A high school classmate of mine, Susan Clark, proposed to me that I should create a Photo Book of some of my backpacking pictures. Susan put together a template which made it much easier for me to jump in and it has been a lot of fun working with her on this project. The goal was to produce a Photo Book focusing on the images and use enough space to tell the story. The story took on a bit of a motivational message as to why I backpack drawing from my Strong Finish post. So we have ended up with about a 30 page Photo Book with enough story to help one understand where the photos are from and a bit about some of the unique reasons why I was there. And I will admit that I am very pleased with how it turned out thanks to the power and flexibility of Apple’s Pages word processing program. It mostly takes place in 2015 ending with a very dangerous trip I survived on the Lost Coast Trail of Northern California.

At this time I am not sure how many books I will print or exactly what size the book should be, but cost is steering it toward an 8.5×11 landscape for about $25. If you want to buy a book feel free to influence me on how many books to print by sending me an email: ghsmith76@gmail.com.

The book draws images from many of my blog posts such as: Three Sisters, Eagle Cap, Goat Rocks, Three Sisters PCT, Timberline to Gorge, Spider Gap, Stevens to Snoqualmie Pass, West Coast Trail, Jefferson Park, Paradise Park, Elk Mountain and The Lost Coast Trail.

* UPDATE * I have received the Second Proof Book on better paper and I like it. So it looks like we have a book to sell. The book costs me $30 and I figure I can send ti to you for $5 so the cost will be $35.

* UPDATE * Alright, my book is available for purchase at amazon for your Kindle or Kindle App. It was very interesting going through the process of publishing a book using Amazon Kindle Direct. All the work was done in creating the book for print. I was then able to use that file to create the Kindle eBook. The price range allowed by Amazon was $2.99-9.99, so I made it 2.99. Then it was interesting to see how they handle the royalties. They pitch the fact that they offer 70% royalties, but that also means that they take 15 cents per MB of download and my book is like 150 MB so it would cost me $21 per book to get 70% royalty. So of course I chose the 35% royalty option. Obviously this type of fee structure does not favor a photo book. Not that I cared about the royalty, but interesting to learn this industry. The important thing is that the book is easily accessed and the photos will look best on a digital display.

Amazon Kindle Link: “A New Path: Finding My Passion in America’s Wilderness“

Assuming all of this process continues to be positive I would bet that there will be at least one more book highlighting my backpacking adventures with my Australian Shepard backpacking buddy, Brook @AussieBrook.