NOT US: In 1969, Pete Seeger formed an organization to clean up the Hudson River, symbolized by the Clearwater sloop, and the song he wrote. We knew nothing about that organization when we incorporated, but are honored that some folks confuse us with them. More info on that Clearwater HERE.
NOT US: Years ago, there was a different company called Clearwater Publishing. Every year, a few people contact us hoping to find THAT company, which sold microfiches. The owner of that company was Norman Ross and he tells his history and how to contact them HERE.
US:
Our story:
After 89 Real Publishers rejected Kenn Amdahl’s book There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings, in 1990 he formed a company to publish it himself. When he discovered (in a friend’s “Name Your Baby” book) that the name “Kenn” is an old Scottish word that means “clear, bright water” he had the name for his company. Since then, the book has sold about 100,000 copies and continues to sell. Thank you to everyone who has bought it.
For most of its existence, Clearwater lived in Broomfield, Colorado. It had an office in Kenn’s house, and a space in his warehouse. Back then, you had to print about 3,000 copies of a book to get the price per unit low enough to allow a profit. That represented a hefty investment and sizable risk, but there were no good alternatives. Kenn wrote the books, paid the costs, stacked the boxes of books, did all the marketing, packed and sent out orders, sent invoices and deposited the checks. Yes, back then most bookstores and suppliers used checks to pay their bills. (ask your parents about “checks,” they probably remember).
At first, book stores were reluctant to stock a “self-published” book, but a few took a chance. The famous Tattered Cover in Denver bought the first five copies of There Are No Electrons and continued to stock and sell the book for many years. Gradually other stores dipped their corporate toes into that pool. As sales grew, the chain stores joined in the fun. Electrons sold so well that Barnes and Noble “modeled” it into all their larger stores, meaning it was automatically re-ordered when a copy sold.
We expanded by publishing a few more books, a novel by Kenn, and two math books by Kenn with his friend Jim Loats. We published Kenn’s son Paul’s book, The Barefoot Fisherman: a fishing book for kids (later Paul formed his own company and re-published it, along with two of his novels) and Carol Turner’s book Economics for the Impatient. She also ultimately wanted to update the title, rename it, and publish it herself. She’s gone on to write and publish many books.
When the government prevented Barnes and Noble from buying Ingram Book Company (the largest book wholesaler, and also a good customer of ours) because of anti-trust laws, BN decided to develop their own warehouses for distribution. Clearwater was one of a small handful of independent companies they chose to start with. That meant we could bypass the huge warehouse/distribution companies that dominate the book market and sell directly to the chain. BN became our largest customer. We had a great relationship with them. When their North American Small Press Buyer, Marcella Smith, came to Denver, she and Kenn often arranged to have dinner together. Delightful person.
This was a great time for Clearwater. Purchase orders arrived daily on the FAX machine (again, ask your parents) and checks showed up at the Post Office box.
That all changed when terrorists rammed airplanes into the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. The country froze. Book sales stopped cold. Clearwater’s monthly income dropped to zero. More than half the bookstores in the U.S. went out of business. Most of the big chain stores did as well.
As the country recovered, sales built gradually back toward respectability but they never fully recovered. During this rebuilding time, the phenomenon of “print on demand” books exploded. It became cheap and easy to self publish, and everybody in the world (it seemed) wanted to get in on it.
Ironically, bookstores became reluctant to stock self-published books not because they seemed odd and freakishly rare, but because the flood of new titles included so many terrible books: badly written tomes, books without ISBNs, books with terrible editing full of mistakes and typos, plus both good and bad books with no marketing at all behind them. Without marketing, even the finest books are destined to languish on a shelf collecting dust, costing the store money. Because many of these new self-publishers sold their titles on Amazon, brick-and-mortar stores often associated the publishers with their huge online nemesis.
In 2016 Kenn and his wife moved to Eugene, Oregon to be closer to their three grown sons. As his own inventory sold, albeit more slowly than before, Kenn was repeatedly faced with the reprint decision. How many thousands of dollars should a now-older guy risk on a book with dwindling sales? He investigated “print on demand” and learned that it now made economic sense. For nearly all readers, the final product is indistinguishable from a book coming off a huge printing press. The company that prints the book ships it off to the buyer, whether the order comes from Amazon or Ingram or another bookstore. Within a year or so, all Clearwater’s titles were “print on demand.”
There are two exceptions: Because he wanted some uniformity to the business, Kenn converted Joy Writing to print-on-demand even though he still had (still has) several boxes of brand new copies. He’d love to sell those to a writing program somewhere at a good discount. Alas, just when he got serious about that idea and extended a few feelers, the pandemic made it unfeasible. He remains open to suggestions. He also has a box of The Land of Debris printed on kenaf paper. Didn’t make much sense to convert that one because much of its reputation became linked with this rare and expensive paper. Happy to make a deal with you for one or more of those.
Clearwater Publishing Company Inc 