A Century of Pirates
A Century of Pirates is a book about sports. But more thanthat, it's a book about life in America.It's a book about sports, not as a way of life, but as a uniquepart of life. It's a record book, certainly, and a remarkable one -a thoroughgoing record of the facts and figures, and the faces,of the best and the brightest of 100 years of Bluffton HighSchool athletics.It's also an invaluable repository of stories and lore.Between these covers, you'll find a (not necessarily unbiased)contemporary account of Bluffton High School's first footballgame, a scoreless draw with Columbus Grove in 1901. You'llmeet Long John Silver and find out how the Pirates got theirnickname. You'll relive the down-to-the-wire tension as the1981 Pirate wrestlers became the first Bluffton team to win astate championship.Beyond that, the book offers a reminder of how sports canbind us together, particularly those of us who live in smalltowns, where everybody has a rooting interest in the hometeam. It's about hopes and aspirations, about the shared experiencesthat unite communities and generations.Every small town should have a book like this one. If yougrew up in Bluffton, you're sure to find people and events inthis book that you remember. You'll have a chance to relivebrief, golden moments from your past or your family's past. Youmight even come face to face with a younger version of yourself.If you didn't grow up in Bluffton, you'll find something in thisbook that will make you wish you had.Bluffton is lucky to have had a century of Pirates. And it'slucky to have A Century of Pirates.- Mike Lackey, The Lima NewsAdvertisments
Feature
The Making of A CENTURY OF PIRATES
A small-town newspaper in Ohio decided to publish a book about high school sports, but it became much more thanthat--it became a book about life in America.
As the guardian of all sorts of sports statistics, photos and stories from our community's high school, it was natural that we would publish a sports history book of our high school. The question was, simply, when will we publish it? Other questions included: How many copies will we print? How many pages will be in the book? What price will we put on the book? There were a host of smaller, more time-consuming questions that came later.Looking back, it would have been nice to have an owner's manual on how to put the project together, but none existed. Our situation may be similar to many other small community newspapers across the United States. Sharing our approach may help the next small newspaper staff tackle such a project. We now know this: if we can do it, so can you.
The Bluffton News is located in a rural northwestern Ohio community surrounded in the summer by thousands of acres of wheat, soybeans and corn. The weekly newspaper has a 2,900 circulation. The community has nearly 3,800 residents, not including about 1,000 college students who call Bluffton home from September to May.
The primary reason we chose to publish a book was to generate income from a non-traditional revenue source. Going after the same advertisers week after week in our small Main Street retail businesses is tough. We needed a new promotion, and the book answered that need.
In reviewing ideas that would generate non-traditional revenue, the sports book evolved for a number of reasons. For the past 25 years various News editors maintained detailed sports statistics of Bluffton High School teams and individuals athletes. Also, our school's girls' basketball team had back-to-back trips to the state tournament. With these two pieces in place we had the material and an audience eager to own a piece of history.
Coincidentally, The News celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2000-2001. We wanted a vehicle to remind readers of our longevity in the community. The book solved that problem. On the front cover we added the phase "Commemorating the 125th anniversary of The Bluffton News." Finally, with the turn of the century upon us, we used "century" in the book title. Knowing that athletic records are constantly broken, those in the book represent records of our school's first century. They are forever carved in stone.
The entire project took about 12 months to complete. Much of the first six months included research and planning. Take, for example, the book title. After about 25 ideas, "A Century Of Pirates" won (a Pirate is the school's mascot). More importantly, we needed to decide what exactly the book would and wouldn't contain. Our original concept included an assortment of all types of community sport information, including midget football, summer youth swim teams, summer church baseball, 5-K runs, bowling, junior high records and some Bluffton College records. We thought all of this would join the high school material, but soon realized our book was becoming an encyclopedia. It covered too much material. So, we backed off and whittled the extraneous stuff away. What remained was Bluffton High School sports in a 128-page package, with advertising sharing some of the page space.
Once we narrowed the book's content, we worked on filling the pages. This consumed most of the second six-month working period. Concerning advertising, we created two ways to sell ads: to businesses and to individuals. We offered full, half and quarter page sizes. We focused on businesses that advertised in our high school sports program, whose owners played sports or whose children played sports in high school. Then, at lower prices, we offered community spirit ads. These were for individuals who wished to honor a family member with an ad. These ads usually included a photo of someone in an athletic uniform with a family greeting under the photo. We promoted all ad opportunities with house ads in our newspaper. We also created a flier to promote the community spirit ads. We mailed these to parents of all high school athletes in our school.
We divided the book into three sections. The first (30 pages) included stories and photos of some special teams from 1900 to 1950. The second (45 pages) included photos and photo identification of all championship teams in nine sports from 1923 (when most of records started) until 1999-2000. The third (40 pages) included team and individual statistics and advertisements. Realizing names printed are potential sales, we published as many statistics as we could find. We even published the all-time list of homecoming queens and kings. The finished project included over 80 team photos and over 25 individual photos.
Most of the photos prior to 1980 were scanned from our public library's yearbook collection. Without the library's help, we couldn't have completed the project. The other photos were from The News archives and private collections. In addition, we identified eight individuals from our school who went on to play in the Big Ten. Each of these athletics has a photo and brief biographical sketch in the book. Our school had seven boys' basketball teams advance to state tournament play between the years of 1912 and 1942. Fortunately, a News editor wrote a series on these teams, which the News published in the early 1960s. We used those stories in the book. We also discovered a story on the first-ever BHS football team (of 1900), found a team photo and identification. We discovered a few other teams prior to 1950 with unique stories. We published those also.
In an attempt to increase sales, the book includes team photos of each team from the 1999-2000 school year. Looking back, our sales from this age group didn't product what we had hoped. We might have better utilized the space by printing more photos of "runner-up teams." One other disappointment was that we did not purchase an ISBN for the book. At the time, we didn't feel it was necessary, since the minimum order cost $250 for five ISBNs. Now, in an attempt to place the book in area Walden Bookstore, we find an ISBN is required.
To complete the project, we invited an area daily newspaper columnist to write the back cover copy. We invited a nationally published free-lance artist and BHS grad to design the Pirate for the cover, and invited another BHS grad, who holds a doctorate in history, to write the preface.
As a formal book launch we held a party. We called it a "Night of Pirate Stories." For the event we invited 10 former players and coaches to speak. These men and women represented seven decades of athletics. Over 100 persons attended the program. We video-taped the program and donated it to the public library.
In a pre-publication blitz we sold 315 copies. Combined with advertising, we generated about $11,500 before any books were on the printing press. The book is now available at $24.95. At this price, we've sold 135 copies since August. Now we are gathering mailing lists from those in charge of class reunions from Bluffton High School. We've mailed book fliers to nearly 10 class lists. The flier offers a free three-month subscription to The News (a $9.75 value) for each book order.
Since The News has a commercial print shop, the book and cover were printed in-house. The bindery work was handled outside. So, we not only created a new revenue source, we kept our own press busy.
The community response has been tremendous. One customer bought eight copies for Christmas gifts. Of course, there are armchair quarterbacks wondering why we didn't highlight "this team or that one" better than we did. As a pat on the back to our newspaper staff, we listed every staff member's name and the role that person played in producing the book, on the acknowledgment page. We also acknowledged many people who helped us by providing statistics from more obscure sports, or who had photos we didn't have in our collection.
We've sold one third of the books in the first six months. The next 1,000 book sales will be the most difficult. However, like all good pirates, we created a contingency plan. In case the remaining 1,000 don't sell too quickly, we've left 500 books unbound. If we have many books remaining in, say, five years, we will add 12 to 24 pages of new statistics to create an updated edition.
We believe that we'll be sold out by then, however.
Overview
Title: A Century of Pirates: Stories, Photographs and Records of Bluffton High School Championship Athletic Teams and Players of the 20th Century
Size: 8 1/2 by 11 inches, perfect bound (signatures of 8)
Pages: 128
Print run: 1,500 books
Book released: August 2000
Selling price: $14.95 on orders prior to July 1, 2000; $24.95 current price
Total sale (books and ads) revenue to date: Approximately $15,000
Advertising revenue: $6,500 ($5,500 in retail ads; $1,000 in "community spirit ads," by individuals
Total book sales through Feb. 1, 2001: Approximately 450