The Agawa region of Ontario is a place of high drama and grand scale. Located only an hour north of Sault Ste. Marie along the eastern shore of Lake Superior, it makes people from Michigan feel as if we’ve journeyed to the land of the giants. Instead of deer and coyotes, it has moose and wolves. In place of hills, it has rugged mountains with elevations near 1,000 feet. Mature white pines, maples, and yellow birch take the place of the red pine and scrub oak woods of Michigan’s north country. Over it all arches the enormous Canadian sky that brings constantly changing weather, from high, dark-bottomed clouds to eerily shifting fogs after torrential rains to clear nights with the Milky Way so sharp you can feel the stars like pinpricks on your skin.

The area is seldom visited by backpackers. This is surprising, because hiking there can be as challenging or as easy as you want to make it. The tracks of the Algoma Central Railway (known in Michigan as the Snow Train) head north from the Soo, descend into the canyon, and snake along the bottom beside the Agawa River. For $21 Canadian you can flag down the train anywhere along the tracks and ride to your next campsite. Two of our party did this and still had a great wilderness adventure while the rest of us took the roundabout route.

All seven of us started out from Frater Station, up Frater Road which turns eastward off Highway 17. This is a great chance for suburbanites to test the seldom-used four wheel drive feature on their SUVs. For five miles the road twist and grinds uphill and finally ends up on the railroad tracks. There’s a definite frontier atmosphere to this place, an atmosphere we’d experience many times over the next five days. Across the tracks, the road continues as an old logging track, suitable only for heavy-duty bush ATVs or heavy-duty backpackers. It’s rocky, steep, and wet, with slick mud and huge puddles spanning the full width of the trail that have to be walked around through the brush or waded through. A trekking pole (or two) is a big help here. We camped at the end of our first day on a big outcropping of rock next to a beaver pond that split in two around us with a rickety wooden bridge on each end. Sound effects included peepers, sandhill cranes, loons, mosquitoes, and the occasional “plonk” of beavers smacking their tails on the water. Sue, the biologist in our group, pointed out the sound of a “trilling toad” coming from the pond. I didn’t know that toads trilled.

The second day brought the threat of rain but no rain. We continued on the logging track until late in the morning when our guide announced that the bushwhacking part of the trip would commence shortly. Michael Neiger’s bushwhack routes have become famous (some would say infamous) among those brave enough to backpack with him, so we were expecting the worst, but the one-kilometer cross-country route proved surprisingly gentle: up a steep hill with plenty of footholds and handholds, around a swamp, across a soggy beaver dam exactly one hiking boot wide, a long lunch break in a stand of enormous cedars that filtered the afternoon sun, and finally down an equally steep hill to the Little Agawa River where the trees opened up along a power line with easy walking along a two-track. It had been an adventure but not an ordeal.

By now it was late afternoon as we dug out our sandals and waded across the Little Agawa, where Sue and John stopped for a swim. We went up another hill to the top of a ridge. Below us the canyon opened up with the Agawa River winding along the bottom like a ribbon and the railroad tracks looking small beside it. Michael told us how the river had flooded up over the tracks one spring and the railroad company had to bring in carloads of iron ore to anchor the bridges so they wouldn’t wash away. Here nature still has the upper hand.

We tried to camp with the canyon view in sight, but level ground was in short supply, and the sky was growing ominous. It rained that evening shortly after dinner so we retired to our tents, tired anyway. Outdoors at 2:30 a.m., I saw a sky full of stars; by 3:00 it was raining again and it continued through the night and into Friday morning. By the time we had hiked down the south canyon wall along the power lines and stood on the railroad tracks, the rain had stopped and we had a dry hike along the rails, watchful for trains ahead of us and behind. A service truck equipped with train wheels came blasting around a bend and we dove for the sides of the tracks in unison with little room to spare.

Camp that night was on a small site between the tracks and the Agawa River just north of Agawa Canyon Park where two waterfalls – one on each side of the tracks – cascade down the canyon walls. The park, located on railroad land grant propery, is the terminus of the tourist train route and frequently handles 1,500 tourists a day in the summertime. The place is absolutely pristine, with no litter anywhere, and is a textbook study in soft energy: water from a spring up on the canyon rim is self-pressurized and also provides a small amount of hydroelectric power for the buildings; propane powers a series of mantle lights and the water heater; and toilets for the tourists are the waterless “clivus multrum” composting type frequently found in remote Canadian tourist attractions.

Saturday morning we went up the west canyon wall on the Black Beaver Trail at the south end of the park, which is nearly vertical in places. The ropes and precarious footing raised our adrenalin levels and made us pay close attention, but were a cakewalk compared to the old route – a rickety handmade ladder made of two-by-fours. As we climbed higher, the vegetation changed, and the air grew cooler. Thick moss and tall fiddlehead ferns sprouted from cracks in the rocky cliff, and clusters of the biggest violets I have ever seen grew everywhere. The lushness and variety reminded me of the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest and the west coast of New Zealand.

Lunch stop was at Black Beaver Lake, the first and largest of many jewel-like lakes we would see over the next two days on the west rim of the canyon. We hiked on the network of two-tracks that covers this area, mainly used by sportsmen to reach their camps and lodges. There are big fish in these lakes; later in the trip a fisherman would show us a nine-pound brook trout he had caught, nearly two feet long, red-and-yellow speckles still shining. We were a curiosity to the fishermen. “Where’d you come from?” one asked us? When we replied “Frater Station,” he said, “Ohhhh, so you took the roundabout route.”

Throughout the trip we had been seeing numerous moose tracks and occasionally the faint print of a wolf. We weren’t lucky enough to see either animal face to face, but near Black Beaver Lake we spotted a fresh, perfect wolf track in the mud, following the tracks of a moose. The print is unmistakable – no dog has feet that big.

By now we were down to a core group of seasoned packers and were covering the miles. We crossed four small streams that afternoon, three of them without taking off our boots, and finally made camp in a small gravel pit late in the day, bone tired. It rained briefly at dinnertime, as it would for the remainder of the trip, and the black flies had their normal happy hour. The beauty of the Canadian spring is not without its price. The bugs weren’t constantly active; they tended to swarm more during the warmest parts of the day, and the nights were still too cool for them. Reactions from our group varied, from stoic refusal to wear a headnet to those who never took theirs off except to eat. All of us used bug repellent; John preferred citronella, adding “Citro-Boy” to his long list of nicknames, while the rest of us slathered ourselves in Deet. For me the blackflies and mosquitoes (yes, they were there too) were more a nuisance than a plague, but I could have done without them. It’s not a perfect world.

Sunday was cool and very humid as we hiked an overgrown two-track back in the direction of the canyon and the tracks. This road was only shown on a very old map, and Michael pulled out his compass and counted paces to make sure it was taking us where we wanted to go. It did, and we were happy to be spared a long bushwhack. Stopping next to a beaver pond to filter water, I found a single deep red ladyslipper, much darker than the pink ones I’m used to seeing in the Upper Peninsula.

Lunch stop was in the front yard of an unused camp on Hotshot Lake. We stopped and stared when we saw what the owners had done to keep the bears from breaking in: below each window and door they had fastened a board full of evil-looking nail points to keep the animals from standing or leaning too close. Ingenious, also brutal. Also necessary.

We lounged on the dock in the sun and refilled our water bottles. Three fishermen – two men and a boy – rowed in closer to take a look at us. They were firmly wrapped up in headnets and didn’t seem to be enjoying the blackflies much. “Where’d you come in from?” one of them asked.

By now we knew the drill. “Frater Station.”

“By golly, you been all over da place, eh?”

Without missing a beat, Sue spoke up: “Yeah. Like shit on a wagon wheel.”

Inside the headnets, three jaws dropped. The boy looked like he had finally met some of the people his parents had been warning him about all his life. The remark did break the ice, though, and they ended up rowing in closer and talking with us for a long time. After that it was on down the trail past several more lakes, each of them beautiful. The afternoon grew hot. We were hoping for a campsite in this area, but what little high ground there was had camps on it. Finally we resigned ourselves to another long day of hiking and ending up back at the tracks in the evening. That’s part of the adventure, too – you can’t always know what lies up the trail.

Just before the trail descended back down to the canyon, we came upon a cottage on the prettiest lake yet with a small island in the middle. The cottage had tiny windows and white shutters, something straight out of Hansel and Gretel, and like Hansel and Gretel, we wandered closer. In the yard a canoe had been sawed off short and turned on end to make a shrine, and inside the shrine lounged a statue of a pink pig with a pink bouquet above it. Of course we had to take pictures of this, and meanwhile the owners came out on the porch. They were French Canadian, from the Soo, and very friendly – they even invited us to hike back up the hill for coffee in the morning. We exchanged pleasantries and went on. Five minutes later, bringing up the rear, I heard a motor behind me. The man from the cottage had followed me on his ATV.

“I take you rest of way,” he said in his heavily accented voice. It wasn’t a question.

I debated. He was so nice – it would be rude to say no – and I wasn’t really looking forward to stumbling down the steep road on a lot of loose rock so late in the day. But it wasn’t going to look good, riding the last quarter mile of the trip on a four-wheeler.

“My friends will make fun of me if I ride,” I told him.

“Ach, no problem. We take shortcut,” he said, jumping off the machine. The man was at least 70 and agile as a cat. In short order he had strapped my pack to the frame of the ATV. “Get on,” he ordered.

I got on. The thought crossed my mind that I had survived five days of heat, bugs, a pack full of pig iron, and a vertical climb up a cliff, only to be killed by a senior citizen driving a four-wheeler, but the guy turned out to be a superb driver. The machine was fully equipped for the bush – hefty four-wheel-drive thing with steel racks overhead for carrying gear and possibly to serve as a roll cage; winch; axe fastened to the front. He turned off the trail and onto a muddy track through the woods that went straight up. The machine stalled out on the hill in the mud. “I back up,” he said, threw it in reverse, and took another run at the hill. This time we made it and went careening down the other side.

The shortcut turned out to be a ploy – it did not bypass my friends. We burst out of the woods straight into the middle of my fellow trekkers, who wisely chose to scatter. “I come back for them after I take you down,” my escort said. I was trying to picture this as we roared past Michael, who stared at me. Obviously he did not approve of his trekkers cadging ATV rides from the locals.

The guy probably would have taken all five of us down, one at a time, if dinner hour hadn’t intervened. At 5:00 it was like someone (namely his wife) had thrown a switch and off he went, promising to return in the morning. Before he left he showed us a sandbar on the Agawa River where he said there were trout. Most of us swam there, one at a time. The water was cold but absolutely pure; I let out a whoop as I plunged in and afterward I felt baptized.

Dinner brought the usual rain and bugs as we camped next to the tracks at Mile 118-1/2. After it cleared up we emerged from our tents and stayed up to talk and make the final night of the trip last. The last thing I heard as I fell asleep was the hooting of a barred owl (“whoo-cooks-for-yoooo”), probably chasing a certain member of our group who felt the sudden urge to step out into the dark and howl and hoot before bedtime.

Monday morning it was hurry up and wait for the train. Mary and Mara, who had been walking the tracks all weekend, rejoined us. We swatted bugs, chatted with the half dozen or so fishermen who emerged from the woods on ATVs, and tried to make Gail reveal the contents of her trip journal, to no avail. The train came at 2:30, only an hour late. We boarded and wandered back to the rear car to look out from the platform at the places we had walked as the engine curved and climbed the sixteen miles back to Frater. From the top of the canyon wall we looked down through a notch in the hills to Lake Superior and Montreal Island laid out before us in the distance while the Agawa River glistened in the canyon below. I vowed to come back in the fall.

There are trips, and then there is travel. Trips are always a pleasure, but they don’t take me far away enough. Travel is magical – it lasts long enough to make the world I came from seem unreal, and it’s the result of forces beyond my control coming together. Everything came together for this trip – the places, the people we met along the way, the moments of silence interspersed with times of raucous laughter. There was a little danger for spice, a touch of drudgery so I’d appreciate the high points, and a constant sense of adventure around the next bend in the trail. Agawa is that kind of place.

Story and photos copyright 2001-2009 by Boreal Press. All rights reserved. No material on this page may be copied or published electronically or in print without written permission of Boreal Press Inc.

Rationale of wholesaling your books: single-source ordering and payment system for bookstores, who otherwise would have to deal with thousands of publishers

Wholesaler vs. distributor:
Distribution—includes marketing services. Net purchasing at 35% of retail (average)
Distributor contracts with you for exclusive right to order books from you and sell them to its customers (usually wholesalers).
Sales rep is retained by distributor to present its title list in person to key accounts
Distributor will place your book in databases of its customers
Other marketing services may be available, gratis or for a fee
Regional titles generally are not accepted because the sales volume is too low
Examples: Independent Publishers Group, Consortium, Partners Publishers Group
Wholesaler—only stocks and sells your books, no marketing. Net purchase 45% ret.
Buys books from you (the publisher) and from distributors
Sells books to bookstores (not consumers)
Agreement is nonexclusive but industry etiquette frowns on mixing territories
Examples: Ingram Book Co. (U.S.-wide chain), Baker & Taylor (schools & libraries), Partners (Midwest regional wholesaler), Koen (East Coast regional wholesaler), Alpenbooks (specialty outdoor title wholesaler), New Leaf (New Age specialty title wholesaler)
Your wholesaler mix should include Ingram, B&T, one regional wholesaler close to home, and specialty wholesalers as applicable to your titles

Returns and VOR agreements
Bookstores reserve the right to buy books from wholesalers on a returnable basis—if the book sits on the shelf too long, the store can ship it back to the wholesaler for credit on its next purchase (not cash refund) at the store’s expense
Wholesalers and distributors buy from you the publisher on a returnable basis also
A few scattered returns are generally put back into stock in the warehouse
Heavy returns are shipped back to the publisher at the wholesaler or distributor’s expense
Net purchase price of returns is deducted from money owed to publisher
If a large shipment of your books has been trashed by the bookstore, wholesaler should refuse to accept the return (ask them about their policy on this)
Vendor of Record agreements—policy invented by large chain bookstores to simplify the returns process
No matter which wholesaler the chain store purchased your book from, all returns go to your declared vendor of record.
Example: Ingram is your VOR; a book purchased from Partners is returned to Ingram and deducted from the money Ingram owes you.
VOR status should be declared to Barnes & Noble/B. Dalton (same company), and to Borders/Waldenbooks (same company) by memo. Your wholesaler will provide contact information.
Be careful to select your VOR based on the wholesaler you think will sell the most of your books. Avoid a debit balance with your VOR. If you are very small (one title), stick with one wholesaler.

Consignment sales
All wholesalers and distributors work with small publishers on a consignment basis: They order your book, stock it in their warehouse, take orders, and ship them, but the book is not considered sold until a bookstore buys it—subject to returns.
All wholesalers and distributors pay their consignment publishers on a delayed time scale (usually 90 days end-of-month) to allow for returns to come back
After the initial three-month delay you’ll get paid monthly but always for books sold three months ago
Some wholesalers and distributors reserve the right to withhold a percentage of the money they owe you—to cover expected returns

Ordering procedure
Contact the acquisitions department of the distributor or wholesaler, submit sample book or a mockup (with color sample of cover art) and pertinent information (author, title, ISBN, price, publication date, number of pages, size, case quantity, category, synopsis or table of contents, and your contact information)
Once your book is accepted, it will be registered in their database so they can order from you
Wholesaler/distributor writes a purchase order for each shipment it orders from you, usually sends it by fax. Order quantity should be a multiple of case quantity so you don’t have to repack boxes.
Ship promptly—bookstores often refuse to backorder books
Make sure book title and ISBN appear on outside of each box before you ship (your printer should do this for you), also write PO Number on outside of each box and include a copy of the PO inside one of the boxes.
Ship boxes via UPS Ground or Fedex Ground at your expense
Send an invoice to wholesaler/distributor’s accounting department. Reference the PO number, quantity ordered, your net purchase rate (% of retail), and total net purchase amount. Without an invoice, you won’t get paid.

Consignment report
Your wholesaler or distributor should send you a consignment report within a month of first selling your books and every month thereafter
The report lists sales and returns. Check it carefully against your records.

What can go wrong and how to deal with it
Your wholesaler/distributor needs you, but essentially they are still your customer and therefore hold more than 50% of the power in your relationship with them.
Most of your inquiries will go to the accounting department. Get to know them and be nice to them no matter how much the situation taxes your patience. Most wholesalers are understaffed.
Returned books are trashed and unsaleable—be ready to let small quantities of these go by. Large quantities should be returned to the store by the wholesaler.
Discrepancies between your numbers and theirs—be ready to provide paperwork to back up your side. Keep meticulous records.
In-store book signings—if your book is selling well, the store will order copies from a wholesaler for you to sign. If your wholesaler perceives that your signing will be sparsely attended, it may tell the store to tell you to bring your own copies of the book to the signing and take them away when it’s over—so they don’t become returns.
Abuse of returns policy—your wholesaler/distributor should not ship you a large box of returns on one day and fax you a large PO the next day. Complain as high up in the organization as you can get. (This does not apply to small quantities.)

The future of the industry
Books are physical, not virtual, merchandise, so the system will continue to be a dinosaur. Abolishing the returns policy would open up many options for direct shipment but would also keep lesser-known titles out of bookstores.
Competition from the chain stores has reduced the number of independent bookstores by approximately 50% in the past ten years. The West Coast has held out against the chains most effectively.
amazon.com sought to bypass the distributor/wholesaler system by taking orders and passing them along to the publisher, who would then direct-ship to the customer. Now they own several warehouses and use Ingram as their supplier for titles they don’t stock themselves. “4-6 weeks” from Amazon means they order direct from the publisher.
Single copy sales cost you time and money (postage on one book will be at least $3.00) plus you have to pack it and ship it
e-books are cheaper than print to produce and will take off when reader software problems are resolved. Reader will end up being a multi-use palmtop rather than current specialized e-book reader hardware.
Print on demand: library of CDs and laser technology printing/binding machine. Production costs run $4 to $7 per book but best way to keep low-demand specialty titles in print.
Electronic media will soon outpace print solely for economic reasons but consumer will continue to prefer to read paper—we just might not be able to afford it.

Contacts
Baker & Taylor: http://www.btol.com/supplierfaqs.cfm?faq=7
Partners Book Distributing: 517-694-3205
Boreal Press: http://www.borealpress.com

Copyright 2001-2009. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print
without written permission of Boreal Press Inc.

The Women’s Great Lakes Reader
by Victoria Brehm
(Ladyslipper Press, 1999)
A one-of-a-kind historical view of the Great Lakes, written by the women who came to the region when it was still a wilderness. The heroines of this book tell tales of high adventure, cultural adaptation, raucous humor, and searing loneliness. With summaries and commentary by the author-editor.

Copyright 2000-2009 by Ladyslipper Press and Boreal Press. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print without written permission.

In 1920, J.E.H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Franklin Carmichael, F.H. Varley and Frank Johnston officially formed this now famous group. These were painters bitten by the Canadian north who, for the first time, took on the task of painting the great power, scenery and spirit of their land. This truly Canadian art movement was started, not by professional painters, but by a loose association of acquaintances who travelled north from Toronto on their vacations to paint and relax. The modern Canadian so called ’school’, was inspired as the result of a direct contact with nature itself.

Back in Toronto after the war, the artists made several sketching trips to the vast Algoma region of northern Ontario. It was there that Harris, MacDonald and Jackson in particular found inspiration for some of their greatest paintings. Algoma was still a wilderness where travelling was difficult. On their earlier excursions the artists moved around by canoe. Harris had the idea of renting a boxcar from the Algoma Central Railway and had it shunted on to sidings near choice sketching locations and this became their new method of transportation, not to mention temporary home.

“The nights were frosty but in the boxcar with the fire in the stove we were snug and warm. Discussions and arguments would last until late in the night…”

A.Y. Jackson, A Painter’s Country

“It is a tireless country… always inviting you to climb the next peak, enticing you away, farther away from the problems which were born in the valley… one returns with a clearer vision and many of the fool worries have been sweated out of you.”

F.H. Varley, letter to Dr. Mason, April 15 1929

“The waves have been magnificant the last days, such a thundering crash and roll–the rattle of the pebbles in the backwash of the waves. And the whole place is so solitary, like Crusoe’s coast, so that you almost resent a footprint in the sand…”

J.E.H. MacDonald, quoted in Paul Duval, The Tangled Garden: The Art of J.E.H. MacDonald

Breaking into print:
Publishers want a book they can sell—hot topic, ready-made audience, or one-of-a-kind. They look for experience as a professional (paid) writer and writing of professional quality. Small and medium size publishers also look at your contacts who could help market your book.
Nonfiction: Become an expert in your field with name recognition and publication in periodicals
Fiction: Seek publication in smaller but respected venues (writing contests, scholarships to literary conferences, literary magazines for art fiction, short pieces in regional periodicals or specialty magazines for genre fiction)

Finding the right publisher
Unsolicited manuscripts and first-time authors do get picked up, but only a small percentage. It takes a very long time and your work must be very good.
If you have any contacts in the publishing industry, use them
Writers’ conferences are great networking opportunities
Professional and trade organizations, either for writers or for your specialty, also provide a network
If you must send an unsolicited manuscript, research that publisher thoroughly to learn whether your book is appropriate for their list and how to present it to them. Make a list of their titles, go to the bookstore, and look at them—subject matter and how they’re packaged.

Retaining an agent
Agents seldom accept first-time authors, and they normally won’t take an author whose book they expect to sell fewer than 10,000 copies.
Having an agent is no guarantee of selling your first book, but if you have an offer from a medium to large publisher and you expect your book to sell well, retaining an agent will help you negotiate a better deal and build your career over the long term.
Having a deal with a medium to large publisher will make getting an agent easy, but get one as soon as you get a verbal offer and notify the publisher immediately that you’ll be bringing in an agent
Your publisher will contract directly with the agent and pay him/her. The agent then pays you after deducting his or her percentage (15% standard).

Submission procedure
Nonfiction
If publisher says query first, do; otherwise send proposal
Nonfiction books are often completed after acceptance, with creative input from publisher
Industry prefers to receive a proposal, consisting of a short introductory cover letter describing the book and your qualifications to write it, synopsis of book, table of contents, and sample chapter (usually the first).
Photos may be sent on 1.5mb floppy in jpg format, or good laser print
Include an SASE if you want your materials returned
Allow 2 months for unsolicited manuscripts—can send via receipt verified mail or enclose a postpaid postcard acknolwedging MS reached right person
Follow publisher’s specs for electronic submissions
Fiction
Send query letter describing book and your credentials as a writer
Publisher will probably ask for full MS if query is accepted
Include an SASE if you want your materials returned
Allow 2 months for unsolicited manuscripts—can send via receipt verified mail or enclose a postpaid postcard acknolwedging MS reached right person
Follow publisher’s specs for electronic submissions
Simultaneous submissions are generally OK for unsolicited MS since turnaround time is so long, but indicate in cover letter that it’s being submitted to other publishers

If your book is accepted
You’ll receive a contract within a month.
Most items on the contract are boilerplate (nonnegotiable) for first-time authors, particularly royalty percentage and purchase of all rights
Royalty percentage is calculated on net price (percentage of retail that publisher sells the book for), not retail price
Hold out for a specific, not indefinite, publication date if you can
Except for very small publishers, a small advance against royalties is standard even for first-time authors
For nonfiction writers, your contract should spell out what research and travel expenses are to be borne by you. This is usually negotiable.
Examine the indemnity clause carefully and consult an attorney if you’re unsure. Even though it’s boilerplate, you don’t want to sign on for legal responsibility that’s unfair to you
Kirsch’s Guide to the Book Contract is an excellent resource for understanding your contract
Keep negotiations in good will and don’t let them drag on too long
Once the contract is signed, you’re legally obligated to produce the book or return the advance if you can’t
If the publisher breaks contract, you get to keep the advance.
The publisher is leasing the rights to your book for a set period of time. You the author automatically own copyright unless the project is a work-for-hire.

Working with your editor
Nonfiction writers can expect major input from the publisher regarding the content of the book. Fiction writers may be asked to make a round of minor revisions during the production phase.
When asked to review galleys etc., try to turn them around in 1-2 weeks
Be pleasant even during disagreements—your editor is your best ally
Most publishers will show you a copy of your book cover upon request, but don’t expect to have any input on it

Publicity
Expect to make some publicity appearances such as local bookstore signing events. You can be proactive in generating your own publicity but be sure to let your publisher know what you’re doing before you do it
The first month a book is released is its prime time. Try to cram your schedule full of signings and interviews.
If your publisher schedules an event, they pay. If you schedule it, you can be reimbursed if it’s in your contract. Keep receipts of travel expenses.

Getting paid
Royalty checks are issued twice a year at set dates in your contract. Normally you’ll receive a statement followed by a check 1 to 3 months later.
Books returned to the publisher will be deducted from sales. A few publishers will withhold a portion of royalties to cover expected returns.
Unless you’re incorporated, your income from your publisher will be 1099, including royalties, travel expenses, and any free copies of the book you receive. Keep receipts for your reimbursed expenses so you don’t have to pay taxes on any money reimbursed to you by your publisher. Certain office equipment may also be deductible.

The long term
If your book does well, your publisher will usually want you to write another one like it.
You’re not obligated to stay with a publisher unless your contract includes first right of refusal on your next book.
Build a working relationship with your publisher, particularly your editor.

Copyright 2001-2009 by Boreal Press. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print
without written permission of Boreal Press Inc.

Handouts from UPPAA Workshops, April 21, 2001

* Working with a Book Wholesaler
* Working with a Publisher

Copyright 2003-2009 by Boreal Press. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print
without written permission of Boreal Press Inc.

Michigan residents do not get the opportunity to paddle in Florida very often for obvious reasons. However, the winter months bring out cabin fever in all of us, and even though I do winter paddling in Michigan, it just isn’t the same. Fortunately, winter is the optimum paddling season in the Everglades and so I finally set aside the time and planned a trip from Everglades City to Flamingo in the 10,000 Islands National Park.

It takes about a week to paddle across the lower tip of Florida through the Wilderness Waterway inside the Park. All sorts of challenges confronted us that required advance preparation. Florida is no place to just “wing it” when it comes to a canoe or kayak trip. First, there is no fresh water available during the entire trip so you have to pack in all of your water requirements for a minimum of seven days. Water is a condition that I have never had to think twice about in the past other than maybe making sure I carry iodine tablets or a water filter. Now I had to lug in all I would need, but you can’t practice overkill here because water gets heavy fast and who wants to carry all of that extra weight?

The next issue that is different from north woods paddling is navigation. The Everglades are essentially a marine environment with no natural dry land. Occasional hummocks or man-made “chickees” to put your tent on are all there is. The rest is thousands and thousands of mangroves, which appear as islands but certainly are not. The maps en route are actually vegetation maps, not topographical features. Everything is at the horizon and one mangrove looks just like another. Fortunately, the Park Service has numbered posts most of the way to keep you on the right track but we still got turned around a few times.

The other navigational issue was the tides. When was the last time you went down a river that reversed its direction twice a day? Or the water disappeared entirely? In the Everglades, we had to carry tide charts to gauge the time that the tide would ebb and flow so that we could travel on our route without wasting energy working against the current.

The rest of backcountry living was pretty much the same as a north woods trip regarding tents, sleeping bags, food and gear. It was a little odd walking around in shorts and a t-shirt in January, and putting sunscreen on to keep from getting too sunburned, but we got used to it very quickly. Bugs are fairly mild this time of the year as this is the dry season for Florida, but there are always a few around.

We had an alligator hanging around our camp one night that someone must have fed in the past because he looked hungry. All of us slept a little lighter than usual that night since essentially nothing would have stopped him from crawling out of the water and having a little paddler snack. However, “Wally Gator” minded his manners and shed a tear when we left in the morning without giving him anything to eat. The rest of the day we saw a lot more alligators enjoying the Florida sun just like us.

I had a small four-foot long shark swim right up to my canoe when we traveled along the Gulf of Mexico for a short time. I tell you, I was on the wrong end of the food chain because he certainly was NOT afraid of me. I whacked him with my canoe paddle but he only swam over to another canoe to check it out. I made sure my fingers were a little higher up on the paddle shaft the rest of the day.

The dolphins swimming around the canoes and kayaks were the neatest things, and we saw them many times. They are strong, fast swimmers and very curious about us. They are like miniature submarines coming up out of nowhere and then back down again. We almost always saw them in pairs or threes, which shows that they are very sociable animals.

I would certainly do the Everglades again someday, and the routes are endlessly varied. However, it is not for the beginner as there is absolutely no one checking up on you. Considering the proximity to urban areas such as Miami it is astonishing to realize just how alone we were out there. Many people go around the Everglades their entire lives without ever venturing into its mysterious interior. If you are up to the trip you should go, as the entire region of Southwest Florida is an endangered natural area that could easily disappear in our lifetimes.

Trip Itinerary

Day 1: Everglades City to Lopez River, 9 miles

Day 2: Lopez River to Darwin’s Place, 13 miles

Day 3: Darwin’s Place to Willy Willy, 18 miles

Day 4: Willy Willy to Broad River, 9 miles

Day 5: Broad River to Graveyard Creek, 11 miles

Day 6: Graveyard Creek to Joe River Chickee, 9 miles

Day 7: Joe River to Flamingo, 18 miles

Total: 90 miles in 7 days

Learn how to make a kayak cart.

Copyright 2004-2009 by Jay Hanks. All rights reserved. No material on this site may be copied or published electronically or in print without written permission of the author.

I’ve searched high and low for cookbooks that will make it easy for me to eat good food, not gain weight, and not spend half my life in the kitchen. When I’m home on weeknights, I want to relax, not cook and clean up–but I refuse to eat crap from a box, jar, or frozen micromeal tray. The next morning when I’m packing my lunch for work, I want to reach into the fridge, grab a couple of portion controlled baggies, and throw them in my lunch cooler bag. And if the leftovers from last night are still good the next evening so I don’t have to cook, that’s an added bonus.

In a cookbook, I want color photos of each dishes, because my culinary imagination on weeknights is thoroughly lame. I want the book available in hardcover so it will stand up in my cookbook holder without snapping shut. I want dishes with no more than five ingredients to shop for and prepare, and I don’t want to clean up much more than one pot, a cutting board, and my knife set after preparation. I want recipes made with healthy ingredients and high in Omega-3s.

Here are some of my favorite cookbooks that meet my high standards for weeknight and brown bag lunch food.

Eating for Life
by Bill Phillips
Hardcover: 404 pages
High Point Media (2003)
ISBN 0972018417
If you’ve seen Bill Phillips’ Body for Lifeseries, you know he’s on to something, but I didn’t expect his cookbook to be this good. Celebrity or diet cookbooks are usually throwaway books that the publishing industry foists on the author to make even more money. Phillips actually kitchen tested each recipe, and he won’t stand for unhealthy food, nor will he tolerate stuff that’s good for you but tastes bad. The main meals are all built around a portion of protein (usually lean meat) and a side vegetable. He then jazzes them up with seasonings and fresh herbs. Everything is fresh, simple, and takes intelligent shortcuts. One thing I love about this cookbook is the small photo collage of the ingredients at the bottom. If the recipe calls for chicken, bok choy, and salad dressing, then you don’t have to read the text to know what to put on your shopping list–you can just look at the picture.

Cooking Light 5 Ingredient 15 Minute Cookbook
by Cooking Light Magazine
Hardcover: 240 pages
Oxmoor House (1999)
ISBN 0848718526
Cooking Light magazine has been getting things right for a long time now, and any of their cookbooks are worth buying. This one caught and held my interest because it’s less elaborate than their normal recipe scheme and is aimed at the busy cook who still wants fresh ingredients and low fat food. This isn’t a diet cookbook, so you’ll find that the recipes are somewhat richer than the Phillips book, but you’ll stay healthy with this one–you just won’t lose any weight.

Quick Simple Food
by Susie Quick
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Clarkson Potter (2003)
ISBN 0609610716
I love this hard-to-find cookbook by the former food editor of Real Simple magazine. The recipes are basic, elegant, and work equally well for an after-work supper or a Sunday brunch with friends. She knows how to take shortcuts without sacrificing quality, and the recipes are low-fat but don’t taste like it. Dieters can use this one without fear of breaking their vows to slim down, and most of the recipes keep well overnight in the fridge for brown bagging the next day.

Try the Healthy Urban Kitchen cookbook too.

“The river, the canyon, the desert world was always changing, from moment to moment, from miracle to miracle,within the firm reality of mother earth.” -Edward Abbey

Hiking into the Grand Canyon is a trip to be reckoned with at any time of year. The harsh extremes of weather and terrain are challenging and also part of the beauty of the place. In early spring and late fall you can go from 70 degrees at the bottom of the canyon to a blizzard at the top. In July the heat in the inner canyon is blistering–always above 100 in the afternoon, with a record high of 134. The hike is rugged, too, with an altitude change of 4,460 feet, nearly a vertical mile, to cover in the 9-mile walk from rim to bottom–or from bottom to rim.

Like all odysseys, mine began with a day of hard travel–an early morning flight to Las Vegas, landing amid the surreal carnival atmosphere of the casinos, a shuttle bus across town, and a midafternoon flight on a 27-passenger plane to Grand Canyon Airport on the South Rim. Scenic Airlines knew me and my tripmate by name before we even checked in, and the plane itself allowed for a friendly chat with the pilots through the open doorway if one was inclined to distract them from their job. None of us was; the afternoon heat surging up from the desert made for some wicked turbulence, the kind that feels like the plane is coming down out of the sky. Dramamine is recommended for those prone to motion sickeness; prayer beads would have sufficed for the rest of us.

The view was worth the bumps. Flying at only 2,500 feet, I could see and feel the desert’s hard power. Vegetation was sparse and scrubby, and faint two-track roads led to scattered round tanks for watering livestock. Numerous dry riverbeds mapped the contours of the land, like lines on the palm of a hand. Most of these eventually led to the Colorado River, which is stopped up by Hoover Dam just east of Vegas to form Lake Mead. The water here is so blue that it looks out of place, and perhaps it is–the dam was built when taming wild rivers was an undertaking beyond reproach, but the lake loses thousands of gallons of water a day into the desert air due to evaporation. The dam is a wondrous piece of architecture, however, with its twin towers and 5.5 million barrels of concrete set into the rock. Scattered boat wakes on Lake Mead look like jet contrails when viewed from the air.

An hour later we landed at the South Rim of the canyon, within the national park. The rim is blanketed in pine forest and the breezes here are always cool, even in the midday heat, due to the 7,000-foot elevation. The rim is actually a small town, with a store, a hospital, a movie theater, a school, and a residential district with housing for hundreds of park employees and their families. Many of these houses date back to the Depression era and were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Our hosts, a park ranger and his wife, keep a bird feeder (though even these are frowned on by park management, who discourage feeding wildlife), and I was delighted by the Western variations of familiar bird species. The chickadees look like ragamuffins, lacking the distinct markings of the eastern variety, and in addition to the familiar nuthatch, the canyon is home to a pygmy variety half the size of their cousins. Hummingbirds abound throughout the park, both on the rim and at the bottom.

It was time to see the big hole in the ground. A short walk in the gathering dusk and there we were, at sunset, looking down over the two-foot-high stone wall that winds along the rim, down into space–a lot of space. I’ve been told that nothing prepares you for your first look at the canyon, and it’s true. Photographs do justice to the wonderful shapes and colors of the rocks, but they flatten the space in between. It’s the emptiness of the canyon that gives it its grandeur, the grand emptiness and the capricious desert wind that comes up out of the gorge, sometimes in a surge and sometimes in a whisper, driven by the day’s heat lingering in the rock.

Standard procedure for avoiding this heat is to start hiking early and finsh late. The rangers actually recommend starting the trip in the dark with a flashlight. At 3:00 a.m. the next day we were picking our way down the South Kaibab Trail in the dark, with a crescent moon hanging low over the cliffs, its penumbra forming a perfect circle. Overhead the stars were so numerous that the sky seemed gray, not black. The Kaibab is on a plateau and has neither water nor shelter from the wind and sun. As we rounded each cliff, the warm wind smacked into us in the dark, then receded as the trail turned. By 4:30 we could see streaks of dawn; by 7:00 we could see the river and the day was already growing hot. The day’s first mule train, a supply team, passed us heading down. These surefooted animals do an amazing job of staying on the narrow trails; there are records of a few falls but according to “Over the Edge,” a new book about deaths in the Grand Canyon, no one has ever been killed because a mule lost his footing.

We reached the bottom at 8:30 a.m. and crossed one of the two suspension bridges that span the Colorado River. “Feel better right now,” proclaims a sign posted by the rangers next to Bright Angel Creek. “Get in the creek and get wet.” This is not frivolous advice–the rangers typically treat a dozen cases a day of heat illness in the summer, and soaking yourself down in the cold, clear waters of the creek can help you avoid a trip to the infirmary. The inner canyon traps a lot of heat, and shade is scarce except near water. Hiking uphill between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. is discouraged, though many people do anyway. A few diehards actually hike down to the river and back in one day, carrying only a gallon of Gatorade–a workout more punishing than running a marathon in midsummer.

This area–Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch–is like a small, secret community, an oasis tucked away in a harsh place that takes some determination to get to. The rangers remarked that the atmosphere down here is much more laid-back than up on the rim. About 200 people a day move through the area, mostly on foot. Phantom Ranch is a collection of rustic cabins and bunkhouses that requires reservations a year in advance. The canteen serves meals (expensive due to the logistics of packing the stuff down), and beer and wine are available in the evening. Bar chat here is more interesting than most. The fig tree next to the bath house has ripe figs in July that are the most sublime fruit I have ever eaten anywhere.

The next morning we decided to brave the heat and hike up to Ribbon Falls, a 13-mile round trip in the direction of the North Rim on the North Kaibab Trail, which parallels Bright Angel Creek. This was my first experience with full-on desert hiking, with the sun blasting away and no shade anywhere. Part of the wonder of the desert is that anything, plant or animal, can live out here, but the canyon is full of living things. In a world mostly vertical, mostly rock, and mostly dry, with the sun hammering down relentlessly all day, plants and animals still adapt and thrive. Any break from the dry, dusty, spiny, broiling landscape takes on the quality of a miracle.

One such miracle is Ribbon Falls. Tucked away in a side canyon, it provides deep shade throughout the day and is a wonderful place to rest and cool off. What the waterfall lacks in volume, it makes up for in delicacy–the water that hisses over the cliff onto a lush bed of moss is like a rare piece of sculpture. We followed standard procedure for all cold, clear water: go and stand under it. (Variation: take off your clothes and stand under it. Soak your clothes in the pool. Put them back on.) By now I was used to wearing wet cotton all day–an absolute no-no in the Midwest. The dry wind blowing on wet clothing magnifies the cooling effect of sweating and can make the heat of the day seem almost normal. By the time we got back to camp, I had drunk 2.5 liters of Gatorade and my legs were cramping seriously from the heat. Time to go sit in the creek and chill out.

The Inner Canyon rangers have seen just about everything. Next to heat exhaustion, the most common ailment is hyponatremia, or water intoxication. This occurs when a hiker keeps drinking water without replacing electrolytes. “Some of these people are drinking 12 quarts of water a day and not eating, and their kidneys give out,” one ranger told me. “We also treat psychological stress. You’d be surprised at how many people hike down to the bottom, are wasted by the time they get here, and freak out because they think they won’t be able to hike back out.” Helicopter rescues are common, at a cost of $3,300–to be borne by the passenger.

“Check this out,” another ranger said, coming up to us that evening with a glass jar. In it was a small scorpion that he said he found in his camping gear. “I fed it a fly, and the fly must have bitten someone earlier, so now this one has a taste for human blood.” He smiled. In the jar, the scorpion flexed its tail with the evil stinger.

“He likes them,” another ranger added. “I think he has names for them, like pets.”

I asked him if he had ever been stung and what it felt like. He said he had been stung nine times but in only four incidents–scorpions like to sting repeatedly. “It feels like a cigarette burn,” he said. “If you find one on you, you need to keep still. Flick it off with a piece of paper, not your finger.” After dark he took us a little way into the desert with a black light, which makes the scorpions glow. It was disturbing to see how many were out there. Shine a regular flashlight on them and they scurry away at amazing speed, like the carnivorous hunters that they are. According to “Over the Edge,” no adult has ever died of a scorpion sting in the canyon, but from then on I kept my pack zipped and shook out my bedding more often than necessary.

“Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon” is a combination of “Into Thin Air” and the Darwin Awards. No urban legends here; the landscape is anything but urban, and the stories are all factual. So many people have died in the canyon over the years that you come away from the book convinced that this is a dangerous place–which it is. Several deaths could have been avoided with a minimum of common sense, however. A shocking number of people, more than 60, have died simply by falling off cliffs, taking a fatal step into the great beyond. Nearly as many have died because they walked into the canyon carrying no water. The Colorado River has taken its share of lives, and not just in its legendary rapids–swimming in water deeper than your knees is life-threatening because the water is so cold (50 degrees or less) and the current is incredibly strong. The book also examines rockfalls, suicides, and occasional humorous incidents. Once a rafting party pulled up on a beach and found a dead beaver. They buried it to get rid of the smell and with typical river guide humor, gave it a mock funeral complete with grave marker: “Here lies D. Beaver.” (The D stood for Dead.) Two weeks later another raft guide pulled up on the beach, found the grave, and went ballistic thinking the first guide had lost a passenger and didn’t report it to the authorities.

The strongest message in the book, however, is one common to all survival stories–often the difference between life and death is more luck than skill. While skill may keep you out of trouble, a split second twist of fate may determine whether you live or die once you’re already in trouble. Second-guessing and passing judgment pale next to the fact that experienced desert travelers have died here, yet city dwellers wearing the wrong kind of shoes have lived because they had a fifty-fifty chance of turning in the direction of water at a junction in the trail and made the right guess.

The next adventure was the hike out. We started at daybreak up the Bright Angel Trail, which has shade and three water stops along the way. Early in the day we came upon a rattlesnake on the trail, a Grand Canyon subspecies of the western diamondback. These snakes are shy in nature, fortunately–this one’s only objective when it saw us was to get away, not easy on a vertical rock face. It finally managed to slither onto a rock shelf at eye level, where it coiled and poised to strike at anyone who got too close. Our ranger friend borrowed one of my trekking poles and relocated it, writhing and striking, to a safer place for both itself and others.

The first stage of the climb is the Devil’s Corkscrew, a long series of switchbacks that takes you up to the intermediate plateau between the river and the rim. We made the climb easily while the day was still cool, and I was feeling pretty good until I checked the map and learned we had only ascended 1,400 feet, with 3,000 still to go. With the day’s heat building steadily, we stopped at Indian Garden Campground, the halfway point on the climb, soaked down our clothes yet again, and parked ourselves on picnic tables in a beautiful grove of trees to wait for late afternoon. A great blue heron landed nearby in Garden Creek and I pondered the miracle that a water bird could survive in this place.

My tripmate finished her book at 2:00 and got ready to hike out. Thunderheads were building up over the rim, and a ranger came by and told us it was raining to the south. With one eye on the clouds, I opted to wait an hour for shade and hike out solo, since the trail is heavily used. Shortly after I started up the trail, the sun disappeared and raindrops made dark spots in the powdery dust. I could see a curtain of rain coming down the canyon wall and advancing toward me. It made the temperature just right, and there I was, hiking alone in the Grand Canyon in a thunderstorm. (I would have been worried except that I had just read the previous night in “Over the Edge” that no one has ever been struck by lightning below the rim.)

It was spectacular, one of those rare experiences that come close to religious. Out over the canyon I could see shifting rays of light on the cliffs where the sun was still shining ten miles to the north. A rainbow appeared, then doubled. I climbed steadily in the cool air, switchback after switchback, stopping often to look out over the canyon in awe. There are points on the Bright Angel Trail where you think the trail can’t possibly go any higher, that human beings weren’t made to climb this high without falling, so you stop and look down at how far you’ve come. It’s a feeling of accomplishment to look at all those switchbacks and the great chasm of the inner canyon and think, “I climbed all this”–and still the trail goes up.

Near the top I passed some of the day hikers who walk a half mile or so down from the rim and go back up. Laurie came down to meet me and I showed her the rainbow, which was hidden at the top. The usual crowd had gathered at the rim to watch the sun set, and I heard murmuring in many different languages–Chinese, German, the inevitable Spanish, a little English. I felt like a foreign traveler myself. I had been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and had seen some of the most spectacular landscape on earth. Now I would return to my own country with my senses renewed.

Note: Phantom Ranch Page, Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff’s website, is the best resource for anyone who wants to make this trip. Her page includes links to the official sites for Phantom Ranch, the National Park Service, and more, and her advice for hiking, camping, and training for the trip is the most desert-wise I have seen anywhere.

Order a copy of “Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon” and support the Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association–a nonprofit organization whose mission is to strike a fair balance between the number of commercial rafting permits and the number of permits allocated to private parties. Currently the ratio of commercial to private permits is 70 to 30, and the wait for private boater permits is 10 years.