Have Pen and Camera, Will Travel: October 2025

The Authoring Business

Our first book on Scottish golf, Scotland’s Hidden Gems: Golf Courses and Pubs, took five years to research and write. That meant we took eight trips to Scotland (averaging four or more weeks each trip), playing as many as 28 straight days of golf on one of the trips, collecting B&Bs, restaurants, and tourist attractions with a commitment to writing about only what we had experienced. A fellow English teacher at Canby High had agreed to the unenviable job of editing my over use of commas. The completed book was taken to a local printer where a few photos and the front and back covers were added and a run of four hundred copies was printed, paid for, and picked up. The 10 or so boxes were stored in our basement where they lived while I figured out what to do with them—how to promote them, approach book shops, get a deal established with Amazon, etc. What was learned so far is that I loved researching and writing the book, but I didn’t enjoy the promoting part. We did sell books—a few though bookstores, a few more from personal contact (out of the car boot they would say in Scotland), and even more on Amazon. The Amazon deal was interesting. I sent two books to Amazon who would tell me when I got an order, then I would send them the number ordered, and they would send the book to the customer—always keeping in stock the original two. When we were traveling we had to have Anne’s sister Charleen supplied with books and mailing material to fulfill Amazon orders while we were away.

Selling our books this way—for about $2 a book over cost—wasn’t making much dent into our original investment. It wasn’t until we started working on our second Scotland book (Scotland and Wales) and a book on Ireland golf that we started seeing some fruits to our labors. When researching for the new books we would write ahead and say to a course, “Look at our website to get info about our books, and can you accommodate us on your course so we can write about it in our next book?” We were hardly ever refused that request. The trade of a book for a round of golf on a course we had already played or the promise of a write up on a new to us course was a good deal—it cost a course next to nothing to put us out and saved us sometimes as much as $200 each for a round on a special course (or at least $30 each on a local course). On one trip I added up more than $6000 worth of golf we didn’t pay. Some courses liked the business we brought them so much that golf there was always free and on others we got significant "friends of the course" discount as much as we wanted to play.

Then came 2010 when our third book, Scotland and Wales, was ready to sell we decided we could update our first book in a new system called Print on Demand. We would produce the book in a special format and Amazon (Create Space) would send the book to the customer—we would have no part of the distribution process, not time nor money. Royalties would depend on the market of sale and the price of the book. We get as high $4 and as low as $.87 for a $13 book depending upon what country the order is from and what deal Amazon has with that buyer. [We also sell our books as Kindle edition for about $8.50 with about $2 net per book for us.] Since 2012, with the revision of our first book, all of our books and revisions have been Print on Demand.

Today we check our sales daily with Amazon. During the Holiday season we will sell as many as 80 books in a month and as few as 10 on the slow months. Our Ireland golf book,

Golf Ireland: A Comprehensive Guide, is our best seller with the 3rd revision of the first Scotland golf book second best. The Scotland and Wales book and our travel stories book sell some, and even the picture book, Scotland in Black and White, sells one occasionally. We can’t live off our second career, Authoring, but we couldn’t have played as many great rounds of golf as we have, without a second career. So, it’s a writer’s life for me!

AND NOW THE PHOTOS: Last post I showed my best sellers, but this time I’ll highlight photos which may not have even been put up for sale which I think deserve more wall time than they’ve gotten. I’ll present them in categories and you tell me which you like best by category or for the whole group.

Flora and Fauna