A Substitute Newsletter: Remember the Maine!

Usually there's a big push to finish writing the newsletter at month's end. Generally I've waited until the last minute to finish it lest a major event occurs (like Amazon's stock dropping 99% when their delivery drone downs a 737) but the fact is that I need deadlines to ever finish anything.

This month was different. I wasn't around to write the newsletter. I skipped town for awhile and I don't enjoy typing on my laptop for long periods.

So there is no newsletter, per se, this month.

All you get is this. No doctor's excuse and the dog didn't eat the newsletter.

Just this story about how the world worked, how I believed it's supposed to work, and why so many of you with a history in this industry are coming to regard times past as the Golden Age of Publishing.

I know Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You can't go home again,” but also acknowledged that “All that he knew was that the years flow by like water, and that one day men come home again.”

This year, when we presented the idea of a family vacation to my grown children after a decade or so hiatus, we let them choose the destination.

I was a little surprised by their choice:York, Maine, a place we'd visited many times decades ago.

Years ago I traveled to York each August to spend a week-end or so with some of the nicest people I've ever known, eating, drinking and partying in Donald Weiser's backyard at the annual Weiser Books clambake. From Friday after hours until Monday afternoon, I spent my waking hours with these folks as they taught me the ins and outs of publishing and I shared what I knew of the process of book production.

Some years my whole family accompanied me to York. We'd stay along Long Sands in York, or occasionally by the beach in Ogunquit. And while I relaxed and partied with the Weiser staff on Saturday, my children spent their time on the beach, collecting little sea creatures then returning them to the tide pools and boogie-boarding in the shallow shore waters.

 Boogie boarding on Long Sands, mid 1990s

Telling the story of my relationship not only with Donald Weiser and his wife Betty Lunsted but all of their friends and associates would be far too expansive to relate here, but they were at once my customers, my friends, and my mentors.

My good friend Barbara (Aurora Press) had suggested I contact the Weisers back in the late1970s and while we were out East with our two year old daughter I stopped by the big blue house to actually meet Donald, Betty, Jay, Alden and a few others whose names elude me after these many years.

Jay Weiser, Whitney and me, October 1983

Who knew printers and publishers could form such a tight bond? I drove or flew first printings of their new titles to the Book Expo (then the ABA) because I would produce them on such a short schedule they couldn't be shipped. I often dined with them there, everyone exhausted from working the Expo all day, and not only met Weiser employees but publishers and distributors from around the world joined us. Each dinner was worth a semester of publishing graduate level courses. I tend to be somewhat out-going but I preferred listening to their discussions until Betty would bait me into offering a printer's perspective on whatever the topic was.

I had the same sort of discussions in York when I arrived on August Friday afternoons and they kindly included me in their TGIF get-together at a local watering hole. Some of the crew had attended BEA, some I hadn't seen in a year, and some were brand new rookies.

 TGIF Weiser style

Since it was difficult to bring a dish to pass when staying at the local motel, I arrived at the Weiser's house hours before the partiers arrived. Betty always asked me to trim the forsythia by the back stairs as its branches had grown over the stairs in the year since I'd last cut it. And chairs needed to be brought out from under the long porch, volleyball nets needed to be raised and croquet wickets placed. There were horseshoes to find, beer to ice and tablecloths to spread. I felt a part of the Weiser team on that day.

 One of the early clam bakes. (Russ the lobster man's truck in the foreground.)

Over the years the event grew and grew, from a large picnic in the backyard (moved inside to the porch when rainy) to a huge white tent with roll-down sides to block the elements if necessary. I'm guessing the first clambakes I attended had around twenty guests which swelled to over fifty in later years.

Socializing before the steamers are ready

After eating, the real socializing began. Again, publishers, book store owners, book distributors and authors were in attendance and while the volleyball game was playing, there were also many relaxed conversations between people from different sectors of our industry.

 

There were usually discussions between the publishers, editors, agents and store owners and authors after lunch

And always a wiffle ball game filled the late afternoon hours. Cans of beer sat at the outfielders' feet and many runners reached first base with one in their hand.

 

Wiffle ball with Donald playing a short stop “shift”

Finally the sun would set and the chill off the Atlantic pushed many from the yard to the porch. Interactions on the porch were varied not just year to year but hour by hour. Discussions about upcoming titles and analyzing new trends could devolve into singing and dancing at a moments notice.

Evenings on the porch swung between discussing the cosmos to abject silliness

It was often near midnight when I left, overwhelmed that I had just spent an afternoon with some of the most wonderful people I'd ever met.

I generally went to the office on Monday and tried to explain copy preparation or the differences in papers, their availability and pricing. Often we'd break for lunch, again with editors, designers, fellow publishers, etc.

 As close as I ever came to a Power Lunch

Afterward it was time for me to head back west. The drive home afforded me the opportunity to stop and visit many more of the publishers I worked with, each of whom I considered a special friend.

Howard proves he can pack books with his eyes closed

Unfortunately, this year, as in the past decade or so, there was no Weiser Books to visit, no clambake. I did, however have a chance to get together with friends from those wonderful times. I even ran into Howard by shear luck, a longtime friend of Donald and jack of all trades around Weiser Books.

There are publishers (and probably printers) who view the printer (or publisher) as an adversary, reducing all interaction to negotiating the best deal. I somehow think the internet has promoted that culture.

But I still believe that if you have a chance to work with your printer, you may get some suggestions that will improve the quality of your titles or even make your work a little easier.

Many people I work with in the industry believe (as I do) that we were part of the Golden Age of Publishing.

There are many in the industry today who could care less.

That's why I write to you each month. I'm proud of my industry friends, I respect their ability and integrity, and will gladly close up shop if I have to solicit work from people who don't share this ethic.

(PS Sorry Bob and Barb in Ohio, Paul and Amy in New York, Ehud in Vermont and Jean and Spencer in New Hampshire that I didn't stop by to say hello this trip. Maybe next time.)

The beat goes on: Myles meets Long Sands

Wayne A. Johnson
GrubStreetPrinting.com
wayne@grubstreetprinting.com
Toll-free & fax: 877.711.1229