ANNOUNCER: Tonight on Showcase with Barbara Kellar author Kevin Grace and publisher Richard Hunt.

Stay tuned, Showcase starts right now.

[music] KELLAR: Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar and I'm so glad you tuned in today because we have a wonderful program about books and men who make the books.

And our two guests are Richard Hunt and Kevin Grace.

And they're going to both tell you about their affiliation with books and how they get from someone's brain into your hands.

Kevin, tell us, first of all, a little bit about your background and then we want to know about your book.

GRACE: Okay.

Well, I just retired in '21 from University of Cincinnati, where I was head of the Archives and Rare Books library.

And I was there for 42 years.

And I also taught in the honors program, especially a course, on books and reading cross-culturally.

So I took students around the world to study that.

And I did a number of books, but the last one I did is the Literary History of Cincinnati.

And that was my favorite because it's all about the heritage of books.

KELLAR: Oh, that sounds really fabulous.

Tell us more about it.

GRACE: Well, I used it as an excuse since I was heading into retirement, telling the stories that I'd been accumulating for decades.

And one of the things I loved the most about Cincinnati literary history was the fact that we're now in another golden age of bookstores and literary culture in the city.

We had that in the 19th century because Cincinnati was one of the major publishing centers in the country, and now we've come back around to that again.

So I wanted to tell that story.

And then I also wanted to tell the story of all the odd characters that have inhabited the city in those realms since that day.

And then finally, being a lover of Shakespeare, I wanted to write about the history of Shakespeare in Cincinnati, so I made that the final chapter.

But I also wanted to be kind of a guidebook.

So I listed there 50 essential books that you need to read to learn about Cincinnati, Essential organizations that are involved with the heritage of writing and publishing and things of that sort, and then points of interest as well.

So it was kind of a kind of a hodgepodge love affair I had with the book.

KELLAR: How far back does Cincinnati go?

And I mean, 18th century?

GRACE: 18th century would have been a little too soon.

KELLAR: A little too far back.

So then where would you start?

GRACE: We look at Cincinnati being founded in 1788, or established as a city.

Then by the early 1800s, we started to have bookshops, we started to have publishers, and that just grew and grew and grew.

And we had monster publishers like the McGuffey Readers in Cincinnati, Oxford and Miami University might try and lay claim to that, but no, we'll take Cincinnati.

KELLAR: Right, so early 19th century.

GRACE: Yes.

KELLAR: As books became, when -- did you see a trend where normal, quote, average people could go and buy a book?

Because that was not possible in the early days, they were too expensive.

GRACE: Yeah, but the thing is, by the time Cincinnati came along and we started publishing here, technology advanced to the point where books were affordable.

KELLAR: Oh, okay, good.

GRACE: So, I'd say by the 1820s in Cincinnati, being able to buy books was fairly common.

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh.

I didn't realize that.

I was thinking of, you know, being a lot.

And did a lot of just normal people -- Normal.

I keep talking about normal.

Just go in a bookstore and buy a book.

I think that's fabulous.

I didn't know that.

GRACE: Oh, yeah.

And a lot of the publishers in Cincinnati had their own bookshops attached to that.

And that's something like what we see the case now with Richard at Roebling is that he's not only a bookseller, but a book publisher.

So they were able to do that too.

And then, of course, libraries we're starting.

KELLAR: I was just going to ask you, when did libraries start?

When was the first?

GRACE: Well, the first effort at a library was in the very early 1800s.

And by the 1820s, again, we were moving toward having a public library established in Cincinnati.

So Cincinnati's love affair with books and reading permeates its entire history.

KELLAR: Yeah.

And Richard, you're president of the Literary Club.

And the Mercantile Library was -- do you -- HUNT: They're their older cousin.

They've been around probably a decade longer.

KELLAR: Yeah, the Mercantile.

HUNT: The Mercantile has.

KELLAR: And when would that be?

HUNT: They're -- We're at 173 years, so they're probably getting close to that 200, you know, 2nd century.

And I'm sure it'll be a big gala that they put on because they do a great job.

KELLAR: In the same space.

Yeah.

HUNT: Yeah, yeah.

That lease for 100 years or whatever they have, that is just priceless, as they say.

KELLAR: Tell us a little bit about some of the other books you've written.

GRACE: Oh, gosh.

Well, I partnered with Jack Klumpe, who was the sports photographer for The Post.

We did a couple of books on the Reds.

My oldest son and I did a book on Cincinnati boxing.

KELLAR: Wow.

HUNT: Had a tough time finding a publisher until I said, "Well, I can get this guy Buddy LaRosa to do the foreword."

KELLAR: Oh, sure.

Yeah, we love Buddy.

GRACE: As long as we had a name recognition.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: And a couple of other sports books.

A former colleague of mine, Tom White, we did one on Cincinnati cemeteries.

We did a general book on Cincinnati called Cincinnati Revealed.

So it's been kind of a look at anything I happen to be interested in at the time.

KELLAR: Yeah.

And all about Cincinnati.

GRACE: Most of them were about Cincinnati.

Yeah.

KELLAR: Have you done any fiction?

GRACE: No, because I think the nonfiction of Cincinnati is much better.

KELLAR: Oh, it's better than the fiction, right?

Wouldn't you say?

Can you tell us your stories about Cincinnati and books and publishing, some of your favorite vignettes, maybe?

GRACE: Well, my favorite bookseller in the history of Cincinnati was Bert Smith, who had Acres of Books.

KELLAR: And oh, I remember that.

GRACE: Oh, yeah.

KELLAR: Downtown.

GRACE: On Main Street.

KELLAR: Yes, I remember that.

Yeah.

A lot of old books.

GRACE: Four stories.

Bert Smith moved out to Long Beach fairly early on and transferred it over to his son, Bert Smith, Jr.

But he was a character.

He started selling books out of a bar and eventually -- KELLAR: Oh, what an interesting place to sell.

GRACE: Yeah.

KELLAR: Read while you drink.

GRACE: Yeah.

KELLAR: Or while you eat.

GRACE: Draw them in, sell them a book.

But he started Acres of Books, and it was just this fascinating place.

It was four stories of dusty bookshelves and anything you could imagine.

So when I was an undergrad at Wright State up in Dayton, I came down to Acres of Books for the first time when we were going to go to Grammer's and then to a ball game.

And I just fell in love with that shop.

By that time, a fellow by the name of John Coleman owned it.

And Coleman wasn't the friendliest guy in the world.

He knew his books, but if you wanted a conversation, he wasn't interested.

But I found books I wanted.

He tied them up with brown paper and string.

And here's the thing I love most about it is they used to have all these prints and portraits of authors and other book people on the wall.

And a few years ago, I bought this one that used to hang in Acres of Books.

And it's an old bearded guy, long beard, long hair and glasses, and he's reading a book.

And undoubtedly he was somebody, but I've never been able to find out.

People have said Leo Tolstoy, Walt Whitman, who knows who he is.

None of that happened.

But Acres of Books was an institution.

And right up the street and across the street from it was the Ohio Book Store.

Which is still going strong and still one of the finest used bookshops in the country.

So the thing is, we've always been surrounded by these stores in Cincinnati.

And as I said, we've entered another golden age where bookshops are -- brick and mortar bookshops are popping up all over.

We've got them across the river, for instance, with Roebling, two locations now.

But we had another new bookshop opened in the Oakley Hyde Park area just a couple weeks ago.

The Bookery.

KELLAR: Where's that?

We're Hyde Parkers.

GRACE: Oh, and then the Tome Bookstore in Mount Washington.

KELLAR: Oh, I don't know that one.

GRACE: We still have Joseph Beth.

KELLAR: Of course.

GRACE: We have Downbound Books in Northside, which is a phenomenal bookshop.

So, we're kind of back to where our glory days were in the 19th century and early 20th century, where there were bookshops and publishers all over the place.

We're getting back to that now.

KELLAR: I thought it would be diminishing because of Kindle.

GRACE: No, I think I've seen the opposite.

KELLAR: Really?

How do you account for that?

GRACE: That people want to read books.

KELLAR: They want to hold the book.

GRACE: Yeah.

I mean, there's still a place for Kindle.

I mean, if you're on a transcontinental flight, a Kindle is an easy thing to have.

But people are buying.

And of course, Richard can speak to this more than I in terms of how the sales go and all that.

But people seem to want more and more bookshops that they can walk into.

They don't necessarily want to go to Amazon or another online bookseller like that.

But it just seems the trend now is back to where hardcopy analog books are selling more than eBooks are.

And, you know, that's fine.

I mean, there's a place for everything, right?

KELLAR: Right.

I like a book.

Yeah, if you want to Amazon, you can get a book in a couple hours.

They've got it at your door.

It's unbelievable.

Like they'll be here by six -- between 4 and 6 a.m. GRACE: And you pay through the nose for that.

KELLAR: Yeah.

You do?

Is that -- Do they charge more for that?

GRACE: Oh, sure, sure.

KELLAR: I guess they'd have to.

GRACE: It's a service.

KELLAR: Yeah, but when you would go to the used bookstore, how do you start looking?

Is it Alpha?

All those old books, are they alphabetized or -- GRACE: I guess in the more organized stores they are.

But typically, when I started grad school at UC back in the mid 70s there was Duttenhofer's up on -- KELLAR: Oh, I remember them too.

GRACE: And still in business.

KELLAR: Yeah.

GRACE: And they're organized by subject.

So when I go into a place like Duttenhofer's, into Ohio Book Store, I go to the subject areas I'm interested in and you hope something's alphabetical within that.

But part of the pleasure of it is just browsing.

KELLAR: Is just seeing, yeah, browsing.

Well, maybe subjects.

Does he have maybe -- GRACE: Yeah, for instance, a place like Ohio Book Store is very good on selling books about the Ohio Valley.

That's one of their strengths.

And it depends.

I remember a bookshop I used to go to in upstate New York, Vladimir Dragon was the booksellers name, his real name.

And he had a list of rules as you went in.

And he didn't really want customers, but he was a kind of guy where everything was organized and you had to discover that organization for yourself because he damn well wasn't going to help you.

KELLAR: Okay.

GRACE: That's not the case with most booksellers.

But in the case of Cincinnati, the fine bookshops we have, they're organized by subject.

KELLAR: Yeah.

GRACE: So, there's still the pleasure of browsing, but not the despair of confusion.

KELLAR: I was so kind of really upset thinking that bookstores were going out of business because of Kindle.

But wow, to hear that it's better, that's really.

GRACE: Well, again, Richard can speak to the commercial aspect of that better than I could.

But a lot of bookstores did go under.

KELLAR: Yeah, but maybe it was for other reasons.

GRACE: It could be.

KELLAR: Well, it could have been the pandemic because people couldn't -- didn't go out to buy it.

GRACE: Right, but they were going under before then too.

One of my favorite bookstore chains was Borders, for instance, and they went out of business because they had a bad business plan.

KELLAR: Yeah.

GRACE: But I don't really know how it's going today financially for brick and mortar stores.

But the indication I can see just from the point of view of a reader is that they're coming along pretty well.

KELLAR: Oh, well, that's -- your triple bypass worked and the bookstores are coming back.

That is really -- that's really great.

GRACE: Yeah, and I'm being left alone to read more.

KELLAR: Yes, that's, yeah, you got to have time to read.

And Richard, you're very much in this part of the world.

Tell us about your publishing.

HUNT: At Adventure Keen Publishing we publish regional books.

It's kind of a -- it sounds oxymoronic that we're a national regional publisher, but, you know, we probably have a lot of books by state.

We have a lot of books by city.

Here in Cincinnati we either have 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Cincinnati, which is essentially around that 275 loop.

We have Walking Cincinnati, which is the neighborhoods.

We've done some Reds books as well because they're ubiquitous in this town.

And it's really nice.

Kevin has done a terrific job in pulling that literary part of it.

But the culture, the book culture that he alluded to, I mean, in some respects ties to Cincinnati's history of the German heritage.

And a lot of those folks were printers.

So, you know, those big Heidelberg -- KELLAR: Heidelberg was the first press, wasn't it?

HUNT: Yeah.

Yeah.

And then the big Heidelberg printing presses that you still see different places are very much a German icon of sorts.

But it's again a testament, not only to Kevin and his research, but to Cincinnati in that there's probably only six cities in America that could really support a literary history and to be able to touch on one right here.

And looking at the Arcadia History Press list, which has 14,000 different books, again, very regional.

It's the only literary guide that they have even within this country.

And they're a company I tremendously admire.

And so if there was more opportunity, if there were more cities with literary histories, they'd be the first ones to do it.

But Cincinnati is unique in that regard.

KELLAR: Do people come to you with a book idea?

HUNT: They can, but most presses that aren't Random House or, you know, Simon Schuster, Harper Collins tends to specialize, and we do too.

So we would not be the best place to publish fiction unless it has some orientation to the outdoors.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: Or our city.

KELLAR: Yeah.

We mentioned it before, but okay, let's say I want to write a book and I sit down and I write it and I type it out or whatever.

Then what do I do?

HUNT: That's where it's just as much work.

KELLAR: Okay, you want to talk about that?

I mean, people don't know that.

It's not like everybody wants to write a book, but what do you do if you do?

GRACE: I think you start looking for a publisher that focuses on the topic you've written about.

Just as Richard said, he focuses on certain areas.

So if you've written a book about the outdoors, say, in Kentucky or Ohio or Indiana, then you look up to see what publishers are publishing that kind of material, and you wind up with Richard, who can.

And then after that, you go through the whole process of submitting your manuscript, having a publisher have take a look at it, see if it's viable, see if they can make some money at it, because it's a business.

KELLAR: Exactly.

GRACE: And if so, then you go through the whole contract procedure and the editing procedure and the design procedure.

And so realistically, from the idea in your head to the time you get the book written and let's say you really stick to it, to the time you see it on a bookshelf, it can be 24 to 36 months.

KELLAR: Well, better than 24 or 36 years.

GRACE: And that happens sometimes.

KELLAR: Yes, I think so.

But if you have fiction, you would send that to a mainline publisher and they would say, "We don't -- we can't sell this, or we can."

And you'll be rejected many times.

HUNT: The intermediary of an agent helps the best fiction.

KELLAR: That's right.

Yeah.

HUNT: But it's, you know, it would be very beneficial to that author to go into a store and imagine seeing this is where the book would be and looking at the colophon on the spines and go, "Who does publish in these areas?

That's where I'll start."

KELLAR: Yeah, I remember now, my daughter had a literary agent.

And it's like in showbiz, you got -- first you've got to have an agent.

GRACE: It's extremely rare to send a fiction manuscript over the transom and expect it to be published.

Richard's right.

You really have to have an agent for something like that.

But for nonfiction, there's a little more flexibility to that, again, depending on the topic.

KELLAR: Yeah.

I remember Richard Serling talking about how many -- he said, "I have huge chests full of rejection notices."

GRACE: I've had a few of those, too.

KELLAR: Yeah, and you have to get used to not being loved.

HUNT: But the benefit sometimes of writing nonfiction is you can almost write a synopsis and a sample table of contents and a chapter or two.

You don't have to write the whole get go before you start to contact the publisher.

KELLAR: Oh, I didn't realize that.

HUNT: Right, because they'll be able to see and then, if they're interested, kind of guide it along their principles.

Fiction you've got to do the whole thing because you want to know the ending by the time you're done.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Well, you haven't ever delved into fiction?

GRACE: I haven't, no.

KELLAR: Have you?

HUNT: Our accounting is all fiction.

But no, we have -- We have.

GRACE: Just what an author who wants to hear.

HUNT: We have three books of fiction, and that's because they overlap in some of the subject areas that we publish into.

But we've seen easy expansion into kids books, and which is a real nice thing, because to get them active, to get kids outdoors and when they were out of school and, you know, learning remotely to give them almost science projects, go out in the backyard, find fossils, you know, find birds, find, identify animals.

And that gave them some hands on kind of field learning with a guide.

And I'd like to think that we write books that hold their interest all the way through because we really do try to be in contact with what we would call an ideal reader and have their response sort of instruct us as we go.

KELLAR: Are you the person or the business that would try to get those books into regular bookstores?

HUNT: We try to a lot, and we also try to get them into the Cincinnati Nature Center and we try to get them into what we would call special sales accounts.

Because they can do very well with books that kind of are in their specialty as well.

You start to recognize everybody's got a market and as a publisher, you want to create a quilt and you want to first go to your bookstores and your book wholesalers, but then reach out as much as you can, because for a book like Walking Cincinnati, it's of great interest to us here, it's of great interest to the people watching this.

But if you go to Columbus, who cares?

Right.

So we really do try to understand that local market very, very well, and that helps us project the subsequent books that we might do.

KELLAR: Tell us a little bit about the Literary Club.

HUNT: The Literary Club is definitely an anachronism, but it's probably also idiosyncratic in a lot of ways, in that it has been around for 173 years.

It was founded by a group of young men moving to this Cincinnati in the 1840s, you know, which that draw to an urban area from a rural area was real at that point.

There was a lot of immigration going on at that point too.

So it kind of became a social.

I'm new in town, you know, and there were certain professions that came up through it.

I mean, there were two presidents that were part of the Literary Club, Harding and Taft.

There's been a whole lot of local people who have a decided interest in supporting the book arts.

And it's, you know, again, as Kevin picked up, that's almost endemic to Cincinnati, and it's really nice to recognize it because book people tend not to be kind of outgoing for the most part.

It's a quieter group.

KELLAR: We like to be at home reading.

HUNT: Yeah.

Yes, right, right.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

That's all good.

But we also look to find a way to be a service to writers groups and to do more and more events that we've been able to do in the last couple of years since we learned about Zoom.

We've had the poet laureates come in and talk, and those events are always open to the public.

We're trying to use, it was a building down on 4th Street that was given to the Literary Club by the Taft's.

And almost like Bengals stadium, and it only gets used on Monday nights beforehand.

But now we're opening it up more and more.

And we'd like to see, you know, we want to be able to serve a community, the same way a publisher does, the same way an author provides the works to think about who they're writing for.

And we know that we need to grow and expand our community and we want to find ways to do that.

KELLAR: How many members?

HUNT: 100.

KELLAR: 100.

HUNT: And that's -- KELLAR: You've left out the part where you have to write.

HUNT: You do.

You have to write a paper.

KELLAR: That comes first.

HUNT: And you have to also be able to read it.

And that's just as important.

And you know, for an author, they'll often say, "Writing the book is the first step, and promoting the book is the second step."

For the Literary Club it's writing that paper first and then practicing it, because you don't want to just sit and look at a piece of paper and not make some eye contact.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: And then be a little a little more fluent and natural.

KELLAR: Yeah, and you have to -- do you read a paper as some sort of audition to get in the club?

HUNT: You do.

There is a submission for membership paper.

And they take a look at it, but you're also doing an application and sort of say, "I'll probably draw from these areas.

I enjoy this type of book, this type of reading."

KELLAR: Well, I'm going to make the statement that's -- you said you're trying to branch out and do blah, blah, blah.

Maybe the first thing would be to admit females.

HUNT: Indeed.

Yes.

And we've been talking I mean, we've been talking a lot about that even since 2014 when there was a really important shift.

But I think any, you know, any person or any organization, if they feel put upon, it always is going to turtle, you know.

And you realize the change has to come from inside.

You know, if you're coming from the outside, it's a lot harder to get a response.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: So there's, I mean, it's a very bright group of people and you want to find a way -- KELLAR: Some of the members are close friends and they've sent me their papers, which I think are really good.

I mean, you have to be pretty good to get in the Literary Club.

HUNT: You'd like to think so, but there's a lot of really good people and you want to sort of bring, well, open those doors pretty wide.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Yeah.

HUNT: And I think on that publishing side, the one person, and I know he's been on the show, who is one of the best book publishers, or was in the country was Dick Rosenthal.

And he was able to blend -- KELLAR: Well that was -- didn't they own an actuarial book publishing?

Didn't they publish actuarial books?

HUNT: They did more writers digest, North Light Art Books.

So they were general trade books.

But he really published to enthusiasts.

And what they did so much better than any New York publisher was, say, "Okay, here's the books and here's our magazines.

We're going to try our book ideas in the magazines."

And then they had book clubs in those same subjects.

So they said, "Let's poll them and see which ones they'd like to see a book."

And then depending on how good that response came in, they said, "Let's do a book on it, because there's this percentage of people that we asked who would really look forward to it."

And nobody braided that together as well.

KELLAR: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I had forgotten that they owned a publishing company -- HUNT: He was very -- KELLAR: -- of that of that kind.

Are there some publishers who specialize in, as I've said here, the actuary -- insurance actuarial tables, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

HUNT: I believe there was one here in town.

I think Dave Lupert, who was the CFO at F&W went to run it after he retired.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: But I don't know the name.

It might have had standard in it somewhat in the business name, Cincinnati Standard.

KELLAR: Yeah, but those aren't the people that we care about because we want.

We don't want to read actuarial tables.

We don't need those.

HUNT: People get paid good money to read those books.

KELLAR: Yes, that's right.

[snoring] Sometimes I think when I hear people reading that I'd just as soon hear an actuarial table.

But, you know, you're absolutely right.

I never thought about that.

You need to be able to read what you wrote and make it interesting.

HUNT: Right.

KELLAR: Because for instance, Jonathan Winters, you remember the comedian?

He could pick up the phone book, literally, and you'd be laughing hysterically.

Other people can read this genius paper and it's so boring because they don't know how to read it.

HUNT: Right.

And there are members who have been teachers or professors, they're very good in front of the group.

KELLAR: Yeah.

HUNT: You know, and even some lawyers are very good in front of the group.

So everybody has their strengths.

It's just nice balancing them.

KELLAR: I'm always amazed when someone who's very accomplished and you'd think used to public speaking will get up and you can't hear them there and you think, "Why haven't they had some tutoring?"

I want to go into business where I tutor them.

You've got, first of all, they have to hear you.

If they can't hear you, it doesn't matter what you're saying.

You can be the most brilliant comedian or philosopher or what, but if your audience doesn't hear you, and so often that's true.

They keep their voice and their face like this.

HUNT: And sometimes that voice is very alive on the page, so you're expecting that.

You're expecting that vibrancy.

And when I worked -- I worked at Bantam Doubleday Dell in New York for 15 years.

And very often, especially for first time authors, we sent them to media coaches because that was how they were going to learn to project and, you know, engaged and do all those other elements.

KELLAR: Our time is up.

You guys are so interesting and fun and I'm sorry we could have gone on for a longer time, but I hope our paths cross somewhere else and I wish you lots and lots of luck with everything and we'll look for your success.

ANNOUNCER: Join us next week for another episode of Showcase with Barbara Kellar right here on CET.

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