By John Eckberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WILMINGTON - Sometime late in the last decade, Orange Frazer Press found it had made a significant transition - significant at least to the companies that actually print the books for this small-town publisher.

The company, which has a reputation for sometimes-quirky but usually literary books, went from being a small, independent publisher in a homey Ohio town to being a medium-sized publisher of colorful coffee table books, and one with a budding national reach.

Orange Frazer Press publisher Marcy Hawley, Editorial Director John Baskin and Sarah Hawley (Sales and Marketing) in their Wilmington office with some of their recent publications. (Michael Snyder photo)

Despite the growth and the challenges that come with it, Orange Frazer is still cranking out books from a second-floor warren of desks and computers on Main Street in downtown Wilmington. The ceiling in the publisher's office soars a good 20 feet above the squeaky wood floor.

And 16 years after its founding, Orange Frazer has no business sign or placard but it is still thriving in the same quaint town.

"We bleed these books," said publisher Marcy Hawley.

Hawley wrote for Ohio Magazine in its early days. Her stories described forgotten corners of the state, the best or unique places to eat, craftsmen, artisans and all things Ohio. Eventually, she and editor John Baskin turned to book publishing when they realized they had a voluminous amount of information about the state - enough for a book.

One thing the company does not do these days is bleed red ink. A subsidy publishing approach under which a client pays an agreed-upon portion of publishing costs ensures that does not happen.

In recent years, Orange Frazer has found a lucrative niche by producing books for companies, nonprofits, organizations and individuals. That approach tends to drain the risk out of publishing, an entrepreneurial endeavor that is as traditional as it is chancy.

Among the companies that have pulled the trigger on books through Orange Frazer:

• Iams, before Procter & Gamble Co. bought it.

• Crown Corp., a New Bremen, Ohio, manufacturer of cargo lifters and trucks.

• Restaurateur Cameron Mitchell, who heads a company that has 22 restaurants in four states, including Mitchell's Fish Market at Newport on the Levee.

The company also has mined a lucrative vein with books about public art by producing Big Pig Gig, an account of the pig statues that filled Cincinnati streets in 2000.

That in turn led to books on other public art projects, including CowParade San Antonio: Celebrating the Art and Culture of the Alamo City; CowParade Atlanta: Celebrating the Art & Culture of the Olympic City, and CowParade: The Cows Come Home, West Hartford, Connecticut.

Though Hawley declines to discuss revenue, she acknowledges that during the best years, revenue for Orange Frazer Press has topped $1.5 million.

She describes the latest approach by Orange Frazer Press, which has also published books by a handful of current and former Enquirer employees, as a "soup to nuts publisher."

Editor Baskin - whose Ohio journalism pedigree dates to Ohio Magazine when it was owned by Larry Flynt - plays a big role in the 20 to 22 titles published annually.

But it's the third edition of The Ohio Almanac, co-edited by Baskin and Michael O'Bryant, that captured Baskin's imagination, time and life since 1997.

The almanac is a voluminous look at all things Buckeye, and the third edition, released earlier this month, was six years in the making and 200 pages longer than the second edition.

"Information is not as quick and recent as people think," Baskin said. "There's census and economic stats but by the time that information gets collated, it's seven years old.

"Mike likes the numbers part. I try to push the numbers into some sort of meaning. That is what I like."

Ask about how Ohioans commute in the Buckeye state and he will tell you far more than you want to know:

"There is a guy in Ohio who canoes to work. There are several thousand people in Ohio who commute by bicycle to work each day," he said.

"Yellow Spring tried to ban automobiles - it just goes on-and-on."

In the best of all possible worlds, a decade from now Orange Frazer will still be in business and producing distinctive books about Ohio, Ohioans and Ohio companies from its office in Wilmington, as well as books about public art in cities all over the United States, Hawley said.

There is no sign on the door and no sign on the street. Still, that hasn't stopped writers, companies, even libraries from making their way to southwest Ohio.

"People find us," she said. "It's probably not the best way to run a business, but it's worked so far."

Ohio by the book

Publisher Marcy Hawley has a few choice words to describe The Ohio Almanac: An Encyclopedia of Indispensable Information About the Buckeye Universe. It's a big brute of a book, she says. And she's not kidding either:

At 861 pages, it is as thick as a ream of paper, weighs five pounds and contains more cartoon chuckles from the Enquirer's Jim Borgman than any reasonable reader could digest in a month.

There are about a half-million facts about the Buckeye State - give or take one or two peculiar notes about fish, fauna and Akron. Here's an example of the esoterica: Killer Alton Coleman's last meal was a single black olive.

A third edition took six years to create and an estimated 6,000 hours to proofread. If you ever want to know about Ohio and the go-cart, the Cedar Bog Nature Preserve, Ohio wine, the cuckoo clock and hundreds of thousands of other Buckeye places and things, the almanac is probably your best source.

More information about the almanac and Orange Frazer Press is at www.orangefrazer.com

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E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com