John and Jerry,
Thanks for responding. No arguments with either of you. The fact is, publishing is not a high profit business, and authors of railroad history are mostly doing their work as a labor of love.
Authors of railroad history generally do not make money on their work. If you consider the amount of time and effort that went into researching and writing most of these books, the author is getting something like a dollar and a half an hour - if that. Most of the people writing books for organizations like the Colorado Railroad Museum, or for specialty publishers like Sundance are enthusiastic historians who love their subject and want to share what they have learned. They don't expect to get a living wage out of their work. Academic presses are a slightly different animal. Many of the books are the work of faculty, who need publications by peer reviewed journals or academic presses to receive tenure or promotion to full professor. For a professor, the pay off is not so much the book royalties, but winning a permanent place on the faculty, or, following that, promotion to full professor. Both bring a salary raise, so there is some economic reward, but it doesn't generally come in the form of royalty checks.
My experience in the field involves both camps. I have worked with historical societies which have self published local railroad history. This is how my MA thesis on the Spokane, Washington street car system got published. I am also on the faculty of a public regional comprehensive university. I review books for academic journals, and have reviewed railroad history manuscripts for a university press, and had my dissertation published by a university press. I do not pretend to be involved in the cost calculation end of the process. So my 'back of the envelope' calculations were based on the work the Inland Empire Railway Historical Society did to publish the street car book, and the information received from the press that published my dissertation.
Like Jerry, my primary motivation with these projects was to share information found. The society members and the authors of three small manuscripts on the electric railways in Spokane agreed to work as a team to produce one 208 page, hard cover volume containing all three. A local printer gave us a better price if he could fit the work into his schedule. The authors loaned the society about half the $25,000 up front costs, and were repaid first from book sales. Within a year the book had sold enough copies to completely pay the publishing costs, so I got my $6,000 back, and felt satisfied. The IERHS still has about 500 or so of that press run of 2,000 books, and sells them. If you come to the IERHS gift shop at the Spokane Interstate Fair, you can get it for $25.00 instead of the list $30.00. A steal for a book with a beautiful sewn binding. But Spokane street cars aren't exactly a national best seller - nearly 25 years later, we still have a quarter of the books left.
On the other hand, the Washington State University Press picked up my dissertation (which was from WSU), and agreed to publish it. The editors did a nice job, but they doubtless realized the Butte Anaconda & Pacific wasn't likely to have the sales appeal of the Northern Pacific and railroads of Seattle. To get a reasonable cost, they opted for a paper cover, and did not use slick paper. I think they were very pleased when it sold all 2,000 copies and they decided to do a second printing. I would have been delighted if the press had felt that it could justify a hard cover and slick paper, but the BA&P is not a subject that guarantees huge sales. From my perspective, the compromise was worth it - the book more than met my publication requirements for tenure, and the history of this interesting carrier is available to the public. I suspect one reason that it has sold as well as it has is the price.
Academic presses have always argued that their job is to spread knowledge, not make money. However, railroad books sell a lot better than many history books, so if an academic press can publish one, it may do better than the usual academic history of a narrow subject like the social impact of the paper clip. Stanford has done some excellent ones - Hilton's monumental opus on narrow Gauge Railroads, _The Birth of California's Narrow Gauge_ and _Oregon American Lumber Company Aint No More_. All exquisite, and expensive to produce.
Can a local publisher compete? Maybe. The Museum of North Idaho has recently done some beautiful books on railroads in the region. They have the books printed on good paper in Hong Kong, and hard bound. This has included a history of the Washington Idaho & Montana, and one on the Spokane & Inland Empire interurban, as well as Stanley Johnson's look at riding the Olympian Hiawatha. All three of these books has been a labor of love for the author, and I doubt any of them make enough in royalties to even pay for the gasoline they burned in their research. But the books have been financially successful for the museum, or they would not keep publishing them.
I'm not trying to scare anyone off, but I do think that the desire of some folks to have a quality product at a low price isn't realistic. A 460 page hardbound book for $15.00 isn't realistic today. But, if you look at the cost of _Colorado Midland_ in 1965, that $15.00 book was comparable to a $100,00 book today. So _The Birth of California's Narrow Gauge_ appears to be comparable priced. A good value, and a beautiful book about a subject with a fairly small market as far as publishers are concerned.
Thanks for reading.
Charlie Mutschler
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