Everyone's talking about “going green” and “sustainable living,” and there's certainly been an upsurge in titles published about “RE”—renewable energy. But PW found two independent publishers nestled on the same mountain in the Colorado Rockies who are producing titles about RE, and the publishers are themselves powered solely by the sun and wind.

For Rex and LaVonne Ewing, the idea to start PixyJack Press sprang from the couple's two-year adventure building a solar- and wind-powered log cabin so remote from any town (Fort Collins is 45 minutes away) that they had no choice but to go off the grid. “We learned all about solar and wind the hard way,” said LaVonne. Having crafted a fine-looking off-grid log home in 2001, the Ewings—Rex, a writer, and LaVonne, a graphic designer—decided to publish a book about it.

The Ewings spoke with a few publishers that specialize in books about sustainable living, but LaVonne said they decided to publish it themselves because they like to be in control. So with the 2002 publication of Logs, Wind and Sun written by the Ewings, PixyJack (a combination of their old AOL logon names) Press was born. Recently, PixyJack's husband-and-wife staff published a completely revised edition (the technology changes that quickly in RE), titled Crafting Log Homes Solar Style.

Sensing that green jobs would be on the rise, last spring PixyJack published Careers in Renewable Energy: Get a Green Energy Job by Gregory McNamee. The book sold through its first printing of 4,000 (a typical PixyJack first printing) and has gone back to press. While most of the PixyJack titles are written or co-written by Rex, LaVonne says the company is looking for writers to expand its list not only in RE but also in nature subjects.

PixyJack sells about 60% of its books to the trade via Ingram, Baker & Taylor and Books West, and the rest to RE dealers, educational institutions and direct to consumers on the press's Web site. PixyJack has already become known for its books, so when Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink—two men with more than 20 years' experience building wind turbine kits and giving seminars nationally on how to build and install wind turbines—decided to write a book about their work, they approached their Mountain neighbors at PixyJack.

The Ewings suggested Bartmann and Fink do it themselves (how Coloradian of them). So the two Dans created Buckville Publications and wrote and released the first title, Homebrew Wind Power: A Hands-on Guide to Harnessing the Sun. Also solar- and wind-powered, Buckville (like PixyJack) produces paperbacks printed in Canada on 100% recycled paper. Buckville is a subsidiary of Forcefield, Bartmann's company, which operates Otherpower.com, an RE online community and retail operation that sells books and materials related to RE. Buckville is currently working out a deal with PixyJack to make its book available to wholesalers.

“We just think we have the right book at the right time,” said Fink.

Booksellers see RE and green titles as a growth area. Russ Lawrence, ABA past president and co-owner of Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton, Mont., set up a sustainable living section shortly after he returned from the ABA Winter Institute (where it was a hot conversation topic). This summer Lawrence took his home solar. “We're not totally off grid,” said Lawrence, but in the summer months he sells extra power to the utility companies. He said the store's sustainable living section is “chugging along.”

The Tattered Cover in Denver created sustainability sections in its stores this past spring. Buyer Cathy Langer said, “We had stuff all over the store, now it's one nice, briskly moving section.” She had not yet heard of Buckville Publications, but she said PixyJack's books sell well at the Tattered Cover, particularly in the sustainability's “green building” subsection.

Part of the appeal of these books is that the publishers are living and working in the RE lifestyle. The books are also graphically appealing and written for laypeople, lightening what could be dense subjects. In Hydrogen: Hot Stuff, Cool Science, Rex Ewing (who also writes novels) goes into hydrogen energy in great detail by way of the author's imagined journey to a place called the Wasserstoff Farm, where a wizard, Zedediah Pickett, entertains as he educates.

To prepare, Ewing said he read every book on hydrogen energy he could find, but he was determined to write something completely different. “I woke up one morning at four o'clock and Zed was right there,” he said. Since its publication in 2004, Hydrogen has been used by the Department of Energy for its middle school education program; it has also been adopted for college courses.

Courtney Martin, a professor and academic coordinator at Virginia Tech, used Hydrogen: Hot Stuff, Cool Science in a summer program sponsored by the National Science Foundation. “It's hard enough to get the students to read,” she said. “When I found the Hydrogen book, I knew I had hit the jackpot.” Martin also uses Careers in Renewable Energy to advise students.

“That Rex and LaVonne Ewing practice what they preach is the icing on the cake,” said Martin. “They are a great example to their readers and can perhaps dispel the notion that folks living off the grid are a bunch of reclusive curmudgeons.”