the late 1990s, the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling has been the subject of a number of legal disputes. Rowling, her various publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyrights, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally-produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, leading to efforts to ban or contain them. While these legal proceedings have countered a number of cases of outright piracy, other attempts have targeted not-for-profit endeavours and have been criticised.
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling are based on claims that the novels contain occult or Satanic subtexts. A number of Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians have argued against the series, as have some Muslims. Supporters of the series have said that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to occultism, being more in the vein of fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White, or to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both of whom are known for writing fantasy novels with Christian subtexts. Far from promoting a particular religion, some argue, the Harry Potter novels go out of their way to avoid discussing religion at all. However, the author of the series, J. K. Rowling, describes herself as a Christian, and many have noted the Christian references which she includes in the final novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a book of fairy tales by author J. K. Rowling. There is a storybook of the same name mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final novel of the Harry Potter series.
Curwin Friesen is a former President and Chief Executive Officer of Friesens Corporation, Canada's largest printer of hardcover books.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books, 575 F.Supp.2d 513 was a copyright lawsuit brought on 31 October 2007 by the media company Warner Bros. and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling against RDR Books, an independent publishing company based in Muskegon, Michigan. Lawyers for Rowling and Time Warner argued that RDR's attempt to publish for profit a print facsimile of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a free online guide to the Harry Potter fictional universe, constituted an infringement of their copyright and was not protected by the affirmative defense of fair use. The trial was held from 14–17 April 2008 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In September 2008, the court ruled in Rowling's favor, and publication of the book was blocked. In 2009, RDR Books released an edited volume, eliminating the problematic long quotes found to be infringing.