As for written ephemera, there are many references from the 1500s forward to records, diaries and journals which were considered rather transitory in nature. (“Ephemerides,” which belong to the genus of almanacs and are distinct from true ephemera, contained astronomical charts and tables.) Samuel Johnson, in his Rambler No. 145 (1751), refers to, “These papers of a day, the Ephemerae of learning.” Early in this century we find a reference to pamphlets, etc., “…that have been preserved by accident from the ephemeralness which was the common lot of hundreds of their fellows.” Gradually, perhaps from its early association with sickness and bugs, the term took on pejorative connotations. “Unnotic’d, dull invective lyes, A mere Ephemeron it dyes, Or but provokes a jest.” “These base ephemeras, so born to die before the next revolving morn.” “When the due distinction had been drawn between the ephemeral and the lasting.” “Let him make good, not ephemerally…but definitely.” “The book-business, in America has been…reduced to a level of ephemeralness, news-value, and m ere fact-finding past belief.” Aside from the sudden 1980s corruption of “utopian,” no word has endured as much abuse as “ephemeral.” On the other hand, this helps to create the buyer’s market many purveyors of ephemera currently enjoy. In columns to come we will seek to elevate the term and to enlighten the masses. In my humid opinion, ephemera is the most interesting and most infinite category of collectible, a (we’re talking 1806 here) “Celestial Peacock…whose conscious plumes diffuse a herd of ephemerean dyes!” We’ll close with an Englishman of 1650, who probably had a house full of fine priceless furniture and other items currently on top of the antiques food chain. “Methought, it was a strange opinion of our Aristotle to hold, that the least of those small insected ephemerans should be more noble than the sun, because it had a sensitive soul in it.”

Spirits were high and laughter was afoot at the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Book Fair as noted mystery author and bookman John Dunning introduced Larry and Nancy Goldstone thus: When Larry the writer met Nancy ‘Twas much more than just fun and romancy. His book-writing career Got a kick in the rear ‘Cause her wit was not just happenstancy. Now they’ve come on this western safari Like a pair of fine-tuned Stratavari They’re a twice-wicked brew — Without further ado Here’s the duo of Nancy and Larry.* The Goldstones are book collectors, authors and charming raconteurs who shared their story in Denver on August 3, 2002. It all begins with Leo Tolstoy and an attempt to save money. With birthdays just eight days apart, the couple decided to economize with a $20 spending cap for presents, so Nancy checked out the local used bookstores and found a Heritage Press copy of War and Peace. Price: $10. She calls it “the most expensive thing I’ve every done in my life.” That book was the beginning of an odyssey (or perhaps an obsession) that would take them from corner used bookstores to explorations of the rarest of the rare. “We didn’t consider ourselves collectors, just people who wanted a library,” Larry said, explaining their naiveté and confusion. “Why would anybody pay more for the first edition of a book?” That attitude would change with a weekend getaway to Boston, where they found themselves in the venerable Brattle Book Shop, snared by a 1st edition of The Night Visitor and Other Stories by Trevan. At $45, it was the most they’d ever spent for a book. “We weren’t going to ever tell anybody how much we spent,” Nancy said. They also told themselves they weren’t ever going to spend that much again but, soon enough, they’d moved into the three digit range with firsts of East of Eden and 1984, and a fine binding copy of Bleak House. The Goldstones chronicled their adventures in a series of books beginning with Used and Rare: Travels in the Book World in 1997, followed by Slightly Chipped: Footnotes in Booklore in 1999 and Warmly Inscribed: The New England Forger and Other Book Tales in 2001. Dunning said in his introduction that the Goldstones “opened the book world to readers as they were discovering it for themselves.” The Goldstones consider themselves “professional amateurs” who want to get people interested in the book world, and so they share with readers their discoveries of the quirks of the trade and the eccentric characters of the used and rare book world. They venture to book fairs, rare book libraries, museums and anyplace else where the mysteries of the book world might be revealed. They even interviewed convicted forger Ken Anderson for Warmly Inscribed, which describes how Anderson’s forgeries were detected and eventually prosecuted, largely through the efforts of ABAA members (apparently it’s not an easy thing to convince law enforcement types that writing the names of dead authors in books constitutes a crime). The Goldstones’ latest book is Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of Michael Servetus and One of the Rarest Books in the World, due out fall 2002. It tells the story of Servetus, who was burned at the stake as a heretic in the 16th century, and his book Christianismi Restutio, of which only three copies survived. * © John Dunning #authors #booksellers

OCLC has become, in a few short years, an indispensable resource for the academic librarian, but is it as useful for the bibliographer and/or rare bookseller who uses its database?   As with all other bibliographic work, the information provided is only as accurate as the cataloguer has been.  Using a method similar to that used in the grand old green volumes of the Union Catalog, with all its photocopied cards (typed and handwritten) from every major American library, the cataloguing librarian identifies the existing book record and attaches her/his library’s copy to that record if all details (publisher, place, date, collation of pages, size, etc.) match the volume in hand.  If any of these points differ, a new record is added. If the book has a frontispiece and none is noted in the existing cataloguing, another record is made. And so on, until a very full picture of a book’s publishing history can be discerned from the complete listing of that title.  Anyone using these records to trace back to the very first printing of a title not only depends on the accuracy of the cataloguers, but also on the likelihood that the true first edition is part of at least one library’s collection.  Many mistakes, typographical errors and informational errors occur during the cataloguing process.  Sometimes they are caught and eventually corrected. Very often, however, the errors remain, so the researcher must proceed with caution. Libraries and other services pay to use the resources of OCLC by subscription.   Many university libraries offer OCLC look-up as one of their many extra services for students and faculty.  It is possible to subscribe as an individual, but the fee is rather steep according to Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books, who was a subscriber until a few years ago.  The cost was a minimum of $350 for 500 searches, but it may have increased.   The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America now offers access to OCLC’s WorldCat with its member services; it is, therefore, no longer necessary for ABAA associates to subscribe to OCLC to use that database. ABEBOOKS offers its customers the opportunity to use a greatly abbreviated version of OCLC whenever an advanced book search fails to find a book listing: “No books match the given criteria.” Click the link “Find it at a local library” and a search form for the OCLC appears. This function, however, is offered in order to find the location of a book, i.e., the library that owns a copy. It does not give the more complete details available through the OCLC subscription service nor does it include all editions or all publications available of the particular title searched. And, as is true of the OCLC database in general, popular books, modern children’s books, or any book not likely to be found at a university or major library, will not show up at all. Search results do offer some tantalizing clues for the bookseller who is searching for the first edition of an older title, but no more. While the “complete” OCLC includes book descriptions, notes and, if applicable, bibliographic references with the bibliographer’s number for the book, no such details are given in this quick search.  The results for the same search may vary rather greatly when repeated. The most glaring omission of this service is that microform copies of books are not labeled as such; therefore, the physical count of the existence of a rare book is skewed by the addition of all the microfiche or microfilm copies that are normally catalogued under separate categories within the OCLC database. Unfortunately, this short form OCLC is extremely unreliable for judging the rarity of a title in original book form. For example, a search on ABEBOOK’s OCLC (since none are currently available for sale) for the little volume Emblems of Mortality, Representing, In Upwards Of Fifty Cuts, Death, First American Edition, Hartford: Babcock, 1801, leads us to listings of 102 libraries that own copies. The results do offer the additional information that the “authors” are Hans Holbein and Samuel Stennett, and a later edition adds Alexander Anderson. Using the full version OCLC for the same search, results show that only nine libraries, which include The Connecticut Historical Society, Boston Public Library, Princeton and Harvard University, hold copies of the actual book; ninety-three copies are in microform and its scarcity as a book is now apparent.  The book is 14cm. and has 108 pages with publisher’s advertisements on pp.107-108. It is listed in Shaw and Shoemaker’s Early American Imprints, Second Series, no. 443.  “The cuts are from the design of Holbein and The Bird of Paradise by Samuel Stennett.” Exploring later editions, we find that Alexander Anderson was the woodcut artist who adapted the Bewick illustrations of the 1789 London edition for this first American edition, and a proof copy of his illustrations for Emblems of Mortality is available at the New York Public Library. A look-up for the 1789 English edition tells us the preface is by “J.S. Hawkins. Cf. ESTC. An identical edition was printed in Newcastle the same year under the title Dance of Death, with attribution of the illustrations to Hans Holbein, adapted by Thomas and John Bewick. Illustrations accompanied by a translation of Imagines mortis, or the Images of death.”  No surprise, there is a copy at the New York Public Library.  Now it is off to the Library to compare the London preface and illustrations with the American, find Shaw and Shoemaker’s notation, do a little more research on Alexander Anderson, explore other bibliographies and auction records….  While the OCLC offers a wealth of information, is it not fortunate that there is still old-fashioned bibliographic detective work to be done? The library catalogs of the past contain phenomenal bibliographic records thanks to the many, many librarians who created them; they are the basis for the catalogs/databases of today. It was my pleasure to meet a retired Cambridge University librarian, Arthur Tillotson, the younger brother of literary scholar Geoffrey, who knew as much and more about bibliographic detail than any rare bookseller. He was the exemplar of the knowledgeable bibliographer who brought the highest degree of accuracy to his profession. Now the computer reigns, and while there is greater speed and efficiency, something is lost. Book holdings quickly entered into databases lack more and more of the minute points we as booksellers appreciate. Sadly, even on OCLC Worldcat, the longer book descriptions of only a few years ago were pared down when its format changed. Further, it is to be hoped that mistakes and omissions are caught and eventually corrected, but this brings us back to the acumen of the librarian/cataloguers.  Library science schools now emphasize computer technology, which is obviously important, but perhaps the study of the book has become secondary.  Library databases cannot be used solely to trace a book’s history nor to determine its value, but can be effectively used together with the resources of reliable bibliographies such as The Bibliograhy of American Literature (BAL), auction records such as American Book Prices Current (ABPC), compendia of booksellers’ descriptions and prices such as Book Prices: Used and Rare, edited by Zempel and Verkler, and the Annual Register of Book Values, the great booksellers’ descriptive catalogues of old and, as always, our own intuition and good judgment.

Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Book Fair, August 2-3, 2002 By Sue Gallagher (with Notes From G’Jim (Arner) and Julie Fauble) The 18th Annual Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Book Fair (RMABF) went off as smooth as polished calf under the professional direction of Lois Harvey, IOBA member. At 11:30 a.m., one could see only carts and shelving and boxes and lots of flotsam and jetsam clogging the aisles. At noon the 4 foot Blimpies arrived. Everyone took a quick break to eat a chef salad on a bun. At 1:30 p.m. the massage group arrived to knead away the dealers’ aching muscles. We’re not kidding. By 5:00 p.m. Friday, the lobby was full and the doors opened to a room transformed into neatly appointed booths with well-organized shelves of books and lighted cases with the finest of selections. The dealers were ready to sell. In eleven hours over the two days, the more than 1200 visitors to the fair roamed the aisles, bought books and had an opportunity to eat the same old not haute cuisine. Marginal food didn’t matter; books were the point of the exercise. Available for the serious collector were such prizes as The Big Rock Candy Mountain, signed by Stegner; a very nearly fine/fine Grapes of Wrath, a signed Rackham Cinderella and as usual the Denver fair featured large selections of Western Americana. One niche collector found a Don Quixote in Danish. Also on display was a sampling of some of the most beautiful slipcases and clamshell boxes made by local artisan, Bob Wang, Book Finders West and East. Friday night brought the serious collectors and the non-showing dealers out in force. Familiar faces included Michael Ginsberg and Ed Glaser, in town scouting before heading to Colorado Springs for the Out-of-Print & Antiquarian Book Market Seminar. Mike and Ed had Dick Weatherford, this year’s keynote speaker at the Seminar, in tow. For those who are curious, he was a serious buyer and a charming fellow. It wouldn’t be a Denver book fair without Denver’s own John Dunning scouring the shelves and chatting with anyone who felt the urge. No Brad Pitt, John Laroquette, Ricky Jay, or Regards, Jeff, but we did just fine, thank you. Saturday’s special guests, Larry and Nancy Goldstone, authors of Used and Rare, Slightly Chipped, and Warmly Inscribed, gave a pair of well-attended afternoon talks and were joined by Jennifer Larson of Jeffrey Marks Books for a discussion of fakes and forgeries. IOBA members showing at the fair included: Jim Arner, Julie Fauble, Don Gallagher, Beverly Garst, Mike Greenbaum, Carol Grossman, Lois Harvey, and Ken Sanders. Special thanks go to the RMABF Committee Members: Helen Dunning, Joanne Weiss, Linda Lebsack, Ginny Brown and Paul Mahoney for providing the dealers an opportunity buy, sell and show off. Also a hand to Carol Grossman, President of the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association, the Fair sponsor. And finally, a salute to Lois Harvey, Fair Manager, for an efficient, extraordinarily well organized, and amazingly secure show. Looking forward to next year. For those of you who missed this one, catch it next year as a dealer or visitor – Friday and Saturday, August 1 & 2, 2003. From G’Jim: There were approximately 85-90 booksellers exhibiting at the Fair, and we estimated that there must have been somewhere around 35,000 to 40,000 books there. Quite a few people were lined up on Friday evening, to get in when the doors first opened. When the Fair closed, Lois Harvey had to do several announcements to get finally everyone to leave. (Editor’s Note: G’Jim says he didn’t partake of a massage, except his ‘Cowboy Massage’—you’ll have to ask him about that one but I’ll give you a hint—comes in a flask.)

As a Dickens specialist, I have over 6 shelves of books I use in researching Charles Dickens material. This is obviously overkill for the purposes of most booksellers, so what appears below are those that I consider the more important volumes, in various categories, such that others will know where to turn to answer a given “Dickens” question… Primary References Smith, Walter. CHARLES DICKENS: In the Original Cloth (Part I & II). A Biblio-graphical Catalogue. LA: 1982. 2 volumes. Probably the best reference to have for identifying first editions of all the major (and most minor) Dickens titles. Includes a nice section on the issue/state labrynith that surrounds the first edition identification of “Christmas Carol.” A nice set usually runs $125. Eckel, John. The FIRST EDITIONS of CHARLES DICKENS. London: 1932. 2nd edition. This the second reference to own. Originally published in 1913, it was updated in 1932. The 1932 edition reissued in 2 reprints of which I’m aware: Haskell House (in a horrible pink cloth during the 1970s) and Martino (nice maroon cloth done around ’93). The 1932 edition will run a few hundred dollars, the reprints generally $50 – $75. Hatton & Cleaver. A BIBLIOGRAPHY Of The PERIODICAL WORKS Of CHARLES DICKENS. London: 1933. The bible for identifying the parts issues of Dickens’ works. The first a mid-three figure book; was reprinted by Martino, and can readily be had for $75 or so. Podeschi – Compiler. DICKENS and DICKENSIANA: A Catalogue of the Richard Gimbel Collection in the Yale University Library. New Haven: 1980. The best reference for Dickensiana, including U.S. publications, as well as sets. A book readily available, and well worth the $60 selling price. American Editions Wilkins, William Glyde. FIRST and EARLY AMERICAN EDITIONS of the WORKS of CHARLES DICKENS. Cedar Rapids: 1910. An early effort to separate and identify the many complex editions of Dickens’ [mostly pirated] U.S. publications. While dated and subject to later scholarship, it’s still a good point to begin, and is necessary to be consulted. Was reprinted by Burt Franklin in 1968. Edgar & Vail. CHARLES DICKENS: His Life as Traced by His Works & Early American Editions of the Works of Charles Dickens. NY: 1929. A listing of the U.S. editions found in the NYPL. Updates Wilkins and, with a few exceptions, is generally reliable. Somewhat uncommon, and will run [usually] over a C-note to acquire. Was reprinted (with minimal attribution) by Mandel in 1997, and so perpetuates the errors that are in this NYPL Bulletin. Sumner & Stillman. “Catalogue Thirty-Six. First American Editions of Charles Dickens. The Allan D. McGuire Collection.” Useful for the pictures, as well as research into publication history (especially OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, the information regarding which supercedes that provided in Edgar & Vail above). Secondary References The NEW CAMBRIDGE BIBLIOGRPAPHY Of ENGLISH LITERATURE. Vol III. Cambridge: 1969. Ppg 779 – 850. Very good for secondary material, and a welcome adjunct to Gimbel. While the entire 5 volume set is EXTREMELY useful, the Dickens portion was issued separately by the Dickens House in 1970. The 5 volume set will run 3 figures; the extract pamphlet, under $25. Get the set if you can find one, and can swing the $$$. Miller, William. The DICKENS STUDENT And COLLECTOR: A List of Writings Relating to Dickens and His Works 1836 – 1945. Cambridge: 1946. Also somewhat useful, though uncommon (I’ve only had a couple of copies over the last 13 years, though now with ABE, et al, it should be easier to acquire). I’ve found obscure items listed here and nowhere else. Carr, Lucile. A Catalogue of the VANDERPOEL Dickens Collection at the University of Texas. Austin: 1968. 2nd ed. The second edition is the preferred edition. CHARLES DICKENS. An Excerpt from the General Catalogue of Printed Books in the British Museum. London: 1960. Like Miller, this can document somewhat uncommon material. Wilkins, William Glyde – Compiler. DICKENS in CARTOON and CARICATURE. Boston: 1924. Somewhat uncommon, as it was issued in a limited edition of 440cc. Dramatic Dickens Bolton, H. Philip. DICKENS DRAMATIZED. NY: 1987. The standard reference for the dramatic versions/editions of Dickens works. Fitz-Gerald, S. J. Adair. DICKENS and the DRAMA. NY: 1910. Fitzsimmons. The CHARLES DICKENS SHOW. An Account of His Public Readings 1858 – 1870. London: 1970. Dickens Periodical Appearances Lohrli, Anne – ed. HOUSEHOLD WORDS: Table of Contents & List of Contributers & Their Contributions. Toronto: (1973). Oppenlander, Ella Ann. DICKENS’ ALL THE YEAR ROUND: Descriptive Index and Contributor List. Troy NY: 1984. Books Owned by Dickens Stonehouse, J. H. – Editor. CATALOGUE Of The LIBRARY Of CHARLES DICKENS From GADSHILL. Reprinted from Sotheran’s ‘Price Current of Literature’ Nos. CLXXIV and CLXXV. London: 1935. Dickens’ bookplate and/or the Gadshill sale label were reproduced and affixed to many volumes NOT owned by Dickens… if the book in question not listed here, exercise caution. Illustrations & Illustrators to Dickens’ Works Johannsen, Albert. PHIZ: Illustrations from the Novels of Charles Dickens. Chicago: (1956). This work broke new ground (e.g., herein demonstrated was the fact that the “” was NOT an issue point for Martin Chuzzlewit). Kitton. DICKENS and HIS ILLUSTRATORS. London: 1899. A supplement was issued the next year. The 1899 portion was reprinted in 1972. Grego, Joseph – ed. PICTORIAL PICKWICKIANA. London: 1899. 2 volumes. Traces the various illustrators to Dickens’ first novel. Cohen, Jane. CHARLES DICKENS And His ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATORS. Columbus: (1980). Individual Dickens’ Titles Cox, Don Richard. CHARLES DICKENS’S The MYSTERY Of EDWIN DROOD. An Annotated Bibliography. NY: (1998). Engel, Elliot. PICKWICK PAPERS An Annotated Bibliography. NY: 1990. 1st ed. Glancy, Ruth F. A TALE Of TWO CITIES An Annotated Bibliography. NY: 1993. Lougy, Robert E. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT An Annotated Bibliography. NY: 1990. Schlicke, Paul & Priscilla. The OLD CURIOSITY SHOP An Annotated Bibliography. NY: 1988. NB. There are others in this Garland series (e.g., GREAT EXPECTATIONS), but the above are the only ones I’ve been able to lay my hands on. And 2 titles have multiple bibliographic works written about their publication: CHRISTMAS CAROL & PICKWICK PAPERS. Exhibition & Auction Catalogues Matz, B. W. & J. W. T. Ley – Editors. The PICKWICK EXHIBITION. Held at the New Dudley Gallery From July 22nd to August 28th, 1907. London: [1907]. CATALOGUE Of An EXHIBITION Of The WORKS Of CHARLES DICKENS. January 23d to March 8th. NY: The Grolier Club, 1913. NB. There are many such Exhibition Catalogues, and I’ve named but 2 that I have available to me… most have a bit of utility to some degree or another. Dickens Friends & Inspirational Sources Pugh, Edwin. The DICKENS ORIGINALS. NY: 1912. 1st U.S. Ley, J. W. T. The DICKENS CIRCLE. NY: (n. d.). Other, Rather Esoteric References… Coustillas, Pierre. GISSING’S WRITINGS On DICKENS. London: 1969. Gummer, Ellis N. DICKENS’ WORKS In GERMANY. NY: 1976. This is a reprint edition. Churchill, R. C. – Compiler & Editor. A BIBLIOGRAPHY Of DICKENSIAN CRITICISM 1836 – 1975. London: 1975. Self-explanatory. Wilkins, William Glyde – Compiler. DICKENS in CARTOON and CARICATURE. Boston: 1924. Somewhat uncommon, as it was issued in a limited edition of 440cc

Earlier this summer, I read the email on our IOBA talklist about the Woodburn Scholarship offered by ABAA for attending the Bookselling Seminar in Colorado Springs, Colorado in August, encouraging those interested to apply. As a “newbie” in the business, I drooled over the seminar advertisement in Firsts Magazine, and bemoaned my lack of funds to attend. So, on a lark, I went to the site and found that submitting a one-page letter was the only application requirement. I sent my letter in before the deadline and waited. When July 4th came and went without word, I assumed I had not been selected. Then I got a call just three weeks before the seminar informing me that I had been awarded one of the scholarships! With some anxiety, yet eager and curious, I set off from the dormitory on the grounds of the Seminar (much like my first day at college many years ago), to sign in for the Out-Of-Print and Antiquarian Bookselling Seminar. I was immediately reassured by both finding the right place (eventually) and by being greeted warmly by the coordinator, Kathy Lindeman, with whom I had exchanged several emails. Kathy is the Special Events Coordinator for The Colorado College, and provided a smooth running program from start to finish. I am unable to describe adequately how well thought out and executed the logistics of each event were. Suffice to say, we had to do nothing but get there and focus on what we were to learn for the sessions. Sunday evening, the Seminar was opened with a welcome, brief introductions of the faculty, a keynote speech by Dr. Richard Weatherford, the Chairman of Alibris, and a reception. We started each day at 8:30 a.m., and Monday began with more detailed faculty introductions and brief “How I Became a Bookseller” stories from each member. They came from all different directions and with different interests. Without doubt, the most valuable asset of the Seminar is their faculty of experienced booksellers who love what they do and are giving back to the community of booksellers a bit of what was shared with them as they came up in the trade, mostly through less formal means. Our faculty of eight (nine, if you include Richard Weatherford who was there and participated all week) were the Director, Michael Ginsberg, a past ABAA president and in the business since 1956 specializing in Americana, American Church History, Government Documents, Western Americana, Serials, and Scholarly Periodicals; Edwin V. Glaser, also a past president of ABAA, and an internationally- known specialist in rare and important books in Science, Technology and Medicine; Joseph Rubinfine, a specialist in buying and selling American Historical Manuscripts who has worked in the field since 1967 and has produced 147 manuscript and 15 book catalogs; Jennifer Larson, who started with Howe’s in San Francisco, then was proprietor of Yerba Buena Books specializing in Californiana and is currently doing business, with her husband, as Jeffrey H. Marks Rare Books, dealing primarily in Modern First Editions; James R. Canary, Book Conservator and Repair Specialist, Head of Special Collections Conservation at the Indiana University Libraries; Lois J. Harvey, who began bookselling in 1972 and specializes in Bookstore Consultation, Open Shop Used Book Store Operation, Book Fairs, and Book Searches; Lois is a charter member and past president of the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association and has been coordinator of the Rocky Mountain Book Fair since 1995 – she was the only faculty member belonging to IOBA; Mary Francis Ciletti, who is a native of Colorado Springs and who started in the book trade working at a Colorado Springs Bookstore in 1980; she established her own store, Hooked on Books, dealing in new and used books; andJohn D. Townsend, a mail-order specialist of 20th Century authors of Nature, Natural History, Historical and Nautical Fiction, and Americana; he started his own book business in 1992 after spending 25 years in the corporate world of finance and real estate. In addition to the faculty, helping out were Kathy and Don Stevens of Colorado Springs and our own Sue Gallagher of Denver (yes, the only other IOBA member present). Quite rarified company for such a new kid on the block! I could go on for pages about the sessions, each member of the faculty, and the opportunities for networking with the established sellers, as well as those who may become the next generation of booksellers, but I don’t have that kind of time nor do I suspect my audience would be fascinated by it. So here is the short version. The days were absolutely packed with valuable, practical information and real life experiences on topics such as operation of the bricks and mortar store, financing, mail order and internet selling, reference books used in the trade, bibliographic descriptions (understanding them and writing them), making catalogues, pricing, simple repairs, appraisals, technology, auctions, scouting, taxes and accounting, fairs and trade shows, quoting, forgeries, search services, web page design, the history of books and printing, and much, much more. Many subjects could only be dealt with superficially, but the handouts and references provided were invaluable and something I expect to be able to use for the rest of my career. Though not inexpensive to attend, I came away certain that the knowledge gained, contacts made and reference material supplied were worth one hundredfold the price of admission. Our week of submergence in Bookselling School ended too soon on Friday afternoon with luncheon, a brief and final note from Ed Glazer on ethics (yes, I did plug IOBA) and the awarding of our certificates. And yes, I am a softy, and was choking back my tears as I said goodbye to each faculty member in the receiving line but at least I held it together ultimately. As each of the 55 students went their own way, I realized I had had one of those extraordinarily rare times that I would probably look back on with satisfaction for the rest of my life. And yet again, yes, I know for sure now that I really do want to be a bookseller. Julie Wormhoudt Curious Cat Books

Site: http://www.oakknoll.com Contact Info: 310 Delaware Street, New Castle, DE 19720 Phone: 302/328-7232 FAX: 302/328-7274 Email: oakknoll@oakknoll.com When was Oak Knoll Press started? Oak Knoll started out in 1976 in New Castle, DE. We moved again, as we grew, and then in 1999 we moved to our current building, which was our town’s Opera House built in 1879. Were all three of you involved in the start-up? The business actually started with just Bob (Robert D. Fleck). John von Hoelle was owner of Dyne-American Publications, which he sold in 1995 and retired. He was asked by Bob to take over his publishing division in 1996. Michael Guessford has an extensive background in newspaper, media and retail marketing. What actually was needed to start Oak Knoll? Bob started the business with his extensive personal collection, which became our first catalog. What gave you the idea of starting this publishing company, i.e., was it a niche that wasn’t being filled previously? A life long love of books and book collecting, and we wanted to specialize in books about books. Had you (or any of your principals) been involved in publishing or the book world previously? No. Are or were any of you booksellers and, if so, new, used, or both? Yes. Both new and used. And do you continue to operate also as booksellers apart from Oak Knoll Press books? Yes. Oak Knoll Books is the Antiquarian book selling part of the business. Oak Knoll Press is the publishing part of the business. How did you decide what particular types of books to specialize in, and what are all your specialties? Oak Knoll Books and Oak Knoll Press are specialists in books about books. We sell, publish and distribute books in the fields of: Bibliography, Book Collecting, Book Arts, Books about Children’s Books, Book History, Bookplates, Book Trade, Forgery, Censorship, Libraries, Publishing, Bookbinding, Book Design, Illustration and Graphic Arts, Marbling, Color Printing, Printing and Printing History, Papermaking and Paper Specimens, Topography and Typeface Specimens, Private Press Books and Fine Printing. Can you give us some information on establishing and running a publishing house, i.e., is there a huge initial expenditure on equipment? The expense is not in equipment; it is in capital required for production. No equipment needs to be purchased other than basic computers. All printing and binding is out sourced. How hard is it for a publisher in the start-up period to attract the right personnel? This is one of your most important assets. How do you decide how many copies of any particular book to print initially? Estimate sales for the first 18 months (based on intuition and 30 years of experience). Do you keep publicly available records on how many copies of a 1st printing were done (this question coming from a bookseller who knows how difficult it is to get that information from many publishers)? Yes. How do you attract authors of books of the type you’d like to publish? We advertise in our catalogs, web site, trade shows and conventions. In a related vein, how much of publishing is automated now? Very little. Some functions in the printing and binding are automated. Usually there is an inquiry about a manuscript. If this inquiry is within our publishing focus, we will ask for an outline (as stated on our web site). If accepted, the manuscript is first submitted in hard copy form (printed form). Corrections are done on the hard copy and sent back to the author for corrections, if needed. MS is sent to the typographer. And a dust jacket is designed on the computer. Then everything is sent to the printer. I’m assuming unless you’re issuing a special limited edition of great quality on special paper in a small initial run that actual printing presses are not used anymore? Printing presses are always used for our books. Our books are library quality and produced to last for centuries of archival use. Hard covers are Smyth sewn. Are computers somehow hooked to actual printing presses, or are books printed now on high capability computer printers? Yes, we use C to P technology. Are special, very high quality books still handled by hand during the printing and binding processes? None of our books are done by hand. What can you tell us about your plans and/or dreams for the future for Oak Knoll Press? We expect to become the leading publisher of books about books. We now co-publish our books with The Library of Congress, The British Library and 30 other prominent scholarly publishers around the world. Where would you like to be, business-wise, in five years? Still in business printing books. In ten years? The same. Tell us about Book Fest IX that is planned for this coming October, please. One of the largest fine press fairs in North America will be holding its ninth international celebration of the Book Arts at Oak Knoll Fest IX on Saturday, October 5 and Sunday, October 6, 2002. The fest offers an unique adventure for fine book lovers, collectors, and those wanting to learn more about the book arts to intermingle with fine press book traditionalists from Russia, France, Germany, England, Wales, Canada and the United States. Set in the historic, colonial town of Old New Castle, Delaware (on the Delaware River), this two-day event connects fine presses and their books with collectors, librarians, and booksellers. Oak Knoll Fest Fine Press Exhibition will have 40 private press printing masters coming from Russia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada and United States displaying and selling their fine press books. Miniature book private presses will also be displaying books. Nicolas and Frances McDowall (husband and wife) of The Old Stile Press will be sharing their 23 years of fine press experience on Saturday, October 5, 2002 at 10:00 AM at St. Immanuel Hall in New Castle, DE. Nicolas (book designer, sometimes author, and printer of the company) will be speaking on the subjects of “Why do we publish the kind of books we do” and “Where do we get our ideas.” Frances (papermaker, promoter and ‘everything else’) will offer thoughts on “Papermaking for printer and printmaker” and “The need to respond promptly to librarians and collectors as well as pack parcels, keep account records and travel the world to book fairs!” The Old Stile Press designs, prints by hand, and publishes books in editions limited to between 100 and 250 copies. These books involve texts of importance, whether new or reprinted, together with suites of wood engravings, woodcuts, linocuts and other relief blocks made by the artist-printmakers in collaboration with The Old Stile Press. Nicolas and Frances both have said, “High technical standards are paramount, whether we use older printing methods or take advantage of new technologies and materials to achieve the results we desire. The operation has always been (and will remain) ‘hands-on’ for the two of us and entirely bounded by our capabilities, enthusiasms and energies at any given moment.” To find out more about The Old Stile Press, go to http://www.oldstilepress.com. Priscilla Juvelis of Priscilla Juvelis, Inc. (seller of rare and fine books including first editions, women’s authors, and 20th Century Book Arts) will be speaking to us on Sunday, October 6, 2002 at 10:00 AM at St. Immanuel Hall in New Castle, DE. Priscilla will be speaking on the “Contemporary Book Arts and their Historical Antecedents” – which will cover the development of the book arts from the beginning through to the present, using examples from various book arts including designer binding, calligraphy, artist books and private press books. Priscilla Juvelis, Inc., a private dealer established in 1980, specializes in the sale of rare books and autographs to institutions and private collectors. Formerly associated with the late John F. Fleming of New York, Priscilla Juvelis is an active member of the international rare book community. A member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America and International League of Antiquarian Booksellers since 1983, she served the ABAA as President (1998-2000), after serving as Vice President and Secretary and as a member of the Board of Governors from 1988-2002. She has served as President of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers. She is a lifetime member of the Manuscript Society and served as a Trustee of that organization for three years. She is a member of the Grolier Club and the International Association of Bibliophiles. To find out more about Priscilla Juvelis, Inc., go to http://www.juvelisbooks.com. Oak Knoll Books will also hold its once-a-year, two-day 20% OFF SALE on all antiquarian and new titles during the fair, including Oak Knoll Press titles. Oak Knoll Books is one of the foremost specialists in antiquarian and new books about books, the history of the book, and the book arts. Oak Knoll Press annually publishes 40 titles in these fields. If you love fine, collectible books produced by masters of printing and the book arts, do not miss this rare chance to meet the fine press printers in person and see their books. Plan to visit this year’s fair to show your support for those carrying on the revered traditions of fine bookmaking and browse the thousands of titles offered for sale. Join other book lovers, collectors, and renowned private presses in learning about and preserving interest in the arts of fine printing and book collecting. For more details, directions, and travel information, contact: Oak Knoll Books, 310 Delaware Street, New Castle DE 19720 USA. Phone (302) 328-7232 / Fax (302) 328-7274 / Email oakknoll@oakknoll.com Has the internet had an effect on your business and, if so, in what manner? Yes. It is a growing resource for sales and marketing. How about some information about all of you involved with Oak Knoll Press? Robert D. Fleck, publisher, 55, graduate of University of Virginia. He received his masters at the University of Delaware. He is past President of ABAA and incoming President of ILAB. He is married with four children and lives in New Castle, DE. John Lewis von Hoelle, Director of Publishing, 62, masters at the University of Cambridge, UK. Member of the American Publishers Association and AFIO. He is married with five children and lives in Wilmington, DE. Michael Guessford, Marketing Director, 46, graduate of Wilmington College (DE). Twenty-five years experience in marketing and publicity. He is married with one child and lives in Newark, DE. Any advice for any of our readers who might be interested in getting into the publishing business? Have a lot of cash! Thank you so much for allowing us to interview you! #booksellers #brickandmortar #publishers

Current Publisher: Burping Frog Publishing, Detroit, Michigan Published Works: “Change of Heart”, ISBN: 0-9703053-0-3, Published: June, 2001, Trade paperback, 314 pages, $14.00. Genre: Spy Thriller/Mystery.Available From: Burping Frog Publishing (734-525-1643), Greenleaf Book Group (1-800-932-5420), Ingram Book Company (1-800-937-8000), and Baker & Taylor (1-800-775-1100) “An Innocent Among Them”, ISBN: 0-9703053-1-1, to be released Spring, 2003.Genre: Spy Thriller/Mystery How did you get started writing professionally? About what subject? What interested you about that subject? Did/does the subject tie into something in your personal or professional (pre-writing) life? And, have you always written, as while you were growing up and long before trying to get published that first time? I’ve been writing since I was a kid, emulating the comic books I read, mainly Spiderman, and creating superheroes of my own. As I got older I outgrew comic books and discovered spy novels, especially Ken Follett’s books, such as “Triple”, “Eye of the Needle”, “Key To Rebecca”, and “Lie Down With Lions”. His writing had a huge influence on my own writing. Just as I did with the comic books, I emulated his style until I developed a style of my own. The characters I created are a little more complex, but Josh McGowan, the hero of my first book, has a lot of qualities of those superheroes I admired as a kid. What type of worker are you when you write, i.e., do you write at certain times, or for a certain amount of hours daily, in long stretches straight through, as the spirit moves you, or??? Putting the words on paper is not as easy as it was a couple of years ago. I used to try to write at least a page a day, maybe 500-1000 words, and I was able to crank out the first books. Now I have been so busy promoting my first book, and editing the second book that it’s difficult to find time to add pages to the next book. Writing a book used to take about a year. Now it takes two years or more. It can be frustrating, but I try to be diligent and just put words on paper, even if I can only manage a paragraph or two. I start at page one, chapter one and keep going without looking back until I have a book. No one sees it until it’s finished. If I stop to revise what I’ve already written then the flow will stop and it will never get finished. Did you ever take any school or adult education courses in writing? If so, what, and did they help you? If you are a technical writer, have you taken courses in that area? Writing courses were a part of my curriculum throughout high school and college. I even took a couple of screenwriting courses at Wayne State University in Detroit when I wanted to go into filmmaking. Writing a screenplay was a challenge, but the end result was rather unsatisfying. There are far too many things that can’t be put in a screenplay, whereas writing a book gives the author time and space to explore the characters and settings. I had a teacher in high school who was a tremendous influence on me as a writer. He pushed his students and encouraged us to let out the stories that were held within us. I owe him a great deal. Do you conceive of an entire story or subject line to be covered in your head before starting to write, or do you get just an idea and sit down, outline it and flesh it out, or??? A story might come from a vague idea, or even be adapted from an event I read about in the news. I write the idea down, whether it’s a few pages of notes or just a few lines, and store it with all the other story concepts. As I come up with more ideas, like maybe a scene or a line of dialogue, I add it to my notes. All of the characters and all of the scenes for my next fifteen or so books live in my head at the same time. Every now and then a new idea for one of those stories comes up. For example, a solution for a scene I¹ve had trouble figuring out might bubble to the surface and I have to write it down before I forget it, even if it wakes me up at three in the morning. Most of the time it’s just legwork, brainstorming to figure out how a scene is going to work or what the characters are going to do. Tell us how you first got published, and whether it was difficult that first time. Did you have an agent for that first published piece? Was it a book, an article, a paper, or what? My first published piece was a short story for a magazine. A friend of mine gave me a copy of the magazine just to read and I thought it might be suitable for one or two short stories I had lying around. I changed it around a little bit to make it first person and sent it in, and they bought it. I was surprised, and very pleased to be paid. I have sent stories to other publications, but only collected a folder full of rejections. Since I’ve been promoting my book and trying to get the next book ready for release, I’ve had to put off writing short stories. How do you feel about editors?? Does it disturb you or comfort you to have someone checking your work pre-publication? Editors can be very helpful. However, opinions are negotiable. There are no hard and fast rules in writing, although there are many techniques that can make a written piece more enjoyable and easier to read. A lot of these techniques can be learned by practice, by experience, through instruction, and by observing how others write. Of course, a good editor can help make an author’s work better and more professional, but just because someone sets themselves up in business and calls themselves an editor, what really makes them more qualified to suggest changes to a person’s work than anyone else? I guess it bothers me to have someone looking over my shoulder when they might not completely understand where the writing comes from or where I’m trying to make it go. How are you (or your publisher or agent) publicizing your current work? It has been a tremendous challenge to publicize my book with a very limited budget. A lot of what we’ve been doing has been a lot of fun, and a lot of work. We have some very sharp fliers that we mail to bookstores and reviewers and others in the book business. As a small, first time author with a small publisher in the Detroit area, sometimes the only way we can spread the word about my book is one person at a time. We’ve received over twenty great reviews, and I’m still waiting for that really bad one. The response from readers and reviewers has been overwhelming. They all tell me they can’t wait for the next book to come out. Have you ever been on a tour with one of your books? If so, what is that like? Did you find that it helped increase sales of your book? Most of the touring to promote my first book has consisted of trips to book stores around Detroit and in northern Michigan throughout the year. We’ve also made trips to Georgia and Sarnia in Canada, with a couple of tradeshows coming up this fall. I looked at the way a rock band promotes itself. They make their living by playing in nightclubs and bars, where they can show off what they do and hopefully sell a few CDs. I try to take the same approach with bookstores. The more appearances I can make, the more exposure I gain. Sometimes it comes down to selling one book at a time, making one fan at a time. The bookstore owners I have met have gone out of their way to support me, and I am happy to make a long drive in order to support them. What is really special is when you find a bookstore owner who loves your book; then you have made a good friend. Can you tell us a bit about a book that you might be working on now or plan to start soon? If you do have another in the works, are you writing a series, on the same subject as your last work, or on something totally different? I’m getting ready to release “An Innocent Among Them”, which is a follow up to my first book, “Change of Heart”. Both are about Josh McGowan, a Navy Intelligence operative. The first three books of the series are finished and I’m in the middle of writing the fourth. So many people have told me they can’t wait to read my next book that I’m very anxious to put it out and see what happens. Could you please give us a synopsis of your current book and, if a series, what the whole series is about? The books I’m working on are parts of a series about Josh McGowan. He’s with Navy Intelligence and chases bad guys to different parts of the world. Josh has a strong sense of honor and wants to make things right, sometimes against his orders. In a recent review, Bob Spear of the Heartland Reviews (www.heartlandreviews.com) put it this way: ‘ … a protagonist who is constantly trying to examine what makes himself tick, while committing the actions that will accomplish the mission, usually in a loud and messy manner.’ Tell us a bit about how you go about doing research for your work? A lot of my research work is done the old fashioned way, from reference books. For a guy who doesn’t have the budget to travel to Moscow or Tokyo or Tel Aviv, I have to rely on information from atlases and guidebooks to tell me what I need to know to bring a setting to life. My information about the changes in Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union came from an article in National Geographic magazine. A lot of my ideas for stories come from magazines like Newsweek or Time. And programs on cable television provide a wealth of information for anyone who can use it. Any advice to aspiring writers on finding an agent or contacting publishers? I think the important thing to remember is not to take rejection personally. A lot of times a rejection may not have anything to do with the quality of the writing. It may be nothing more than the agent already has too many submissions, or it is not the kind of material they are suited to represent. There are a lot of agents in the world, and the hardest part is finding that one person who will fall in love with your book and work to get it published. As for contacting publishers, most won’t consider a manuscript that is not represented by an agent, so that’s just one more step that someone’s book has to go through. There are, though, some small publishers who will accept submissions without an agent. These agents and publishers can be found in several publications in book stores, libraries and online. Once someone gets started in this process, they might quickly discover that writing the book was the easy part. Are you a reader? If so, what types of things do you enjoy reading? Do you ever buy your own reading material online (had to ask that one!)? Spy novels are still my favorite books to read, and I recently finished one of Ken Follett’s new books, “Code To Zero”. I still love to read science fiction once in a while, especially anything by Larry Niven, and I’ve read a lot of Ed McBain’s hard-boiled detective books. For a long time I’ve wanted to build my dream car, something like a Mustang with a strong motor that can also handle like a race car, so I’ve been reading books on building high performance engines. As for buying my own books or any other books online, I haven’t done that yet. I believing in supporting the small business owner rather than the big chains, and there are a lot of online bookstore owners, like Laura Eszes of TwinWorlds.com, who has been very helpful to me. What other types of things do you enjoy doing, besides writing? Any hobbies? Pets? Sports? Traveling? Gardening? Music or art, etc.? I recently got married and I enjoy spending time with my wife, like sitting on the porch, listening to the rain. I also love fast cars and would like to spend more time working on projects, like my sports car, or a hot rod. That would also take more money. Please tell us anything else about yourself you’d like us to know, either personal or professional, and thank you very much for allowing us to interview you! Thank you for granting me the interview. I guess one thing I’d like to pass along is that I am a student of the martial arts, in particular Kung Fu San Soo. It’s not as widely known as some of the other martial arts, but those out there who practice it are very loyal to its roots with Jimmy H. Woo. #authors

Current Publisher/Agent: Gary Kurz Published Works: Cold Noses at the Pearly Gates ISBN 09666117-0-5, Paperback, 116 pages, non-fiction Cold Noses II, Examining More Evidence ISBN 09666117-1-3, Paperback, 205 pages, non-fiction Naval Proceedings, Official Magazine of the U. S. Naval Institute, Article entitled “The Future of the Coast Guard”, 3 pages How did you get started writing professionally? I have always had a penchant for writing smooth, easy to understand documents. During my 32 year military career, I was called upon the develop macro letters for use Coast Guard-wide and to rewrite Law, Maritime Law, Pay and Personnel Manuals, some over 1,000 pages in length. Those manuals remain in use at this writing. I enjoyed writing for cause (i.e. originating appeals for military members who disagreed with their evaluations or findings of boards of inquiry, recommending changes to policy or procedure, and, as in the case with Proceedings Magazine, forecasting the needs of the service, etc. I suppose the real catalyst for writing seriously came with the loss of several of my pets during a 10-month period in 1995-96. I was devastated and wondered whether they lived on or if I would ever see them again. Circumstances caused me to look for the answers myself, and the only place I trusted to look for answers was the Bible. With over 14,000 hours of both professional and personal Bible study at that time, I set out to systematically search the Bible for answers. Simultaneous with that research, I searched many, many library databases and the Library of Congress for any books on this topic. To my surprise, there were none. There were an abundance of books on psychiatry, etc., but nothing of the genre I wanted. What type of worker are you when you write? My writing habits vary, depending upon the task. If I am writing an article for a pet loss website (which I do infrequently), I will set aside time to work on it each day until it is completed. If I am writing articles and other features for my own newsletter, I usually can complete that in about an hour, so I do not set aside time. I allow myself a week on my desk calendar to complete this task and, upon reading the reminder, I find the first available time to complete that task. When I write from passion, such as was the case with my previous books and the new one I will be starting soon, I just write until I empty myself of the flood of thoughts and ideas that are within. During the writing of my first book I sometimes stayed up throughout the night. I tried to sleep, but just could not. It is as if you simply must get your thoughts out in order to have relief. Did you ever take any school or adult education courses in writing? I have taken English literature courses, and other administrative courses, not with the thought of helping my writing, but rather because they interested me. I have taken unofficial and official courses in writing, as it applies to the military and federal environment, but believe very little was gained from those courses. I have developed curriculum and taught classes on administrative procedures that included writing techniques. Do you conceive of an entire story or subject line to be covered in your head before starting to write, or do you get just an idea and sit down, outline it and flesh it out? I believe a little of both is true of my writing approach, with perhaps a leaning toward the former, conceiving the entire story in my head before I write it down. Often, when I write articles or stories, I am asked to write on a specific topic or happen upon one on my own. Immediately, the ideas flood to my mind and before I can even being recording them, my mind is racing ahead and the article is complete. Infrequently, I find myself jotting down what I call “prompter notes” often just one or two words to remind me of an idea when I eventually get around to developing an outline. However, this is the exception more than the norm. I do a lot of public teaching and speaking, often in churches in front of large audiences, and I have developed the ability to formulate an acceptable outline quickly in my mind. If you have a deadline for submitting work to a publisher, how did/does that affect you? I have never had a problem with “writer’s block” or anything like that. Some people are able to ramble on and on orally. I do so with my writing. Saying something interesting and hopefully revolutionary is the real test. If I am asked to write within my areas of expertiseobviously pet loss, but also many other areasi.e., karate, real estate, reptiles, remodeling, the military, etc., I have no problems in writing on schedule. In fact, I often finish long before deadline. I enjoy writing. Tell us how you first got published, and whether it was difficult that first time. I think this is another topic I should have included in the answer immediately preceding as I have learned so much about publishing and enjoy rehearsing what I have learned. I will try to be brief. After writing my book, I came face to face with the cold, hard fact that in this industry you almost need to be someone of importance or of scandal to be published. Even a revolutionary topic does not open doors. I, like so many tens of thousands, was very discouraged at the prospects of being published. First, it was doubtful anyone would want to take my manuscript on. Second, if they did, it would probably cost me a lot of money, and I would relinquish control of my book to a publisher, who may or may not give it the attention I thought it deserved. And finally, and worst of all, if that publisher did not want to promote the book, it would sit and there was nothing I could do about it. I then found that vanity presses and their new generation “lightning press” cousins were willing to publish for moderate, up-front fees. This was more desirable because the costs were far less than conventional publishing and, more importantly, you retained full control of your book. Additionally, most of these publishers offer an E-book feature, which seems to be gaining popularity on the internet. The downside to this avenue was that success stories seemed to be few and far between. I decided that I was going to learn the publishing business myself. I went to the local library, bought some self-publishing books off the internet, and began my journey. I must say, while it seemed difficult at first in looking back, it was a lot of fun and not as complicated as I had suspected. I successfully obtained my own copyright, an ISBN number, established myself as a publisher and began my quest to find a printer who could deliver to me the product I wanted, economically. I found printers a couple of states away, and clear across the country, but finally settled on one just a mile from my home. I have learned so much about printing, promotion and advertising that I am spending perhaps 30% of what I spent the first year for these services. While self-publishing is probably not the best way to go, it is a very viable alternative to someone who has something to say that others want to hear. While it is true that my modest success is due in large part to my having a targeted audience, not all the credit can go to this one fact. Many of my sales now originate from word of mouth, from readers who found the comfort and hope promised. Not only have they written me over 1200 letters (and e-mails) of appreciation, but also they tell their friends and co-workers about my book. How do you feel about editors? I have mixed feelings about editors. I think a good editor is an absolute must. I think unmotivated, unskilled editors are to be avoided. Both of my books were edited by the latter and I regret that. I believe I could have done a better job. That notwithstanding, a good editor is worth his/her weight in gold and I will be enlisting the services of one in the very near future. How are you publicizing your current work? As a self-publisher, this is one of the many functions I must perform myself. Listed below are some of the things I have done, or am currently doing. All have been successful, with the exception of the entries that are asterisked. Listed in Bowker’s “Books in Print” Advertise in several national magazines (Best Friends, Cat Fancy, Dog and Kennel, Dog World, etc.) Advertise on Amazon.com (leads the category) Advertise on Barnes and Noble Online and Borders Online Hired a Publicist (who did absolutely nothing but cashed my checks)* Listed on BookLocker.com as an E-book Developed my own website that receives 500 hits per month Submit URL to search engines twice weekly Linked to over 100 pet-related websites Book is listed or mentioned positively on over 150 pet-related websites Ran a Banner Ad campaign online* Produce a monthly newsletter on pet loss that goes to thousands of readers Serve as “Guest Author” on pet-loss websites Radio interviews (1) Newspaper articles (2) Scheduled to go on local television program in my city soon Hired online author helps (that is how I heard from you) Have you ever been on a tour with one of your books? No, I am sorry to say. Can you tell us a bit about a book that you might be working on now or plan to start soon? Yes. As a matter of fact, I am planning on writing another book, but not of the same series as my first two. Since I provide an e-mail address in my books for free, follow-up counseling and help, many of my readers stay in touch with me. Many of them encouraged me to write my second book. In fact, they chose the topic and I accommodated them. It did very well with them, and I recovered production and printing costs in less than 30 days. Readers have insisted that my writing style is unique. Most say it brings truths they have seen in the Bible to life so that they can understand them. More say that it is as if I am in the room speaking to them (I so appreciate their generous compliments). I have more than enough for a very large book right now, but finding time to indulge myself is the problem. I am eager to start, but I want to be able to dedicate myself to the task. I know that once I get started, it will absorb me and any time I have, so I must ensure I can afford the time. Could you please give us a synopsis of your current book/work? Rather than the book I mentioned in the previous response, let me address my two-book series, Cold Noses I and Cold Noses II. In the first book, I take a non-offensive, non-preachy, uplifting Biblical approach to looking at animals: why they were made; what their purpose was; what life really is; the evidence that animals once talked and will probably do so again; their importance to their creator; and, animal afterlife. It is a solid work meant to bring comfort to the grieving who have lost a precious best friend and to give hope. It is a revolutionary book that provides answers to the questions all pet lovers ask. One woman called it a “masterpiece”. It is definitely not a masterpiece. It is simply what people need when they are hurting. I gave it the title “Cold Noses at the Pearly Gates” to capture the essence of what the book was about and the hopes of those seeking answers. In Cold Noses II, I responded to the questions of many, many readers concerning “ghost pets”. Apparently, all of the psychic phenomenon on television is starting to bleed over into even the pet industry. Cold Noses II is not as gentle a book as my first. It takes a very strong stand on Biblical teachings concerning this topic. In addition, I discuss many revolutionary ideas and concepts that have generated a lot of “thank you” letters. Finally, I discuss the apparent relationship between animals and angels not that I do not claim they are the same but that they do serve similar functions. Tell us how you go about doing research for your work? I have probably answered this question in part in other questions, but for convenience sake, let me address it in total here. My first step in research was to explore the internet, internet libraries, the local library and query the Library of Congress to see what works already existed on this subject of animal afterlife. Aside from some brief articles and some very old short writings, there was nothing available. I then turned my attention to some very reliable Bible commentaries, some modern and some quite old. There was no consolidated work done on this topic, only some fleeting writings, almost afterthoughts by people educated in religion. I then explored the Bible. I took my personal knowledge of the Bible, my training, experience and expertise and focused on finding every verse that spoke about animals, both Old Testament and New. Despite my extensive knowledge of scripture, I was surprised to find that the word “animal” never appears in the Bible. My first task then, was to discover all the ways animals were mentioned. This included “creatures”, “beasts”, “all that have breath”, “every creeping thing”, etc. Upon developing a list of scripture verses, I then applied the rules of exegesis to each. I asked: who is speaking to who is he/she speaking what was the reason for saying what they said what words were used and what are their meanings what other circumstances existed that might reflect on the situation being discussed what was said prior to these passages that might have led into what was said I think you get the idea there are unlimited questions you can ask to try to get a clear picture of what was said. My second surprise was the simplicity of what was being said. There was no room for confusion. The teachings were quite clear. Nevertheless, I compared what I had developed with some of the greatest Bible scholars’ writings. I found that often they did not address the topic of animals, but when they did, we matched every time. Final validation came in the form of a letter from Dr. Jack Van Impe, TV Evangelist, who endorses all that I wrote. Any stories about the hazards of trying to make your way as a writer, particularly when starting out? I cannot add much to the dissertation I gave you about publishing above, but let me say something about self-publishing. With conventional publishing, your chance of ever seeing your work being read and appreciated, of doing any good or providing any service, is very, very low. That is not to say conventional publishing is not good. Quite the contrary. If you can interest a publisher in your work and they seem excited, that is wonderful and probably the best way to go. However, if you are like most writers, that is a “pie in the sky” dream. As a self-publisher, the chances of being read and having an impact increase tremendously. You can choose the course you follow and stand at the helm of your own ship as it sails (or sinks). Going this route means that you are going to have to do all the work yourself: the editing, seeking copyright, doing the printing, promoting, advertising, stocking, shipping and handling, etc. But you also get the benefits: 100% of the profits, the decision-making hat, etc. The hazards to self-publishing are many. I made more mistakes than probably were necessary. One of my earliest (and worst) decisions was to allow a bulk mailer (now called spammer) to advertise my book. He promised me it was legal and that I was not hurting anyone. I paid him $600 and watched my e-mail for all the sales. In they came 1, 2, 3 and that was it. Well, almost. Then came 5, 10, 15, 20 COMPLAINTS!!!! Who did I think I was, spamming and bothering people? Yikes! I was embarrassed. But it wasn’t over yet. I was contacted by a rather irate gentleman who said my spammer had bounced my ad off of his server and crashed his entire network. He told me if it happened again, he was getting a lawyer. I told him he would not need to I was out of that business, but fast. He was so angry, and he had every right to be I had not done my homework I had trusted someone else. YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE A SUCCESS. Any advice to aspiring writers on finding an agent or contacting publishers? No. I could not give advice on something I was a failure at. Are you a reader? I am a reader. I read a lot but I have so much to read that I have developed the bad habit of “skim” reading. I get 50 e-mails a day most from grieving pet owners I read all their mail and respond to it and no one knows how to be short-winded. I think all my readers are aspiring writers! They also send me internet items and books in the mail to read. I stay quite busy reading. However, I have no specific interests in literature. What other types of things do you enjoy doing, besides writing? I enjoy sports. I am 52 now, so I do not move as quickly as I used to, but I still play basketball and I love sparring (I won the all Hawaii Karate Championship in 1974 I am from Hawaii). I enjoy hiking, reptiles, surfing, building things. And I love the heat give me summer every day.80 degrees on Christmas Day is heaven. Anything else you would like us to know? I am very thorough. I think I have probably talked your ear off enough already. Thank you for your interest. I hope I provided what you wanted. #authors

I started bookselling in 1991. I was pretty disillusioned with the world – I had taken a couple of degrees as a very mature student in my thirties – totally non-vocational. I always aspired after the infinite possibilities presented by life rather than being moulded by my job. So instead of being an accountant, teacher or researcher after my studies, I was still in the world of infinite possibility. After a few jobs as a community worker, I came to the conclusion that I was constitutionally incapable of working for anyone and I was unemployable on a higher plane! As to why I went into books – well, when I was a student I spent many hours in bookshops in London, always looking for stuff that wasn’t on the reading list! It occurred to me at the time that bookselling in universities would be a good occupation – taking the books to the students, visiting them on a monthly basis. I did not pursue this course, despite the fact that no one else was doing it at the time as I needed to get on with changing the world. Some time later I again thought I might go into the book business but after a casual discussion with a librarian friend, I discounted the notion when he told me that “no one wants second-hand books”. Finally, in 1991, the time was right. I made a few inquiries about how the trade works and discovered that I could get going with my own collection (I had about 1000 books, mostly philosophy) by quoting to the dealers who advertised in our U.K.-based subscription-only trade weekly, the Bookdealer. And being a bookseller exactly fitted my work-requirement profile, thrown out of a day-long assessment I had taken a few years previously – that I “wanted to work with my head and my hands, and wanted to work indoors and work outdoors.” I also had an eight-year-old son who was spending most of his time with me, and it was wonderful to be there for him – to take him to and from school, etc. He is now 18 and not so wonderful!! However, he is the best-read lad in his class – today I gave him an anthology of war poetry that is on his reading list for next term. While the financial capital may be a bit scarce, the cultural capital is around in abundance. Somewhere along the way, when I had about 3500 books, I lost my database and had no backup – and you know how long it takes to catalogue that many books – about six months!! When the internet arrived, I hit the ground running in that all my stock was catalogued. I signed onto ABE first and used to speak direct to Rick when I had a problem uploading. However, I was reluctant to sign on with Interloc because there was a $100 joining fee. Eventually, after a bit of cajoling by one of my customers, I did sign on and I could not believe my luck. I probably had about 6000 books at that time and my first order from Amazon’s out-of-print department was for 98 books – yes, ninety-eight. I pictured a Rolls Royce outside a country mansion. And another dealer from Texas ordered 18 books in one go. I was in business. I stayed with the Bookdealer until about four years ago, doing my weekly quotes, but it was very time consuming and I did not like the idea of having my stock tied up for two-week reserves, as was the norm in quoting. So, it then became internet-only. I have not ventured into any other mode of bookselling – the thoughts of having a shop fill me with dread that I might turn into someone like Mrs. Thatcher’s father, who was a shopkeeper in Grantham, with a mentality to match! Catalogues I have never got around to doing and I have done a couple of bookfairs – where I spent more than I took. Three years ago, I moved into a store-room which is 10 minutes from my home – within a year, I had to get an annex as I had run out of space. I now have around 14000 books – mostly philosophy and social science, but about one-third are general titles. For the past two years I have had a woman working part-time for me. She loves the work and, as she has a lot of children, the flexibility which goes with the job. And she covers for me when I go away, which is wonderful. Four years ago, 95% of my sales were to the U.S.A. These days it is probably about 5%. This I put down to the rise of internet use in Europe and the swamping of the net by American dealers and non-dealers. When Interloc became Alibris, I reluctantly signed on, soon left it, but later signed up again. Those of you around a while will remember my public spat with Alibris. For an independent idiosyncratic bookdealer, Alibris is most definitely not the way to go and, as far as I am concerned the sooner they go, the better. Two years ago, most of my sales were on ABE – they are now abysmal there, and had Amazon not started up their Marketplace operation in the U.K. in March of this year, I would be doing bookfairs and catalogues. I was part of the group that set up our U.K.-based cooperative. Our growth is slow but moving in the right direction. No one has left it, and those on board are firmly committed. As to why loads of dealers have not joined, considering the ordure that has been piled on them by Alibris and ABE, I cannot understand – as a friend says, they are like rabbits caught in the glare of the oncoming headlights, petrified to make any move. We also have our own notice board/list, which is extremely useful. One of the things about being an online bookdealer is that we are all disparate (and sometimes desperate) individuals, so the online list of common interest is a wonderful medium. I was on the Insider list almost from the start and found it and its subscribers most useful and helpful. However, of late it has become a kind of private chitchat arena and I very reluctantly signed off it about a month ago. I have always found bookdealers a most honourable group of people – i.e., they generally pay COR (cash on receipt) and do not need reminding. Only once have I had cause to “have words” with a fellow book dealer. He was going to sue me for slander because of these words, unless I apologised – no apology and I still await the writ!! And I think our customers are wonderful – only about once a year do I get an “awkward” one. In fact I have one right now who is threatening to take me to court because the book he ordered from me through Amazon had been sold. I did refund his money immediately, so I don’t really know what he is on about. I think he is probably annoyed over the fact that my answer to his request that I “do not have the wit to buy the book from somewhere else and send it to him” was that “too right, I do not have the wit to waste my time on a 5 pound book.” As many of you will know, I come from the Irish school of diplomacy, where the module on tact has not yet made it to the curriculum. Right now I feel I have all my systems fully optimised. I have ADSL at home and work, so no more meditation while waiting for some site or other to load, I have standby online access if the ADSL goes down, I have the means to back up my hard disks, I have the means of downloading music from the web and can enthral myself with Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis and Shane McGowan when packing books, my Filemaker Pro database is working wonderfully thanks to the support I got in setting it up from one of the contributors to the Insider list, I know how to trouble-shoot my networked computer (I have 2 computers in work), I have created enough physical space for 2 of us to work comfortably, etc etc. If someone asked me to write a book about becoming a bookdealer, I could not even comtemplate it as the “secret” could be written in a single line – in the immortal words of Jerry Rubin, “Do it!” There is, in my opinion, no master plan; just do what needs to be done and the questions, when they arise, will demand the answers and solutions. Marketing and business plans, economic projections, etc., are the creation of accountants, providing a network of intrigue which entices the easily led in and entraps them therein, enriching the creators of the networks in the process. Perhaps post-Enron and WorldCom, the world will acquire a healthy degree of scepticism and see these schemes for what they are, and refuse to partake. Finally, my favourite novels are The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist – probably one not too familiar to most of America. It is the greatest working-class novel ever. It was written by Robert Tressel (real name Robert Noonan), a Dublin-born painter/decorator, who wrote of his experiences in the building trade on the South Coast of England at the turn of 19/20th century. It echoed many of the practices still inherent in the construction industry 70 years later, when I worked in it and was a trade union convenor. And finally – for my first five years in “the business” (Jesus, I sound like a luvvie!) I did all my travelling to buy books on my bicycle; I could carry about 70 books – panniers, backpack and bags on either handlebar. I used to enjoy my buying outings tremendously. But I acquired a car along the way, which exponentially extended my range of travel and the number of books I could buy and carry. Well, I was travelling to Ireland by car a few weeks ago and I had a bad smash, with my son and two of his pals on board. Thankfully, no one was injured, but my car is nearly a write-off and is in a garage 250 miles from London, waiting to be brought back. I am now back on my bicycle again, and it is a joy. I can park right outside bookshops, the post office, the bank, etc. Perhaps if the weather was not quite so good, the fun might dwindle but, as for now, it is just wonderful. Sean O’Donoghue O’Donoghue Books London

Current Agent: Cherry Weiner, Cherry Weiner Literary Agency Partial List of Published Works: “The Charm”, Integra Press, Phoenix, AZ, 1993, Hardcover “The Serpent Slayers”, Integra Press, Phoenix, 1994, Hardcover “The Hound Hunters”, Integra Press, Phoenix, AZ 1994 *appeared only as an uncorrected proof/advance reading copy “The Sand Dwellers”, Fedogan & Bremer, Minneapolis, 1998, Hardcover “The Repository”, Meisha Merlin Publishing, Decatur, GA, 1999, Trade Paperback “The War of the Whisperers” – not yet released Adam, how did you get started writing professionally? My first published work was a poem in the Stars and Stripes in the early 1970s. My first novel was published in 1993. About what subject? The poem was patriotic drivel. The novel is a modern-day dark fantasy with Native American medicine people struggling against an ancient wind-demon. But the message of the novel is cross-cultural cooperation. What interested you about that subject? I wanted to try to find a mid-point between Tony Hillerman and Stephen King. They were both best sellers at the time. I found that point. Unfortunately, it did not result in best-selling. Did/does the subject tie into something in your personal or professional (pre-writing) life? I live in Arizona, near the reservations. Native American cultures fascinate me. And, have you always written, as while you were growing up and long before trying to get published that first time? I wrote a lot of poetry as a youth. Some of it is not too embarrassing. I started writing seriously in 1977. I sold my first novel before I sold my first short story. What type of worker are you when you write, i.e., do you write at certain times, or for a certain amount of hours daily, in long stretches straight through, as the spirit moves you, or??? I write every day. I generally arise, make coffee, turn on the computer, check email, do business, and then start writing. I usually start writing at about 10am and finish around 2am. I take breaks, of course, and am not always as productive as I would like. Did you ever take any school or adult education courses in writing? If so, what, and did they help you? If you are a technical writer, have you taken courses in that area? I had the usual course in high school and college – English, creative writing, etc. Nothing special. I studied the writing of authors I liked and tried to do what they did. I started a writers’ group in the 1980s and learned the most from that experience. Do you conceive of an entire story or subject line to be covered in your head before starting to write, or do you get just an idea and sit down, outline it and flesh it out, or??? I hate outlining. I have a general idea about my story – how it starts, how it will end. The hardest part is the first third of the book because I have to get to know the characters before their actions and words start to flow smoothly onto the page. Once I know the characters, things move almost as fast as I can type. If you have had a deadline for submitting work to a publisher, how did/does that affect you, i.e., have you ever found that having to produce on a schedule causes the creative juices to dry up? I love deadlines. They mean something I’m doing is a sure sale. I have only missed one deadline (by a month) and that was because my life turned upside down. As it was, the deadline wasn’t firm in the first place and I need not have worried. I prefer writing with a deadline as it is a motivator hard to ignore. When I am tempted to take a break, I feel too guilty to do so. For me, this is a good thing. Tell us how you first got published, and whether it was difficult that first time. Did you have an agent for that first published piece? Was it a book, an article, a paper, or what? Nothing really counts before “The Charm”, my first novel. I’ll try to make a long story shorter than it is. I began the story in 1978. I showed the first rough chapter to a girl friend, who had grown up next to an Indian Reservation. She bawled me out because I really knew nothing about Native Americans and was just faking it. As a result, I shelved that first chapter for a few years before returning to it. When I did, her ire (though we were no longer together) was memorable enough that I decided to do all the research I could in order to make the book accurate. I read over 150 books on Native Americans, conducted over 200 interviews, and visited reservations all across the state. When I went back to the writing, I had a solid grasp of the cultures I had selected – and there were 12 different tribes involved, so that was no easy task. When I had finished “The Charm”, I began submitting it. I did have an agent already, but it takes time for a publisher to read and make a decision on a novel – and most do not want to read anything that someone else is reading, so it has to go out one at a time (no simultaneous submissions is the rule). Each publisher can take from three months to a year to decide. “The Charm” went out over a four-year period, but ended up being rejected by everyone. They all seemed to agree it was a good book, but observed that it was too different to market it successfully. My agent finally gave up on it, but I didn’t. Eventually, a friend read the manuscript and was so impressed that he went out and bought a small press. He then contracted with me to publish the book. The book got panned by The Library Journal (who has never liked anything I’ve ever done) but got a rave review from Publishers Weekly. The first printing sold through in three days. The reviews (heh, except for Library Journal) are available on my web page. How do you feel about editors?? Does it disturb you or comfort you to have someone checking your work pre-publication? I love editors. I have never had one do anything but help improve my work. How are you (or your publisher or agent) publicizing your current work? Unfortunately, I’m between publishers at the moment. Small Press publishers are not terribly affluent and I seem to find acceptance with small presses. This means small print runs, no advertising budget, and less exposure. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn’t my fault, but there has been some bad luck. Integra Press had a hit with “The Charm” and followed six months later with “The Serpent Slayers”. Then, just before the scheduled release of “The Hound Hunters”, the distributor stole all the money (for both the first two books) and put Integra essentially out of business (though they did come back and do another book about three years later). That’s why “The Hound Hunters” appeared only as an uncorrected proof. My most recent publisher, DarkTales Publications, just closed their doors. Nothing to do with me, but it has short-circuited my immediate plans. I do hope to announce a new deal shortly. I have a verbal commitment from a new publisher, but the contract isn’t signed yet. Have you ever been on a tour with one of your books? If so, what is that like? Did you find that it helped increase sales of your book? I spent 1993-1995 attending conventions and doing signings. I spent more than I made writing. I think one good Publisher’s Weekly review sells a lot more books than personal appearances. I love doing the appearances, of course, but I don’t think they really do much to sell books in any kind of significant number. Can you tell us a bit about a book (or whatever format you are writing in) that you might be working on now or plan to start soon? If you do have another in the works, are you writing a series, on the same subject as your last work, or on something totally different? I’m currently working on the fifth Shaman Cycle book, titled “The Nemesis of Night”. Assuming the new contracts come through, the first two novels will be re-released in early 2004, then “The Hound Hunters” and “The War of the Whisperers” (books three and four) will come out for the first time in 2005. Then the balance of the series (13 planned novels) should follow each year. Could you please give us a synopsis of your current book/work and, if a series, what the whole series is about? The Shaman Cycle is about a Great Gathering of Native American medicine people who get together, despite tribal rivalries, to battle ancient evils released in the modern world. The shamans are wise men and women who understand that a combination of ancient tradition plus modern technology is a desirable combination. Twelve Native American tribes are represented in the Great Gathering, with the white man functioning as the legendary thirteenth tribe. That is why the series is planned to comprise 13 novels. “The Charm” tells the story of a demon dust-devil, “The Serpent Slayers” deals with a 500 year old winged serpent, “The Hound Hunters” tells the tale of a drug dealer who has created a designer drug that opens the door to another dimension admitting creatures called the Hounds. “The War of the Whisperers” is the story of invisible creatures who manipulate man by whispering in dreams. “The Nemesis of Night” tells of creatures who can only function at night – who would die in sunlight (like vampires). “The Sand Dwellers” introduces a Private Investigator named Aiden Mardian. I plan to tell more of his tales, as well. “The Repository” features Ambrose Bierce, the famous writer, who now is an investigator for Satan’s Legions making a report to his boss about their failed battle with a fellowship of magicians. Tell us a bit about how you go about doing research for your work? I read, of course. I do interviews. I work very hard for accuracy – especially since I am writing about a culture other than my own. I also maintain an extensive reference library. Any stories about the hazards of trying to make your way as a writer, particularly when starting out? I never used to believe in luck. I was raised to believe that one can achieve any goal, be anything one wants to be, if one works with discipline and dedication. I never minded sacrificing comforts to achieve my goals. But I have come to see that there are factors beyond my control and that luck is a factor. The business of writing is very competitive and the chances of financial success are slim. That is just reality. Mergers and closings of various publishers and publishing lines have cut the market down to a fraction of its former size. IF financial success is the goal, I advise new writers not to bother. Most, however, can’t be discouraged by such talk – which is the way it should be. I write because I can’t not write. Any advice to aspiring writers on finding an agent or contacting publishers? You don’t need an agent until you have something to sell. Just work on your writing. Start something and finish it, then refine it, then submit it. When some legitimate publisher tells you they want to publish your work, you shouldn’t have much trouble finding an agent to negotiate a decent contract. Also, just to save new writers from a misconception I labored under for years, agents do not sell your work. You sell your work. Agents negotiate your contracts. Are you a reader? If so, what types of things do you enjoy reading? Do you ever buy your own reading material online (had to ask that one!)? I am a reader, but I learned long ago that reading is not writing. I try to read one leisure book a month. I read whatever is necessary for research. I do buy research materials online and books. What other types of things do you enjoy doing, besides writing? Any hobbies? Pets? Sports? Traveling? Gardening? Music or art, etc.? I collect books and original art. I play with the Society for Creative Anachronism – which is an international group that re-creates the better parts of the middle ages. This usually involves camping and large battles with rattan swords – but, no, I’m not a fighter. I am known as Friar Adam in the SCA and my camping tent is a large canvas monastery I had custom-made (it is larger than many apartments I’ve lived in). It looks like a stone castle with turrets. I also attend conventions whenever I can. Please tell us anything else about yourself you’d like us to know, either personal or professional, and thank you very much for allowing us to interview you! I am also a bookseller. I opened a brick and mortar bookstore in 1983 and closed it in 1995. I now sell exclusively online. While my profession is writing, I have never made enough money doing that alone. Being an online bookseller provides the extra income that meets my immediate needs and lets me stay home to write. Since I love books, it is the best of both worlds. Adam’s Bookstore specializes in Speculative Fiction (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Dark Fantasy), though I do carry general titles as well. My listings have been on ABEbooks, but I am in the process of leaving there and listing on Choosebooks.com, a new service. Why? I hate marked-up prices. I hope book buyers learn that they should always contact the dealer when ordering books online, no matter where they find the books listed. That’s good for dealers and good for buyers. [Last minute note from Adam Niswander: Just signed contracts with Meisha Merlin Publishing and my Shaman Cycle novels will come out in two-novel omnibus volumes under that imprint in early 2004, early 2005 and the rest (nine more) separately after that.] Check out my listings at http://www.choosebooks.com/search_browse.jsp?dealer_id=1851 or visit Adam’s Bookstore online at: http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BooksBrowse?vendorclientid=549819&page=CLIENT #authors #booksellers

Email/Contact Info: kfermoyle@earthlink.net, Phone: 818 346-9384 Current Publisher and/or Agent: 2 agents currently interested in repping for the Vietnam book: “Hawks, Doves And The Dragon”, no agent yet for incomplete mystery. I have never worked with an agent for my freelance non-fiction (mostly magazine articles, some ghostwritten for others). Sold my 1st two freelance articles (Sports Car Racing on Frozen Michigan Lakes) direct to editors in 1952 and never saw a need to change. Published Work(s): “Mankind in Transition: A View of the Distant Past, the Present & the Far Future”; Author: Masse Bloomfield; Masefield Books, Canoga Park, CA, 1993 – edited and produced while a co-publisher in Masefield Books. Non-fiction “How To Use A Library”; Author: Masse Bloomfield; Masefield Books, Canoga Park, CA, 1992 – edited and produced while a co-publisher in Masefield Books. Non-fiction. Produced and edited three software user manuals for Genoa Technology, 1989-1992. Wrote 75% of book (an annual softcover) on 4-Wheel-Drive vehicles and driving for Petersen Publishing in 1975. Have had more than 2,600 articles published in everything from Playboy, Popular Science and PC World to Motor Life, McCall’s, MacWeek, Mechanix Illustrated, Better Camping, Wheels Afield, Microtimes, Computer Currents, L.A. Times Book Review, Detroit News, Outdoors Calling, and too many more to recall. I think I anticipated the current trend toward multiple career changes by a generation or two – but always in writing and/or editing jobs. I started in weekly and daily newspapers, did a stint as house organ editor and speech writer at Ford’s Research and Engineering Center in Dearborn –where I first started freelancing. Swtiched to magazines full-time in 1955 (Motor Life, Petersen Publishing) and was auto editor of Popular Science in late, 1950s, early 1960s. Sidetracked into advertising and PR for 5 years in mid-1960s, returned to magazines in 1966 when I moved to California as editor of Petersen’s Wheels Afield (a camping and RV magazine). Got into corporate publications in 1977 at Hughes Aircraft, where I began using computers and became the electronic publishing guru for our publishing group. Started freelancing for computer publications in 1984 and moonlighted as a partner in a pioneering desktop publishing service bureau in 1986. Took early retirement in 1989 to devote full time to freelance writing and publishing. Had syndicated computer column with up to 500 editor and webmaster subscribers from 1997 to 2001. Have been working on Vietnam book since early 1990s, started mystery novel in 2001, just after “opening” an online bookstore. How did you get started writing professionally? About what subject? What interested you about that subject? Did/does the subject tie into something in your personal or professional (pre-writing) life? And, have you always written, as while you were growing up and long before trying to get published that first time? Decided I wanted to be a writer at age 11 or 12. A Detroit News columnist, H.C.L. Jackson and, later, Ernie Pyle, inspired me, along with authors as varied as Kenneth Roberts, Hemingway, Thorne Smith, P. G. Wodehouse, Nordhoff & Hall and Upton Sinclair. My first pro job was as sort of an intern on a weekly labor paper published by the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, beginning in 1947 while a freshman journalism major at the University of Detroit. They started paying me $5/day after a month. Moved up to a large weekly, The Highland Parker, as sports editor, feature writer and proofreader (luckily they had a janitor!) in 1948. What type of worker are you when you write, i.e., do you write at certain times, or for a certain amount of hours daily, in long stretches straight through, as the spirit moves you, or??? I’ve done it both ways. As an auto writer and editor, I often worked 18-20 hours straight on deadlines for new car issues. I have never been able to discipline myself to work X many hours per day. I often get up at night, however, to write thoughts, sentences or long sections that have come to me. Did you ever take any school or adult education courses in writing? If so, what, and did they help you? If you are a technical writer, have you taken courses in that area? Although a Journalism major, I took nearly as many English and Lit courses in college. I’ve taken some post-grad writing courses (screenwriting, novel) at UCLA and extension programs, plus the outstanding Professional Publishing concentrated summer program at Stanford. But I’ve actually taught more writing courses than I’ve taken, beginning as early as 1952, when I taught several journalism classes at the University of Detroit. I’ve taught many classes on successful magazine writing, producing newsletters and desktop publishing over the years. Do you conceive of an entire story or subject line to be covered in your head before starting to write, or do you get just an idea and sit down, outline it and flesh it out, or??? I seldom use outlines. For articles, I focus on a subject, write a head and summary “query” paragraph or two (for submission to editors). I begin with the lead (hardest part, most often) and a rough outline of the piece in my head. I most often write the 1st draft in one sitting for 1,000- to 2,000-word pieces, two or three sittings for longer pieces. Then I do a quick edit/revise and walk away from it for a couple or hours or longer, depending on deadline pressure. Usually I do a final reading/revise and off it goes. For the Vietnam book, my subject and I (it’s a memoir) started with a rough outline. After much trial and error, we developed a routine. We work on a chapter at a time. My subject (and colleague for 15 years, beginning with our desktop publishing endeavor) prepares an outline and some anecdotal material. We do taping sessions (1 to 2 hours, enough for 8 to 12 pages) in which he fleshes out the outline and I ask questions. I write a first draft, usually with quite a few parenthetical notes and questions, go over it and make some revisions, then e-mail it to him. He inserts his comments and answers and gives me a hard copy when we get together for another taping session. With my mystery novel, I started with an idea for the first chapter and a cast of main characters reasonably well fleshed out in my mind. (I gradually built bios for them and others who cropped up later.) Unlike most of my articles and the Vietnam book, I did not have a working title – and still don’t. I did have my first sentence: “The body slid partway down the short slope, right hand splayed out on the bike path below, left heel hooked on the parking lot pavement above.” Ideas and new twists have come to me as I progressed. I now have about 75% of it plotted out in my head. If you have had a deadline for submitting work to a publisher, how did/does that affect you, i.e., have you ever found that having to produce on a schedule causes the creative juices to dry up? I’ve long been accustomed to writing on tight deadlines so pressure doesn’t cause problems. In fact, I often write better under pressure when I don’t have time to agonize over every sentence. Tell us how you first got published, and whether it was difficult that first time. Did you have an agent for that first published piece? Was it a book, an article, a paper, or what? I wrote on my high school and college papers, but my first published pieces were in The Wage Earner, mostly short items I condensed from long articles or memos. My first bylined piece as a pro was an account of a farm workers’ strike in California. My first freelance pieces, both bylined, were about sports car racing on a frozen lake outside Detroit: a photo essay in the Detroit News Sunday Roto section and an article in a sports car magazine. How do you feel about editors?? Does it disturb you or comfort you to have someone checking your work pre-publication? Having worked as both an editor and a writer, I appreciate both sides of the coin. A good editor is invaluable to a writer – and vice versa. With my experience on both sides of the desk, I always tried to make things as easy as possible for editors with my freelance work (probably a major reason I have had only one article rejected in my career, and that was my own fault). That means being familiar with the publication’s style and following it, suggesting heads and subheads, finding decent art and photos – and, above all, knowing the audience that the publication addresses and writing to it. Best editor I ever worked with was Frank Rowsome, managing editor of Popular Science while I was auto editor. He was a gem. Having been a magazine and book editor but not yet a published book author, I hope I find the cooperation and useful guidance in editors for my books that I tried to provide authors in the past. How are you (or your publisher or agent) publicizing your current work? Not really applicable yet but I expect to use the Web, personal appearances, interviews, self-generated PR releases, etc., as much as possible. A lot depends on who publishes the books and how much they contribute. I think my past PR experience will be an asset. Have you ever been on a tour with one of your books? If so, what is that like? Did you find that it helped increase sales of your book? Not applicable yet, though I have done a lot of PR for publications I’ve been involved with: personal appearances, radio talk shows, TV appearances, trade conventions, etc. Can you tell us a bit about a book (or whatever format you are writing in) that you might be working on now or plan to start soon? If you do have another in the works, are you writing a series, on the same subject as your last work, or on something totally different? I talked a bit about this above but can add some tidbits. “Hawks, Doves And The Dragon” is about a man, Tran Ngoc Chau, who played a singular variety of roles in Vietnam from WWII to 1975. While a teen-ager, he served as a courier for a resistance cell against the Japanese and their puppet French government. He joined the National Army of Liberation under Ho Chi Minh, with tens of thousands of other nationalists, in 1945. After rising to the equivalent rank of Major or Lt. Colonel, he left the Viet Minh late in 1949 when pressured to join the Communist Party, casting his lot with the newly-created South Vietnam. He was in the first graduating class of the South Vietnamese Military Academy and served with distinction (6 medals, including the country’s highest, the National Medal of Honor.) Tapped by President Diem for a relatively minor job in the late 1950s, he became virtually the only Buddhist member of Diem’s inner circle and was appointed governor of Kien Hoa province and mayor of Da Nang. He returned to Kien Hoa as governor after the coup in which Diem was assassinated. But I’m running on and into too much detail. Chau’s story is a complex one. His efforts drew many Americans to him, including Daniel Ellsberg, John Paul Vann (the “civilian general”) and many more. In fact, when President Thisu (a former friend) had Chau arrested and imprisoned him in 1967 because Chau was beginning to represent a threat to the Thieu regime, many of Chau’s U.S. friends were incensed. Reports were that this action, tacitly supported by the CIA and Saigon U.S. Embassy who were trying to keep Thieu in power, was the last straw that convinced Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers – and Ellsberg has pretty much agreed that was the case. My mystery is set in Ventura, CA, a seaside down on the lower part of the Central Coast – about 45-50 miles from L.A. Protagonist is a bookstore owner (!) but an atypical one. Kevin Corcoran retired at 37 (entered the USNA at 17) after more than 15 years as an Office of Naval Intelligence agent. He buys Main Street Books with an inheritance from an uncle and settles in to a peaceful life – until a member of an informal group of readers who meet at his store (and call themselves the Main Street Regulars) is murdered. He works with a Ventura PD detective (Miguel “Big Mike” Morales) and a beautiful investigative reporter (Marisa) to solve the murder. First suspected as a drug killing, it turns out the young victim was providing marijuana for seniors in the mobile home park where he lived – and arranging to get low-cost drugs for them in Mexico as well. As the case develops, the trio learns that the hit-and-run death of a Ventura County official may not have been an accident. It seems too much of a coincidence when another official is listed as a suicide and a third dies in a suspicious drowning down in San Diego County. Were they potential whistle-blowers silenced to prevent them from blowing the lid off a huge scandal in County government? My plan is to have the first murder and the scandal connected by the final denouement. I have it pretty well figured out but haven’t plotted the exact details yet. Could you please give us a synopsis of your current book/work and, if a series, what the whole series is about? See above. Tell us a bit about how you go about doing research for your work? The Internet makes research so-o-o much easier today. What used to take days, even weeks, of endless phone calls and letter-writing now can be accomplished in hours. I have used search engines extensively for about 6 years. They are especially helpful for finding technical, historical, company/product and many other types of information. Learning how to use various search techniques is important. Some things still require hours of reading, library time and correspondence. This has been particularly true of the Vietnam book. (I have become a minor expert on the country over the past 12 years.) For my mystery, I have to determine if the city of Oceanside, CA or San Diego County require autopsies in drowning deaths where there were no witnesses and there are indications that it might have been homicide. I also need to learn more about the structure of Ventura County government, recent slow-growth laws, the permit process and building inspection practices. That will take a few days in Ventura – a most pleasant duty. Any stories about the hazards of trying to make your way as a writer, particularly when starting out? I’ve been lucky enough to support myself and my family solely as a writer/editor and journalist. I didn’t make much money in the early years on newspapers – and I never got rich though I never had to live in a garret – but things picked up when I got into magazine work. And I’ve supplemented my income by freelancing over the years. Any advice to aspiring writers on finding an agent or contacting publishers? Write, and keep on writing – whether you aspire to journalism, novels, poetry, screenwriting or whatever. A 10th grade English class hammered that home for me. The teacher announced the first day of class that we had to write 1 page of something every day, no matter what other assignments he gave us. It could be an essay, poem, short-short story, slice-of-life…anything – but it had to be at least a page of normal handwriting. It was torture at first but some of us came to enjoy it, and looked forward to reading our work to the class. I’ve found that concentrating on things that interest me and I know something about works best for me. Are you a reader? If so, what types of things do you enjoy reading? Do you ever buy your own reading material online (had to ask that one!)? Oh boy, am I a reader! I was sickly as a youngster (asthma, bronchitis, a few bouts of pneumonia) so I missed a lot of school. No TV then, so reading became my passion. At about 10, I read 25 books in 5 days one summer week. All my friends were away on vacation so I went to the library, read a book there, took home my allotted 4 books, read them that afternoon and evening – then repeated the procedure for the next 4 days. Admittedly, these were mostly Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazon novel – but not the skinny, large-print “children’s books,” either. My major reading feat, however, was finishing both Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time And The River by Thomas Wolfe one quiet Sunday while in the Army. I finished up after Lights Out by reading in the latrine. And I have bought reading material online. What other types of things do you enjoy doing, besides writing? Any hobbies? Pets? Sports? Traveling? Gardening? Music or art, etc.? I have traveled a lot all my life, some of it in the line of duty (press junkets, covering events such as races, the Mobile Economy Run, conventions, etc). My wife and I have been to the Pismo Beach area, Palm Springs and Maui so far this year, with trips planned to the High Sierras, Newport Beach and New Orleans later this year. During my camping period (1961-1976), I camped from Canada to Mexico, Maine to California and loved it. I was a serious cyclist for more than a decade (1980s-1990s); amassed about 34,000 miles before an old neck injury forced me to cut back. I still ride, but no more centuries (100-mile rides), weekly averages of 100- to 125-mile weeks or age-group competition anymore. Crossword puzzles are a life-long passion; love the NY Times Sunday puzzles especially. Cooking is another long-time interest. Got interested while stationed in Rome in the Army. Took my first cooking class in 1950 from a great Austrian chef, and later became his assistant for a time. I’ve since attended the odd cooking class during my travels. I do almost all the cooking for my wife and I. Specialties include Gumbo, Jambalaya and other Cajun/Creole dishes; curries and other Indian dishes; various stir-fry combination (I have a great wok), and stewed chicken and dumplings with a Southwest tilt (includes bell and chili peppers, tomatillos and chayote squash). Please tell us anything else about yourself you’d like us to know, either personal or professional, and thank you very much for allowing us to interview you! *Writing speeches for Earle S. MacPherson, inventor of the MacPherson Strut front suspension which was virtually the de facto standard for many years. He was a true gentleman as well as a brilliant engineer. *Covering the Indy 500 13 times, covering Daytona Speed Weeks and the 500 in the 1950s when they ran on the old beach and road course – then covering many races at the Tri-Oval after it was built – and even driving around it with Bill France as a passenger. *Doing my first “foreign correspondent” bit, covering a soccer match for Reuters circa 1948-49. *Selling a piece to Playboy in 1967. *Being wooed for the auto editor job at Pop Science. *Being paid $1 per word the first time for a freelance article. *Making my TV debut by doing the middle commercial on “The Day Lincoln Was Shot” at CBS in Hollywood, 1957. The show was done live with Raymond Massey as Lincoln, Elsa Lancaster as Mrs. Lincoln, Jack Lemmon as his assassin, Charles Laughton as narrator – and I was in the studio watching. BTW, Bing Crosby did one of the other commercials. Not career stuff, but memorable moments… *Spending a year in Rome (1945-46 in the Army *Winning the flyweight boxing championship of Camp Wolters, TX *Winning several drag race competitions in the ’50s. *Winning both my class (65 and up) and overall in the Gold Coast Tri-County Senior Olympic bicycle race in 1992. And loving how teed off the 55-year-old 2nd place finisher was to find some 10 years older had been the one to pass him on the last lap. *Returning to Rome last year – after 52 years – and still loving it…while surprising myself at how fast my Italian, learned all those years ago, came back. #authors #booksellers