Taking the idea of experiential travel to new lengths, San Francisco-based Traveler's Tales Inc., publisher of travel anthologies such as A Woman's World (60,000 in print) and guides such as The Fearless Diner, is launching a new imprint called Footsteps: The Soul of Travel. Hoping to capitalize on the fervor for first-person travel literature that has led to such bestsellers as Under the Tuscan Sun, the Footstep line will be full-length, single author narratives in hardcover-a first in the company's history.
The inaugural title, which appeared this spring, is Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey by Laurie Gough, with a print run of 7500. The company plans to release a second title by the end of the year by photographer Mikkel Aaland, and thereafter, two each season.
The launch of Footsteps comes as Travelers Tales moves offices to new quarters in the tony South of Market (SoMa) district. Travelers Tales, co-owned by publisher James O'Reilly and brother Tim O'Reilly, founder and president of computer publishing house O'Reilly & Associates, published its first title in 1993, and now counts 25 titles in its backlist.
"Travelers Tales and O'Reilly are separate but sibling companies, related sort of like we are," said Tim O'Reilly, whose computer book company handles all of Travelers Tales' marketing and distribution. "And the idea for both companies came from a similar source."
Tim, the computer buff, and James, the traveler, saw a curious analogy between the books available in each of their fields: none presented a real insider's view. "We wanted to give the low-down, put the guides back into the guidebooks-literally," said Tim. When he launched O'Reilly in 1977, Tim brought in industry experts to write the books "since computer people learned and knew things differently than the customers." The same principle governed the launch of Traveler's Tales. James and travel-writing partner Larry Habegger (now Traveler's Tales co-editor) wanted to provide a guide that gave a visceral feel to a place-and the only way to do that, said James, "was through other people's stories."
Because they try to choose timeless stories, the Travelers Tales titles are not updated. And over time, they continue to sell-often in ever higher numbers. It's a common heritage of both companies. "We've created a new category in the travel line, and we think this is going to be an increasingly large area for bookstores," said Tim O'Reilly, who says he built his computer publishing company on books that originally sold only 1000 a year, but have gone on to sell thousands since.
