Jerome Martin, co-founder and publisher of Edmonton-based Spotted Cow Press, has died. He was 81. 

Martin, also a musician and photographer, started the press in 1990 after having worked for Alberta Agriculture and teaching communication in the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry and working with the science and publishing sections of the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta.

Spotted Cow Press published history, poetry, memoir, and photography titles focussed on the people and land of the Great Plains as well as some idiosyncratic projects that captured the interest of Martin and his partner and press co-founder Merle Martin, who died in 2018.

According to the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, Spotted Cow Press was the first publisher in Alberta to produce an ebook and to offer all of its titles in electronic form, and the first company anywhere to publish a trade book exclusively as a print-on-demand title.

A long-time member of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, Martin is described by Kieran Leblanc, executive director of the BPAA, as “a real friend to the publishing community,” who continued to be active even after the press ceased operations in the late 2010s. Martin served on the board and as a volunteer, and produced “Podcasts on Publishing” for the association. In 2020, Jerome Martin was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Publishing Award by the BPAA.

The family is working with the University of Alberta to honour the vision of Jerome and Merle Martin in some form.