Small Presses in Montana and Wyoming: Forthcoming Publication

Three years ago, I posted a series (4 installments) on four presses formerly located in Montana and Wyoming.

Since then, I have done considerable additional research on these presses and have expanded greatly on those short pieces and created a book. It has the benefit of my having been able to contact all of the proprietors of these defunct presses. I've interviewed them by phone and exchanged numerous e-mails.

It will include annotated checklists for each press and illustrations of title pages and bindings of a selection of titles from each press. It will be a 8.5" x 11"paperback.

I anticipate publication sometime in mid to late 2024, depending on how successful I am in getting the rest of the images I need. When the book is ready to be published, I will announce it here.

I love this! In the true spirit of Will Ransom and those that followed. Congratulations.

Very cool! Looking forward to it.

Exciting! Might I ask -- will this be printed letterpress?

>4 astropi: I wish! Seriously, I would truly love to have it done letterpress, but that's out of the question. The title pages, etc. will be in full color with a two-color text. I will be publishing this thing via Amazon's KDP Direct.

>5 Glacierman:
Will you ship the book or Amazon? If the latter should be the case, the book is unbuyable. Amazon does an horrible shop in packaging books and their shipping brigade, plus various sub-shipping companies they are using handle those extremely bad packaged books very very badly.

Otherwise I'm very hyped for this :)

>5 Glacierman: I hope you have better luck with them than I've had, mate. The trade paperbacks I've received have been so flimsy that I'm tempted to describe them as "self-pulping". It's been a few years though, so perhaps (in defiance of every model of capitalism) the quality has improved. Though if you're going with hardcover, it's likely to be much nicer.

KDP is perfectly suited to a publication like this. The print quality is in the lower half of trade publishing, sure, and the shipping will not be done with extreme care, no. But this is an extremely niche publication which KDP will make available to those interested worldwide, and at a low price. That's a miracle of modern publishing.

I bet, though, Richard, that you might find sufficient interest in the online fine press collecting community to warrant a one-time higher quality print run. I'd suggest Blurb, in that case, which actually offers the same Mohawk paper lines that many fine presses use. Plus their printing is very nice. If you wanted to do something like this, I'd be happy to help facilitate.

>8 grifgon: I would think the audience for this would favor hardcover over paperback, but that might be solipsism on my part. I do agree that a single quality run would be ideal, and probably would bring in a large share of the interested audience at once. A few extras copies could be kept on hand for those who discover it later.

To be precise, I have had personal experience with only two platforms for POD self-publishing: Lulu and KDP.

My late wife and I published the first volume of our epic fantasy series via KDP as a trade paperback. The copies of this book that I have ordered for our use have been well made and were shipped properly, arriving in fine shape.

Also, via KDP, I published a reprint of an old Victorian romance novella that included several full color plates as part of my extensive introduction that related the publication history of the original book which was published in 1899. The reproduction is satisfactory and again, shipping has been fine.

We published a limited hardcover version via Lulu as at that time, KDP did not offer that format. I have published several other books via Lulu, books which I have distributed myself. One was on butterflies and includes several full color plates. I have been satisfied with all of them in every aspect.

The exact platform I will eventually use is not set in stone, and I might find a better option. This will be finalized in due course. But first, I have to get the rest of the needed images!

I agree that you should not rush the decision. . . I'm trying to find my copy of Mike Peich's checklist of Red Hydra to see who did that.

It might also be an option to have 'printed elements' and offset elements collated into a modest hand bound edition. . . . There must be grant opportunities either locally through the State arts boards, or from other book interested agencies.

I’ve purchased self-published books printed via Blurb (a hardcover book of street photography) and Lulu (a softcover collection of essays on photography), and both were much nicer than today’s typical POD pulp printing.

I'm exploring various publishing ideas. It will come out in a trade paperback via KDP/Amazon, but I'm looking at putting out a limited, numbered & signed h/c edition as well. We shall see.....

A design note:

Typography and design by Richard L. Hardesty at the Rising Wolf Press, Hungry Horse, MT. The text is set in 12 pt. Golden Cockerel and its accompanying italic with the titles in 24 pt. Golden Cockerel Titling. 10 pt. Bodoni was used in the footnotes. The drop caps were set in Chaucerian which is based on William Morris’ decorative initials used in the Kelmscott Press Chaucer.

And I am not using InDesign. I'm using in WordPerfect X7. A bit tricky at times, but workable. I just have to backup often!

I have to make a trip down to the Univ. Mt. library in Missoula to examine a number of books in their collections for images and bibliographic details, but that has to wait until the snow is long gone.

I've also found a few titles previously overlooked for one reason or another and am in contact with a co-proprietor for their input. If all goes well, the book should remain on schedule.

Oh, yes! I do need to design a cover.....

Still on track for a late Autumn release date...at least for the trade paperback.

Then again, maybe not. There are some important details that are proving to be fugitives and it will take a while to track them down.

I also was able to make some significant additions to the history of one of the presses thanks to recent correspondence with one of the principals.

I've also done a major re-design after receiving some valuable advice from Mark Askam.

At this point, I'm not sure when I can get the MS completed with the missing details included. Very frustrating.

>17 Glacierman: Things seldom happen quickly in the world of fine press. Keep at it, it will be worth it in the end!

Getting closer to publication. Blurb appears to no longer offer Mohawk papers, so there is nothing to be gained by going through them for the hardcover. I suspect I'll go through Lulu for that issue.

But, meanwhile, here's the pbk cover. Cover photo by yours truly; the overall cover design is pretty much Mark Askam's. Thanks, mi amigo!

UPDATE!

The limited hardcover is available for pre-order. The publication date is 15 February 2025. DM me for a PDF of the "prospectus" if you are interested.