Walkabout Press in Charlotte, N.C., has become the 13th distribution client of John F. Blair, Publisher, of nearby Winston-Salem.
Launched in 2001 by former Selling Power magazine editor Malcolm Campbell, Walkabout has published two books, Rock Solid Golf by golfing instructor Dana Rader and a New England travel guide, which is the first in the Play Hard Rest Easy series. Next spring, the publisher will add guides on the southeast, Southern California, Oregon and Mexico/Arizona to the paperback series, and Campbell plans to publish four or five books annually on the outdoors and travel.
Blair publishes 20 southeastern-oriented titles per year in categories ranging from travel to fiction. Blair president Carolyn Sakowski, who began the privately held company's distribution program in 1996, thinks Walkabout is a good fit. Distribution clients, she said, account for 20% of Blair's total sales. "Our distributed lines allow us to have larger catalogues, but we don't take on a client unless their books complement our own."
Among the other clients are Down Home Press, Banks Channel Books, Novello Festival Press, Bandit Books, North Carolina Nature Conservancy and the North Carolina Sea Grant College.
Novello Festival Press, a three-year-old imprint of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, is believed to be the nation's only public library—sponsored publisher. Novello published Ron Bass's One Foot in Eden last Christmas, and the book was a modest hit after it was mentioned on NPR. "Had it not been for Blair, we would have been overwhelmed by the attention," said Amy Rogers, Novello executive editor. The book was eventually bought for a Picador paperback.
E.R. Olefsky, owner of Banks Channel in coastal Wilmington, N.C., has a backlist of 10 books and publishes two books a year on the topic of the Carolinas. "Some have sales potential in other areas of the country," said Olefsky. "Taking advantage of that is really hard, but Blair has reps nationally, and that has proven quite helpful."
