The National Park Service, which has been celebrating its centennial throughout 2016, is the federal bureau that manages the entire U.S. parks system, covering some 84 million acres. So it’s not surprising that publishers who want to crack that bureaucracy and claim shelf space at park bookstores must climb a Denali-size peak to get there.
“National Park stores have a committee adoption process that takes many months of review before a guidebook is adopted for sale,” says Donna Galassi, associate publisher at Avalon.
As Katie Manion, retail operations manager at Yosemite Conservancy—an organization that provides grants and support
to Yosemite National Park—explains, in order for a book to be approved for a park store, the NPS must deem it “educational and inspirational, [and possessing] some kind of value to enhance a visitor’s experience.”
Even if a title makes the cut, there are other hurdles. An organization directly affiliated with the park, such as the Yosemite Conservancy or the Yellowstone Association, may already be issuing guidebooks about the region, limiting the need for similar titles from outside sources.
For example, Yellowstone Association published Yellowstone in a Day in 2014, to answer “one of the biggest questions we get at the front desk: what can I do in one day?” says Debbie Collins, product manager.
The organization also publishes a new edition of Yellowstone: The Official Guide to Touring America’s First National Park every two years, Collins says. That book takes a broad perspective on the visitor experience, “while other guidebooks we sell specialize in different areas that are more niche, like fly-fishing, hiking, or wildlife,” she says.
It’s in these focused areas that regional publishers may succeed, doing what associations connected to the parks may not have the time or resources to do.
“We can’t begin to publish all the books we carry,” Collins says, highlighting Farcountry Press in Helena, Mont., as one regional publisher that fills the gap with books such as A Ranger’s Guide to Yellowstone Day Hikes (2013) by Roger Anderson and Carol Shively Anderson, a married couple with 35 years of combined service at Yellowstone.
Like Yellowstone, Yosemite Association is enthusiastic about regional publishers that can home in on a particular aspect of the park, Manion says. Also appreciated, she says, are titles that tie regional points of interest together.
“More often than not visitors are stopping by more than one location,” she says. “While our in-house publishing operation is very good at providing information about Yosemite and its resources, one publication that highlights points of interest throughout the region is more economical and reflective of many visitors’ itineraries.” Bored Feet Press in Fort Bragg, Calif., and Heyday in Berkeley, Calif., are two of the regional publishers that Manion says have successfully landed shelf space in Yosemite’s shop.
