UKH

French climbing magazine just upload an interesting article about the incomes earned from climbing guides books (“topos” in french but I don’t know the exact word in english). I wanted to open a discussion here on the uk forum to see how it’s done for local crags. 

ps: all my apologies for my grammar

link of the article for those who want : 

https://www.grimper.com/news-guerre-topos-fsgt-reagit-sortir-ligne-topo-gra...

Here in Ariège there are topos for pretty much all local crags available for free online on the Ariège CAF site, which is a hugely useful and valued resource. The only physical guidebook I ever see people with nowadays is the Rockfax (which I co-wrote), which gives far better coverage of crags for English speakers, uses photo topos instead of line drawings, and gives a much better idea as to which of the routes may be great and which are awful!

As for income, it's true that I receive a very small income from guidebook sales, but then again I've equipped 5 new sectors and I've been happy to distribute topos for these to anyone who wants them.

Paying for basic route information itself is very much already a thing of the past. What people may still be prepared to pay for is value added features such as a printed book, an easy-to-use app, and more detailed crag/route advice.

Totally agree with you. Furthermore I thought the article was interesting on how our local crags are financed. I mean it’s kind of a paradox. On one hand we re happy to have access to guidebook - but it means that people like you who open routes don’t get incomes helping them to buy stuff -, and on the other hand guidebook and app which can have more features.

And it also means that the caf / ffme don’t perceived incomes neither from licence nor sales. So it’s not really able to face fees from insurance (i refer to a case from 2017 near Toulouse where the federation was almost bankrupt). 
 

Because of that I think the situation is interesting for itself, bit also to compare with how uk crags are administrate (I have to say I don’t have a clue). 

We have bolt funds which people make donations to. Sometimes guide book publishers make donations as well but don’t think that’s a major source of revenue for the bolt funds. Most (all?) new bolting is funded by the developers out of their own pockets. Bear in mind though that most of our climbing is trad.

I guess this is the crux isn't it? The UK has no tradition of funding route development and maintenance through guidebook sales because historically most of the development hasn't really need funding, not to the extent that it does for sport climbing.

Thanks for the reminder, I totally forgot that point. Indeed it changes the way of doing. Thanks for your answer.

I was lead author for the Culm and Baggy guide, for this I received a small honorarium which I doubt covered my fuel costs. Certainly if I counted my time it would be pennies per hour. My motivation for devoting a large chunk of my life to the project was a love of the climbing in the area, I think that is the case for most guidebook authors. If the book produces a profit for the CC (quite likely as the first print run is close to selling out) that’s great and the surplus will be ploughed back into producing other guidebooks. (No bolts on the culm so no bolt fund!)