One For The Books

In Idaho, there is Cort Conley’s Backeddy Books and then there are the rest of the small publishers. Backeddy’s nine titles have sold more than 100,000 copies, a huge number for a regional press.

They are an equal mix of guides for outdoor and driver-seat explorers and yarns of regional interest thrown in. Most were written by Conley, a 50-year-old longtime whitewater guide with an unused law degree and a love affair with books and natural and man-made history.

He is best-known for his 700-page tourist guide to the state, “Idaho for the Curious,” which University of Idaho historian Carlos Schwantes once called “as necessary to a car as a steering wheel.”

It provides historical and other information of interest about Idaho towns and scenic sites, arranged by highway routes.

Conley calls it somewhat of a miracle. It took two years to write, was a major financial gamble and it has paid for itself and then some.

Although it is his best-known in Idaho, it is not his best-selling book. Conley’s personal chart-topper is his first, subsequently revised and titled “The Middle Fork: a Guide,” which he published in 1977. Conley won’t reveal total sales of the book for fear of attracting competition, but outof-staters coming to Idaho for one of the premier back-country experiences buy the book by the box full.

The success was unexpected, he said. He wrote and designed it on his brother’s kitchen table and had just 3,000 copies printed. “I sold them the first summer,” he says, still expressing disbelief almost 20 years later. “These books were selling every summer because there was a new group of tourists coming in, something I never anticipated. I stumbled onto a recirculating market.”

Now, he said, the joke is that his book is available “wherever beer is sold” in central Idaho. Conley said he keeps expecting sales to slow down, but they don’t. “Every summer, somewhere I’m shipping 20 cases at a time.”

Prodded by the success of the Middle Fork book, he wrote and published “River of No Return” in 1978, “Snake River of Hells Canyon” in 1979 and then in 1982, “Idaho for the Curious.”

Since then, Conley has revised the early guidebooks. He has also published a collection of river poems; Spokane journalist Rick Ripley’s non-fiction book about a back-country wild man, the Ridgerunner; Boise journalist Tim Woodward’s humorous “Is Idaho in Iowa?” and this year’s collection of profiles by Conley: “Idaho Loners.” He also republished “The Last of the Mountain Men,” a detailed account of the life of Sylvan Hart.

Although he’s not made himself rich, Conley has made a name for himself.

“He is extremely successful,” said Jean Wilson, recently retired after 32 years as owner of Boise’s leading bookstore, The Book Shop. “He’s the most successful small press person in Idaho. I would say he would give the Pacific Northwest small presses a run for their money.”

Wilson’s son, Dan, said Conley has a sharp eye for cover designs and attractive titles. “He seems to have a knack for knowing what people are interested in as far as our state goes.”

At The Bookseller in Coeur d’Alene, “Idaho for the Curious” sells about 50 copies a year and has for the last five years, making it the shop’s best-selling regional book, said owner Steve Meyer.

“Regional history like that sells well for us,” Meyer said. “They (readers) just rave about all of the lore.” He said “Idaho for the Curious” finds a new market every year as tourists grab it on their way through Idaho and locals stock it in their car.

How do you become a publisher?

Conley’s career seems to be a marriage of the things he knows and the places he loves: Idaho, its back-country and the English language.

Born and reared in Berkeley, Calif., he has worked as a fire look-out, a logger, an oil rig laborer, a horse packer and a river guide.

Summers spent at a family cabin in the Mother Lode near Nevada City, Calif., fueled his desire to work outdoors.

“From the time I was old enough to know anything, I had a passionate interest in birds, which led to an interest in natural history,” he said.

Winters, beginning in the eighth grade, he worked in the Co-op Bookstore in Berkeley. He learned which books sell and why and drank in the culture of bookworms. “This place was full of left-wingers and anarchists and I was this pretty conservative kid,” he said. The experience sold him on the culture of learning and writing.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Conley headed for the hills and made his way to Idaho by the early 1970s.

Researching the history of the back-country, he decided to write his books after discovering few comprehensive works on the subject. Drawing on his years as a bookstore clerk and manager, he opted to publish the books himself.

While he writes well, Conley said it is not his first love. “What I most like to do is research,” he said. “That’s the fun part, is digging out these connections. Trusky (Tom Trusky, a writer/publisher friend) and I call it “ooga-booga,” he said, referring to the moments of coincidence or fate when they stumble on important facts in unexpected places.

He says some of his early work makes him cringe, but that he’s proud of the newer stuff, especially “Idaho Loners.”

“I know that I’m learning as I go and that’s encouraging,” he said. “I’ve been so lucky.”

After making his name as a savvy small publisher, Conley will next year step up from the regional bookshelf to national distribution with two new books.

He is co-editing with prize-winning novelist Annie Dillard a collection of 20th century American memoirs, scheduled for publication by giant Harper Collins Publishers. And Roberts Rinehart Publishers is planning a 1995 release of a children’s book Conley tried out on his nephews and nieces for several years before finding a national publisher.

Currently engrossed in building a log home near the Salmon River in Stanley, he is planning more projects for Backeddy Books, stories that he says he is driven to protect from obscurity.

“I have this belief that time has a way of taking care of things that don’t find the safety of print,” he said. “If I don’t do that, I don’t see how it will ever get done.”