Would you spend more money on a guidebook printed in the US?

I wouldn’t use MP in place of a guidebook. In fact I don’t use MP for any route info. Thanks to the new owners I don’t even have access to the routes db. I don’t miss it because I never used it - fruit from the poison tree.

I hope you never publish an electronic copy of your guidebook. And cool you want a US printer.

Make them earn your business just like you have to earn climbers’ business. Most don’t give one whit where its published.

55 bucks seems really steep for a guidebook...

Also consider a Kickstarter or some such, with a guide going to peeps who help you out. Prepurchase.

Pretty sure the new Tuolumne guide was funded that way, and, I "bought" one.

Did the same sorta thing when the Climb On maps people started out. I've since distributed a heckuva lot of maps to City of Rocks climbers, or helped the visitor center and Tracy's get sold out, just by getting these in people's hands, out in the field. "Paper" map....that is virtually indestructible, and super helpful to figure shit out, on the ground.

Ditto for printed  guidebooks. 

Having worked in a library for almost 20 years?

No one factors in serendipity. A downside of online info.

If you are looking online, you likely have already narrowed down what you are looking at. 

I'm a fossil, but, to me, there's definitely something about poking through a great guidebook (or milling around a really good brick and mortar anything), and subsequently finding stuff you didn't even know you were interested in. Also facilitates daydreaming.

Will I ever, in any lifetime, climb ice hanging over a cave?? Or bigass stuff put up by old school hard bodies bitd? Where "trad" can mean basically no protection at all?

Hell no. Or. Hmmmm. 

But it's, well, just sexy as hell to stare at beautiful climber porn.

Then maybe, just maybe, there's a hard body rope gun out there???? Hmmm ...

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts. We basically landed where I figured - that it would be cool to print in the U.S. but at the end of the day most people just aren't going to care. 

Anyways I had several printers get back to me with quotes yesterday. Looks like the book will be going to print overseas when the time is right. Even if I was set on printing in the U.S. it's unfortunately going to be too cost-prohibitive. 

For those that have mentioned it - I have no plans to do a digital book. I don't use digital books and don't really like them, so I don't really see the need for one. 

A few have mentioned the need for accurate /helpful topos. Luckily, I don't have a drone, so all pics are from the ground. I spent a lot of time trying to make this user-friendly, as someone else mentioned The Voo is a notoriously tricky place to get around. I feel like I've done a pretty good job here, but excited to see how others feel once folks are actually out there using the book. 

Thanks y'all. 

Luckily, I don't have a drone, so all pics are from the ground.

Good man!

For my personal view point the book does not necessarily need to be printed in the USA. I try to avoid buying any product made in China. That is not always possible. The book could be printed in any other country but China and I would be fine with that.

Allen Sanderson wrote:

For my personal view point the book does not necessarily need to be printed in the USA. I try to avoid buying any product made in China. That is not always possible. The book could be printed in any other country but China and I would be fine with that.

Most, if not all, of the recent California Sierra guidebooks I’ve purchased are printed in Hong Kong, which has a long history of being in the print industry. Unfortunately, in the last number of years Hong Kong civic freedoms have been lost as the government in Beijing has imposed vast restrictions, against the will of the majority of Hong Kong citizens.

I might not notice the difference in price. I definitely wouldn't notice--assuming equal quality--where it's printed. I've got a pile of well-eared guidebooks next to me right now and I couldn't tell you which were printed where.

I would pay more for a guidebook if it’s NOT printed in China. 

I don’t know how accurately this group indicates the market at large.  I advise a cynical and pragmatic approach.  Guidebooks are hard to make money on.  Print cheap and sell high.  

There are already several Vedauwoo guidebooks and not that many new routes.  I’ve been climbing in Vedauwoo for many years using the Kelman guide.  I never bought the Orenczak/Lynn book because it covered very little new ground nor did it make route locations easier to decipher.  Random arrows at the bottom of a crag photo really aren’t that great.  Road closures and camping info need to be specific and up-to-date. Maps should be really good.  Route length, gear descriptions, number of draws, anchor type and sun/shade aspect are all valuable info that I will pay for, but are absent from the current Vedauwoo offerings.  

Not offering at least a PDF is foolish.  I love physical books but the world is changing and many, many people would prefer to use their phone.  Lots of people use MP in Vedauwoo.  There’s good cell service.  And since printing costs are the major hurdle, you can actually make more money from a PDF than a physical book sale.  

I will buy a physical copy if it is better than what came before.  Local production preferred.  Please don’t make a coffee table book or bible.  

OP: I enjoyed your initial post and thought you did an exceptional job preempting the otherwise inevitable troll comments. Just the right amount of humor and humility. I bet your guidebook is really well-written. Publish another for an area that's more than 3 hours from a major Colorado city, and I'll probably buy it!

Not sure if all sharp end publishing books are printed in the US, but the one in-front of me is and they print it on the back large with the US flag. For what it’s worth I’ve noticed it many times before.

I think Helen had a good idea with the kickstarter.  It's basically just a way to pull in some capital so you don't have such high out-of-pocket costs.  It's basically just a pre-order scheme and gives you a sense of the size for your first print run. The fellows who just published the new Tuolumne guidebook did it that way, and it worked very well.

I work in a busy climbing shop in SLC and we sell a lot of guidebooks. All the well-done trad ones are in the $45-$50 range and no one seems to worry where they are printed. However, customers are very aware if they are put together well, guides such as Eldo, Red Rocks and our own Wasatch Granite to name a few. But the word seems to quickly get out if they are not and off they go to MP.

In the past when other Voo guides were out, we did not sell too many but personally I did not think they were very well done. Putting a guide together is a labor of love as your probably making 5 cents an hour putting in all the work. I would try anyway you can just to break even and anything above that is gravy. The hardest decision could be how many to print.

Good luck and we will for sure order some for the shop when they come out.

Caleb - I agree MP doesn't necessarily represent the climbing population as a whole. But it does represent a large group of folks I don't personally know and have actually found a lot of the replies here super helpful. I'll express my thanks once again. 

About the book: yes, there are several guides to The Voo already. I certainly would not fault you for continuing to use the Kelman guide. It is excellent and I have used it myself for many years. However, I would disagree that very few new routes have been done in the 20 years since Kelman put his book out. Rob recorded 705 routes in his guide. I think this new one is sitting at 1,030 ish. And there are a quite a few areas I ultimately didn't even include. 

I'd say one of the major differences with mine is the inclusion of quality ratings. Hopefully to encourage folks to venture beyond the 40 or 50 or whatever routes that tend to see most of the traffic around Vedauwoo. I hope folks find the maps helpful. Sun and shade is included for most crags as is up to date bolts, pins, anchor situations, etc. Of course this info will be outdated as soon as the season kicks off again. Oh well.

Most routes in Vedauwoo are cracks. I personally find arrows (hopefully not random!) more than sufficient to figure out where the climb is in these cases. I'm not gonna lie, there's a lot of arrows pointing at cracks in the book. 

Not offering a PDF may be foolish, but I graduated high school with a 1.6 GPA, so foolish decisions are bound to be made. Like you, I have also had the experience of running into many people in The Voo navigating with MP on their phones. Usually while asking us just where the heck they are.  

I also hate lugging an encyclopedia to the crag. The book is sitting at 212 pages. I've done my best to prioritize concise, helpful information and cut out as much fluff as possible.

Sorry, it's late and I'm getting snarky. I hope you enjoy the book when it comes out!  

I wish I could buy a GB where the couver doesn’t roll up immediately and the spine doesn’t quit after a few trips, dropping all the pages to the ground.

Best wishes to you. The only difficulty you will have is deciding what to do with the fortune you’re going to reap.

Hi all, since I have been doing the guide book thing, I always had local print shops do my book because I felt it was super important to keep the money local, but with the high cost of making a hard copy guide book, and to keep my books at $ 28 I started FDP to get rid of the middleman and after all these years FDP for 2025 is still $28! I know people love their hard copy guide book but my books are like a climbing journal you can keep fresh and updated with new routes and add pix and info so the book can never be outdated if you update it, and if someone how does all the hard work to put out a hard copy guide book and uses a publisher to print their book they want like 75% of the profits from the book, but no matter how a guide book author puts out a book it is a labor of love and never going to make any money off that project right :-) happy climbing Mike A/FDP