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As a youth, I collected and read many series books, most were obtained from church libraries, thrift stores, and as such most were in poor condition, with no DJ's. This led to a youthful attempt to create dust jackets using tracing & shelving paper and a homemade light table. These books were loved and they had a very formative effect on my future endeavors. Over 900 of these books were saved, although my collecting efforts were dormant over my working career as an electrical design engineer.

In 1995, contemplating retirement, my wife and I started visiting used bookstores, and my interest in series books was reborn as a nice retirement hobby. My personal collection has since grown to over 4000 boys and girls series books.

I was distressed by the scarcity and cost of some of those books, particularly those with dust jackets. I was determined to help other collectors and myself by facilitating reprints of rare titles and by the scanning, repair and recreation of Dust jackets.

Thus far, I have facilitated the reprinting of over 40 rare series books, and have recreated over 1000 full color dust jackets for over 120 different series.

The reprint quest began with a visit and the opportunity to present recommendations to Amereon/ Aeonian, a reprint publisher whose focus is on small print runs (under 100) of very high quality/ library grade hard covers. Their primary market is library sales. They had a license with Margaret Sutton for the Judy Bolton series, and they had also reprinted other series books, but had not had significant success or collector support of these efforts. A detailed trip report of by initial visit was published in the March 1996 issue of Yellowback.

My initial recommendations were to reprint the last 10 Judy Bolton's, in small groups, starting with #'s 38 & 37, and then work backwards. In all, 24 of the 38 Judy Bolton titles were reprinted. I also recommended other series for which they would need to obtain license or research copyright issues. I also tried unsuccessfully to get them to provide DJ's and the standard 7.6" series book height. I rapidly accepted some economic and production realities of small print runs. Unless one was willing to fund in advance $1000 to $2000 per title, one must accept both a non-exclusive reseller arrangement and the publisher's (Amereon) standards, which in this case were 8.8" tall with no dust jacket. My DJ recreation hobby partially solved these problems, as I alone provided the dust jackets on books that I sold.

I supported these reprint efforts in many ways including providing free consultation, source material, artwork, and advertising. Amereon's owner, Jed Clauss, assumed a significant part of the reprint risk. My advertising efforts were through Yellowback, Whispered Watchword, Antique Radio Classified, Big Little Book Times, My Ken Holt Homepage, and later to increase exposure and to protect collectors (described later), I used EBAY and Advanced Book Exchange. I also attended series book meetings from Maine to Seattle to promote my reprints.

After the initial Judy Bolton's my next effort was my favorite, the "Ken Holt Series". Getting to know the authors, Sam and Beryl Epstein, and having the opportunity to spend many enjoyable visits with them have been the highpoint of my retirement. They were wonderful people who considered it an honor that I would want to reprint their works; I considered it honor to be given the opportunity to reprint the last 4 Ken Holts, 3 Roger Baxters, and 2 Tim Pennys.

In the case of the Epstein books, I assumed the role of co-publisher, and I insisted on pre-paying royalties for the print run. A similar arrangement was Implemented for the three Mildred Wirt titles, Swamp Island, Cry at Midnight, and Carolina Castle. I have not yet had pleasure of meeting Mildred, and a special thanks to David Farah, a great friend of Mildred, who helped me make arrangements.

Ironically, on the Epstein and Wirt titles, I still was not the exclusive reseller, and as such I subsidized other resellers. This may sound strange, but the alternative of paying up to $2000 for a print run is economically impossible, for printings that average less than 50 books sold.

Other reprints which I either facilitated or helped market include:
Jack Dizer's " Tom Swift and Co", Radio Boys to the Rescue, Ralph and the Train Wreckers, Poppy Ott- Hidden Dwarf and Monkeys Paw, Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska, six Lone Ranger titles, and five Tom Swift Jrs.

Of all the reprints which I facilitated, success is varied and range from the last five Judy's with two sold out printings. (160 books) to the least successful, L. Frank Baum's Boy Fortune Hunters with less than 10 sold. The overall average is less than 50 books. Obviously, the participation of Amereon, and the support of Jed Clauss were essential, as the above numbers alone would not justify my reprint effort.

Success and failure is measured in more ways than above, I consider it a success based on the associated friendship with the Epstein's and also the many nice thank you letters received from reader/ collectors that otherwise could not find or afford books.

1) The loss of Amereon/Aeonian reprint license for the Judy Boltons, and the affect that will have on future Amereon support for my efforts. Also that many of the latter Judy Bolton's are sold out and unlikely to reappear.

2) The excess profiteering and misrepresentation on the Internet, I have noted greater than 8X markups on reprints I sold. To counter this I now sell on ABE and try to clarify correct nature of reprints and provide fair pricing. I also have stopped sales to certain dealers.

3) The reading/collecting community is widely diverse, it ranges from the pure readers who would be satisfied with any edition/any condition to the 1st edition with DJ only collectors. For reprints to be successful support from the entire community is essential. I do not mean that all should financially support, but that all could verbally support by word of mouth, by positive postings on Internet message boards etc. In other words share information, help promote current or future efforts.

3) Advertise more in Fanzines like Yellowback, and keep fans informed via periodic letters to editors etc.

I do not recommend paperbacks or cheaper perfect bound hard covers, costs may be lower, but print runs are higher and they are unlikely to get significant support from the collector community. A quality hardcover reprint could someday become a highly sought after collectable. This has already started to occur for some earlier sold out reprints.

Learn more about my reprint and DJ recreation efforts by visiting my "Ken Holt Homepage" http://members.aol.com/brentwooda or by email, toweyj@cox.net. See advertisement this issue.

I wish to thank all that have supported my efforts, this support has been essential. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and have a Great New Year.

Yellow Back Library - March 1996

The Quest started when we read a letter to the editor in a recent Yellowback. Which indicated that Amereon published reprints of Tom Swifts, Judy Bolton's, and Chip Hilton's. Amereon was tracked down to Mattituck, New York on Long Island. A telephone call which expressed our interest in buying and encouraging the reprinting of rare, hard to find, series books resulted in an invitation to present our recommendations to Jed Clauss, founder of Amereon LTD.

January is usually a nasty month to drive anywhere in the Northeast, and to get to Mattituck, we were faced with the challenge of either western LI/NYC traffic or a 1.5 hour ferry ride across Long Island Sound. This was to be our latest challenge of about ten book hunting trips that the two of us have taken since September in our continuing search for series and Alger books. Just picture, two retired "Loose Cannons" set free to roam about visiting bookstores and you will see the potential for many tales and adventures. One recent adventure, thanks to Jack Santore, who shared his find with us, was a trip to purchase from a 2300+ series book and Alger collection. Between us that trip got us over 300 books. We now refer to that find as the "Santore Load"

Starting just after sun-up, we roared south from our homes in northern Connecticut on our 90 mile trip to Mattituck. The last time we were in NYC we got rained on at "New York is Book Country," so this time we took the ferry. Thanks to superb driving, sailing, and navigating (using the Microsoft CD road atlas) we arrived almost on time and met Jed, Bill, James and Claudia and thus began a real adventure in book learning.

Jed Clauss is the ultimate entrepreneur. He was a former professor, who has spent several decades, in the rough and tumble printing and publishing business. Jed has carved out a unique niche in the publishing world which is of direct interest to collectors and lovers of old children's books.

He has reprinted Ralph Gardner's classic book: Horatio Alger, or The American Hero Era, and 7 early Judy Bolton titles under license from Margaret Sutton. Currently, as a result of our meeting, he is having discussions with Sam Epstein and Beryl Williams, authors of Ken Holt, who coincidentally reside near Jed's plant.

His specialty is producing ultra-short runs of from 50 to 500 hard or soft cover books, at reasonable prices. Amereon's recent 78 page catalog lists many thousands of titles with, a good percentage, over 2400 currently available. Examples include: 50 Thornton Burgess, 18 Alger's, 19 OZ, and many more adult authors and titles. There are some other series books such as: 9 Tom Swift's, 3 Chip Hilton's, and 6 Lone Ranger's. Most of his reprints sell in the $20 to $30 range.

Jed is definitely the team leader & mentor. Bill is his production manager, and James and Claudia round out the team. We met with the entire team, and we were quizzed about key titles, and potential markets. We were impressed with their "Can Do" attitude. Positive discussions were held on how to improve awareness and sales to the series book collecting community. Amereon has the capability, and Jed's goal is to bring to today's market where economically practical, older out of print stories that chronicle events and adventures occurring as we and our nation developed and grew. Amereon has been able to survive, in the very challenging reprint business, through production innovation, and knowledge to focus on their key reference, library, and collecting marketplaces.

We were then given a tour of the plant. The large old former potato storage building was filled with modern machines from all over the world. The reprint process starts with a non-destructive photocopying of the target book. Four pages at a time are selectively laid out and oriented on a light table, and then digitized onto a high quality paper offset printing plate. Two plates at a time are loaded into a high-speed offset press which then prints a large sheet containing 8 book pages in less than a second. Another machine takes these large sheets and automatically folds them twice in the blink of an eye, thus creating 1/2 of a 16-page signature. The second half of this signature is then processed and another automated machine stuffs it into the first half. Multiple signatures are temporarily stored, and then collated with others to form the core of the book. For softbound books, the book core is then routed to a machine, which trims the spine edge, and then using a thermal process glues the multiple signatures together and attaches the cover. The softbound book is completed by finish cutting the top, back, and bottom sides. In hard cover books, only these three sided are cut and the next step in the binding process is done in another facility.

The entire tour was fascinating, the capability awesome. Jed claimed that if we provided a clean copy of pages before lunch, that he could have a completed soft cover book after lunch. As a mini-demonstration, I gave James my copy of Sultan's Scimitar and in approximately 5 minutes, he had one production printing plate made and returned with multiple copies of a four page sample sheet run off the high speed offset press. It was obvious that the entire Amereon staff was knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and proud of their capability.

Our goals for this trip were twofold: Brad's goal was to evaluate opportunities for having his next book on Horatio Alger Publishers printed by Amereon, and Jim's goal was to promote, and encourage the reprinting of many difficult late in series titles. Jim provided a prioritized list of over 25 titles which included Bolton's, Hilton's, Holt's, Brant's, Swifts etc., and he would be interested in hearing from Yellowback library readers on their thoughts and priorities. Jim's address is: 249 Hartland Road, W. Granby, CT. 06090 or e-mail: toweyj@cox.net

On both goals we were encouraged and we held good discussions on potential markets, costs, titles, licenses, and possible collaborative arrangements. We discussed how the limited success of prior series book reprint efforts could be improved with better title selection, and with more communication and feedback from our unique series book collecting community. We even called our hearty Yellowback Library Editor that day from Jed's office to discuss those issues.

So, all in all, Jed Clauss' Amereon has the capability to provide access to many scarce book titles. Titles which otherwise are almost impossible to find and when found, are usually offered at outrageous prices in today's collectors market. For those of us with limited resources, obtaining a Hungry Hurler, Sand Castle, or Sultan's Scimitar would not only give us the pleasure of reading and re-reading another exciting story, but also make our collection more complete. Jed Clauss, Amereon, and interested collectors may make this happen.

The Adventure Continues...

Reprint History

My Series Book Reprint & DJ Recreation Story

Jim Towey

Who and What is Amereon Ltd?

Jim Towey & Brad Chase