Adventures in Self-Publishing:

A Personal, Do-It-Yourself History of Cartography

Mark MonmonierMaxwell School of Citizenship & Public AffairsSyracuse University

Memoir (Dictionary.com):1.A record of events

written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation;

2.Usually, memoirs. An account of one’s personal life and experiences; autobiography.

Cover of Book 1

Cover of Book 2

In standard usage among historians, internal history is the sort that focuses primarily or exclusively on the professional activities of the members of a particular scientific community: What theories do they hold? What experiments do they perform? How do the two interact to produce novelty. External history, on the other hand, considers the relations between such scientific communities and the larger culture.—Thomas Kuhn, “Notes on Lakatos” (1970)

Organization and contentsResearch and writingAbortive attempts at finding a “real” publisherPublishing with AmazonCreating a coverThe obligatory photo galleryMarketing, promotion, reviewsRevised edition

Brief outline of what follows

Chapter titles and other content

7. History8. “Theory”9. Map Collecting10. Writing11. Epilog

Bibliographic Essay

IndexPhoto Gallery

Preface1. Background2. Cart Labs3. Research Streams4. Books5. Service6. Consulting

Annotated pages forcurrent project: a book on patentedcartographic inventions

Record book entry for8 – 11 May 1988, visualization symposium atPrinceton; met John Tukey

No luck in finding a “real” publisher

• Turned down by a literary agent: would be a hard sellbecause successful marketing would be too difficult

• Too small a market for a commercial publisher• Syracuse University Press is no longer publishing

memoirs—looked at the manuscript but was insufficiently impressed by the likely market

• Two other university presses not publishing memoirs• Open-source publisher De Guyter Open had a

favorable review of the proposal but would requirea troublesome conversion to its own standard format.

EdwardTufte,

self-publisher extraordinaire

Logo for the title pageand back cover

For thespine

Alexis Sadoti,Geo 381, Fall 2011

Size: 5.5" × 8.5"

Birch Std, 44-pt., regular

Chalkduster, 26-pt regular

Gills Sans, 13-pt. regular + italic

Background:12C, 0M, 8Y, 0K

Gills Sans, 12-pt. regular

Corner mounts:88C, 30M, 72Y, 16K

A matter of style

Thwarting defaultdownsampling inWord by Adobe PDF Conversion

Now on Kindle too, minusthe index

Out-of-pocket costs

$1,560.00

140.4279.0055.0031.1527.9310.00

$1,903.50

copy editing22 promotional copies of print bookKindle conversioncopyright registration3 proof copies + tax + shipping7 Kindle licenses, proofing and promotionISBN registration for Bar Scale PressTOTAL

Libraries with copies, according to WorldCat.org10 in the United States:

Syracuse University University of ChicagoCornell University The NewberryNew York Public Library University of IllinoisUniversity of Pennsylvania University of DenverLibrary of Congress UW—Milwaukee

1 in Canada: University of Alberta

6 in Europe:Universiteit van Amsterdam Zentralbibliothek,Badische Landesbibliothek, Karlsruhe ZürichSächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden Trinity College,Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, Leipzig Dublin

The no-go reviewcopies

list

“The cheeky take-off of the iconic 2008 Obama poster on Adventures’ front cover places his own image above the word MAP. What a fortunate juxtaposition for cartography,and we are equally fortunate that he has shared the story behind that juxtaposition.”

—Roger Downs, in Imago Mundi

“A remarkable clarity, punctilious copyediting and proofingdistinguish his books, including this one, reflecting a flairfor language that readers enjoy sampling.”

—Paul Starrs, in Geographical Review

Bad break: Alt | though, rather than Al | though

Overly gappy line

Before

After

Patents and Cartographic Inventions:A New Perspective for Map History

Forthcoming in 2017from Palgrave Macmillan

Herman E. Schulse,“Chronological Instrument,”

US Patent 1,959,601,awarded 22 May 1934