by Guest » September 12, 2022, 11:10 am
Freshwater Press has been gone for a number of years. After John Greenwood died in 2004, I don’t believe the book company produced any further titles. His primary business partner in the company, Michael Dills passed away earlier this year (2022), but I don’t believe he had actively participated in any further works after Greenwood’s death. Several years ago (2000-2010 period) a Michigan distributor entered into an agreement to produce many of Freshwater Press’ publications that were authored by Greenwood along with a few other titles that the company published such as those, I believe, by Dwight Boyer and Dana Thomas Bowen. The distributor misread the potential market for these books as the popularity of the subject matter entered a serious decline beginning around the same time. As a result, there are many brand new copies of these old titles still available on the market from book resellers that acquired them when the before named distributor went out of business about 8 or so years ago. These are easy to find online at reasonable prices (usually lower than the cover price of the original books some 20 to 40 years ago not even accounting for the normal rate of inflation during that period) and I have been able to buy spare copies for nearly all of my Namesakes and Fleet History books at a very modest cost. For the immediate future, this would likely negate any licensing and reprinting agreement for these titles.
Throughout its existence, Freshwater Press was probably the premier publisher of Great Lakes shipping oriented books. Although it is sometimes hard for us interested in the hobby to comprehend, the current, and likely future, market for these types of books is extremely limited in both size and geographical demand. For the most part, such a limited sales model will preclude the publication of Great Lakes shipping titles by any major publisher or even many larger specialty publishers. Major publishers are looking for titles they believe can achieve minimum unit sales of around 100,000+ while larger specialty presses are likely to be looking at 10,000+ unit sales. Consequently, the Great Lakes shipping book market is normally served by smaller cottage industry type publishers as the sales numbers of most Great Lakes shipping titles are likely to number under 10,000 units with possible exceptions being works related to subjects such as the Edmund Fitzgerald, etc..
John O. Greenwood, who was once a vice president at Interlake Steamship prior to its sale by Moore-McCormack Lines to James R. Barker, was very knowledgeable about the shipping industry with very few inaccuracies appearing in his works. He was also a very interesting person to converse with and he could provide quite a bit of background information on the construction of the James R. Barker and other proposals that remained only on paper. One such interesting example involved the idea of attaching the stern of the Elton Hoyt II to the forward and cargo section of the John Sherwin which was apparently floated within the company’s engineering department during the early to mid-1980s.
Freshwater Press has been gone for a number of years. After John Greenwood died in 2004, I don’t believe the book company produced any further titles. His primary business partner in the company, Michael Dills passed away earlier this year (2022), but I don’t believe he had actively participated in any further works after Greenwood’s death. Several years ago (2000-2010 period) a Michigan distributor entered into an agreement to produce many of Freshwater Press’ publications that were authored by Greenwood along with a few other titles that the company published such as those, I believe, by Dwight Boyer and Dana Thomas Bowen. The distributor misread the potential market for these books as the popularity of the subject matter entered a serious decline beginning around the same time. As a result, there are many brand new copies of these old titles still available on the market from book resellers that acquired them when the before named distributor went out of business about 8 or so years ago. These are easy to find online at reasonable prices (usually lower than the cover price of the original books some 20 to 40 years ago not even accounting for the normal rate of inflation during that period) and I have been able to buy spare copies for nearly all of my Namesakes and Fleet History books at a very modest cost. For the immediate future, this would likely negate any licensing and reprinting agreement for these titles.
Throughout its existence, Freshwater Press was probably the premier publisher of Great Lakes shipping oriented books. Although it is sometimes hard for us interested in the hobby to comprehend, the current, and likely future, market for these types of books is extremely limited in both size and geographical demand. For the most part, such a limited sales model will preclude the publication of Great Lakes shipping titles by any major publisher or even many larger specialty publishers. Major publishers are looking for titles they believe can achieve minimum unit sales of around 100,000+ while larger specialty presses are likely to be looking at 10,000+ unit sales. Consequently, the Great Lakes shipping book market is normally served by smaller cottage industry type publishers as the sales numbers of most Great Lakes shipping titles are likely to number under 10,000 units with possible exceptions being works related to subjects such as the Edmund Fitzgerald, etc..
John O. Greenwood, who was once a vice president at Interlake Steamship prior to its sale by Moore-McCormack Lines to James R. Barker, was very knowledgeable about the shipping industry with very few inaccuracies appearing in his works. He was also a very interesting person to converse with and he could provide quite a bit of background information on the construction of the James R. Barker and other proposals that remained only on paper. One such interesting example involved the idea of attaching the stern of the Elton Hoyt II to the forward and cargo section of the John Sherwin which was apparently floated within the company’s engineering department during the early to mid-1980s.