UKH

Hi

This is about guides from non-commercial operations such as CC, not RockFax or any other company.

Why aren't such guides free, or £1, as PDFs?

I assume the following is true:

1. people are not paid to put them together

2. some popular guides make a little bit of money, and cover some of the cost of less popular guides, but the transfer is not often more than £1 per guide.

3. The main (only?) costs are the printing, distribution and shop.

4. From my (poor) knowledge of using the internet to sell things, sales of something for £1 will be a lot greater and would probably make more money for any organisation.

5. Although this might reduce the number of hard copies sold, the number of people accessing the books would go up - as an author, I would see this as a big plus. This might mean the cost of the hard copy went up, but I'm guessing many would still be sold; however do organisations believe the hard copy is more important than the a free (or nearly free) pdf?

The reason I ask is that I'm both an academic and work in the aid sector. We are under increasing pressure to make all non-confidential information freely available, including data sets. 

Lots of things there David....

1) Most club guidebooks will pay expenses to contributors and other specialists (like artists and map drawers) are occasionally paid for, and of course the BMC pay a full salary to an editor.

2) All guides even unpopular ones should make money unless you over print, especially if you aren't paying authors. Don't know where the transfer of £1 per guide figure comes from. 

3) The costs are printing, some contributor costs and there may be warehouse storage charges for the stock. Marketing should come into it if you have any common sense but probably doesn't with most clubs. Distribution is only taken if you sell the book so isn't a cost, and neither is shop mark up.

PDFs save on printing costs and storage but there is some hosting charges but these will be small relatively.

4) PDFs selling for a £1 -  yes, you may sell loads although you will also lose loads being sent around for free. People don't value things that are £1 so sending them to their mate doesn't feel like ripping anyone off. However it would up your circulation.

PDFs are yesterday's technology. They can't be protected, they need to be printed out (hence not saving much paper), they create horrible flappy things that no-one wants.

Our MiniGuides, which we introduced in 2002 when PDFs were new, generally got downloaded around 300 to 400 times at most when there was a cost on them (£3 to £6 ish). We withdrew the system a few years ago pretty much since they really are a pain to maintain and everyone rips them off.

Alan

I'd argue that the CC aren't and can't be none commercial with the assets they, or rather we, have to maintain.

Thanks Alan 

One kind of thing I'm thinking about is when a guide is out of print, or a new version is produced. In my world we would place the old one on the web for free. I've been told this is not done as it would suppress demand for the new addition when it eventually comes out. However this could be just uninformed gossip

That could be the reason it is not done since it is in line with the approach the clubs have towards information. For example - if they give a free sample, then it is almost always a small area rather than a classic impressive area that would showcase the book much better. The thinking being that they don’t want to give away the Crown Jewels since that might damage sales however the opposite is in fact true.

For the same reason, putting old editions free online as PDFs would have limited effect on sales because people don’t want to use 10 year old PDFs when there is a nice shiny new updated version available. Of course more modern guidebooks may not change much between editions any more so putting these up as free downloads could have more impact but anything pre-2000 would probably just be of historical interest only. 

Having said that there would be big technical problems. I probably couldn’t release versions of my pre-2000 books even if I wanted to since the software has changed so much that I don’t have an original working version in PDF format any more.

Alan

That's happened to a great extent with the SWCW - it largely covers the area of the old SE Wales & Gower guidebook. It's a great (and free) resource, but I do suspect that it and the predecessor SWMC Wiki have contributed to the lack of a new comprehensive guide for the area in the last fifteen years. Cornwall and Devon have, to a much lesser extent, Javu. 

The new South Devon guides are a case in point. The area is now split in two, making the cost reasonably high in an age of a look of free information. The old guide (though it was a commercial guide) would be fine for many people, or groups

I think the problem David is that none of the current, or even older, guidebooks are purely altruistic undertakings.

If the clubs wanted to just provide a service to the climbing community then they could produce the excellent books that they do, and then sell them for a fraction of the current price so as just to cover their printing costs after selling most of the print run - no authors or expenses paid. They may sell loads but you could never involve the distributors and shops in this altruistic operation hence someone would be making money out of it. So club volunteers working their cobs off to produce wonderful books with a club logo on it would get nothing for themselves or the club, everyone else in the supply chain would get something. 

Pricing like this would also involve the clubs taking on the increased risk of over-printing and being stuck with redundant stock, and hence losing money on the publication. Basically it is a non-starter.

So from that base it is easy to see why club books are priced like they are. Once you have them priced competitively in a market then some attention needs to be paid to making sure you actually sell them. Giving away free versions isn't going to help that although, as I stated above, I don't think it would have that much impact for the historical editions. 

If, on the other hand, guidebooks were produced by publicly funded organisations whose employees got their salaries no matter what - like a tourist board for example - then the objective of increasing tourism or participation would be enough and publications could be free. I have experienced this in France where local TI offices sometimes have excellent little climbing and walking guides available for free or nominal cost.

Alan

Any definitive guide I worked on had tens of thousands of freely donated expert time behind it: the idea some think under 30 quid is expensive for such an effort makes my head explode. If people are really short of cash and just want a selective guide for occasional visits your guidebooks and Wired guidebooks and sometimes others fill that gap.

There is nowhere in the world I'm aware of that has better quality, coverage and choice in its climbing guidebooks.

I’m not going to comment on the details of the financials involved with CC guide books on an open forum but I can say that some of your assumptions about costs are incorrect.

One reason why PDFs aren’t the done thing is that climbers would just print/photocopy the PDFs. Even if they are £1 each, loads of people would still do it. Human nature. People don’t tend to do that with books because it’s a faff but it’s loads easier with a PDF. Just press print 10 copies for pages x, y and z. Anyone with a colour printer can do it.

Except not everyone has access to a colour printer. So they either wouldn’t be interested or they’d get their mate to print them a copy.

At the end of the day, a pdf is a bit cheap and tacky really. A book is much more tangible and feels treasured and valuable.

Also a PDF is not very practical as you have to keep reprinting it as it gets inevitably battered. Great for a one off alpine route but not for a crag you go to many times.

But what the CC do have instead is an App. This has relatively limited CC content at the moment as it’s a volunteer effort to upload it but it does have crags from FRCC and BMC guide books as well.  Rockfax have an app as well. As phone screens and batteries improve, this will be the way of the future I think, though climbers will hopefully still have books as well. It’s already pretty good on a mid sized phone and with things like foldable screens it will only get more practical.

I think David meant distribution and shop (or Amazon) margin is a cost in the sense that it eats into the cover price. Which these things do - a fair bit, as you will know! Of course it’s possible to avoid the shop margin, though most sales are still through shops. If you find a way to avoid the Cordee margin, let me know

The old South Devon guide is an all time classic in a class of its own due to the content but as an actual guide with clear colour photo diagrams etc it’s pretty poor by today’s standards. I doubt it would damage sales if it were available as a free pdf but that’s probably technically impossible as Alan alludes. 

One point you seem to be overlooking is that some people, perhaps many people, actually prefer a physical book to something on a screen. They regard books as nice objects to own and find browsing through a physical book to be a more enjoyable experience than scrolling through a screen.

Electronic publications have their advantages but so do books and they can be used in different ways. Randomly stumbling accross things as you flick through a book at your leisure in the comfort of your home can provide inspiration in a way that scrolling down your phone at a crag could rarely match.

Physical books are always going to have a cost and that will be more than £1, at around half the price of a decent cam a good guide is arguably very cheap, and most climbers don't seem to be too strapped in the way previous generations were.

Book sales in general seem to be holding up quite well against ebooks in recent years which supports the idea that people do actually like them, even smart phone obsessed young people apparently.

But only when you actually sell it, hence it is a cost of sale which is different to a fixed cost since if you don't sell, you don't pay anything. Not that important though really.

The way to avoid the Cordee margin is to generate the orders and put the books in envelops yourself but, as a wise Ken Vickers once said to me, "you can either be a publisher or a distributor, but don't try and be both".

Alan

Sigh, we always seem to have to go through this.

No-one has said anywhere on this thread that they don't want to publish printed books. It isn't an either/or. Speaking for Rockfax, we can do both and intend to do both for the foreseeable future.

Let's not turn this into a pointless print verses digital argument. David's question is about making old editions public, and free, and discussing whether PDF is a good format for that. 

Alan

I have all the Peak guides from the early 50's onwards. I love the feel, smell and physical appeal of hard copy. Even when I have a pdf/electronic version I still buy the print copy.

The pleasure of laying in a hot bath after a day at the crag reading a glorious guidebook extolling the virtues is worth every penny I payt. (When I fall asleep my mobile objects to the ingress of water and costs far more in faff and cash to replace!)

Print guides are an everlasting source of pleasure and even, sometimes show how hard I used to climb, when the new version gives a much better grade!

Long live print guides!

Once upon a time  it was simple: you took your relatively thin and compact guide to the crag and shoved it down your jumper. No problem.  But the whole app v. pdf v. book v. photocopy conundrum becomes less clearcut  as guides themselves get increasingly unwieldy. For single pitch stuff there is often no problem: you carry it to the crag and leave it on the ground but for multi-pitch and sea cliffs it's a bit more   tricky. Take the Rockfax  West Country Climbs that I have just bought, for example. I am probably going to need it after abbing in to the foot of a cliff to identify the route but what's the point of starving myself into shape to then stuff the thick end of 2lbs  of guidebook down my t-shirt? A phone app is lighter but do I really want to risk dropping £600 worth of iPhone into the English Channel? So I suspect I shall end up photocopying the pages I am most likely to need to take on the route so despite buying the book I will be in much the same situation as I would be if I had printed out a pdf.

Jesus Christ - what do you want - blood? FRCC Eastern Crags is £16 - wouldn't even buy you a round for four in a London pub. The Langdale guide is £20 - peanuts for many, many years research work by the guidebook author (completely unpaid). Hells bells - put your hand in your pocket and help keep the whole show on the road before everyone gives up due to lake of flaming interest!

Yes, the CC is looking into the economics of employing a load of house elves to do the P&P. 

Not really, having the book allows you to flick the pages and get inspired as others have said. Photocopy if you want but most people just take a photo on their phone or compact camera (smaller screen but cheaper). 

I'm not sure 'most' people do that, Misha, tho some certainly do. As I said in my post, I think an iPhone is  too expensive  a bit of kit to be taking up crags with the associated risk of dropping it or cracking the screen squirming up some hideous offwidth. I think the lad crying into his beer at the Count House last year having done exactly that may not be taking his replacement  phone with him next time either. Although I bought the Rockfax rather than the 2  CC guides there is not much difference between them in weight or size.

Perhaps we've interpreted the OP differently? He definitely talks about printing costs etc which implies he's talking about physical books and doesn't specify that the free or £1 cost only applies to downloads.

If you read what I wrote you will also see that I said "Electronic publications have their advantages". Nowhere did I say that books should be print only, I certainly didn't suggest it was one or the other. I was simply pointing out why physical books will continue to be preferred by many over PDFs even with a significantly higher cost.

Again, I think we've interpreted the OP differently which upon re reading it isn't entirely clear.

Hi, my post is not about print vs pdf, or really the cost to the consumer. I love printed guidebooks, and I certainly can afford to buy any i need.

It is about information in the modern age held by non commercial organisations. And why they would not upload to the internet.

For example unless I'm doing commercial work, everything I write sits behind a pay wall set by the journal. This has an automatic gate that opens after a set period making the work free.

What I would like to know is how well thought out and evidenced based organisations failure to promote such a concept is. 

For example, would making a 10 year old guide free really harm sales of a new guide that might come out in a future 2 years. Or might it encourage people to an area, fall in love with it, then buy the new guide.

As a writer who is not trying to make a living from writing, I'm in much the same position as a guidebook volunteer. And would chose to maximize readership. But that is probably just the work culture i have been bought up in.

Now here's an idea. 

The BMC set up a library  

The copyright holders can if they want upload any old or even new guides. Totally up to them 

Old ones might have to be scans like Google books 

Those interested in climbing history could view the 1951 guide to climbing in Norfolk at the touch of a button 

Someone living in New York could get a real feel of the climbing in Cornwall before planning a visit

I could giggle once more over Nick White's writing in the old South Devon guide 

To me such an idea doesn't sound evil, or a plot to get rid of printed guides,  just following the norm in other fields 

I can see what you are suggesting now. Apologies for not spotting it straight away although I suspect your focusing on costs in your OP may have set me (and a few others) on the wrong track.

Sounds like a great plan to be honest and I don't see why it would have to be what you refer to as 'non-commercial organisations' only. As mentioned, I would struggle to produce working PDFs of our pre-InDesign (c. 2004) guides and scanning old versions is a right pain so it may not be viable. However, if it were possible, I wouldn't see any real problems of having our pre-2000 Rockfax guides available from a central repository since I doubt it would have any impact on sales.

Alan

I assume this is a joke? If not, then I'd advise you to cut your print runs by around 70%.

Alan

" I wouldn't see any real problems of having our pre-2000 Rockfax guides available from a central repository since I doubt it would have any impact on sales."

How optimistic of you... an adage that works for me is to never underestimate how parsimonious some climbers can be. Early on in my climbing someone 'borrowed' one of my guidebooks when they could have bought one and then returned it trashed with no sign of guilt let alone offering a new replacement, I thought it a strange anomaly, when it later became obvious such attitudes were way too common. Such climbers always regard guidebooks as a rip-off depite often spending large amounts to get to a crag and drinking beer afterwards (much better though if you can scab a lift and con your mate into buying your beer).

On David's latest point I'm sure older historic guides will soon be online and free like old books on google books.  

In my experience, there is very little appetite for old guidebooks - there have been many instances over recent years where a current guidebook, still readily available, is going to be replaced by an updated edition... The publishers involved have made a decision, well in advance, to reduce, quite significantly, the price of the soon to be defunct guidebook; in virtually all cases, this had made no difference to sales and has failed to shift any of the soon to be out-of-date guidebook. It is also interesting to note that second hand dealers in rare (in this case old and supposedly collectable) guidebooks report the market for such is pretty much non-existent...

… no, making a 10 year old guidebook available as a free download wouldn't harm sales of a new guidebook but I think folk, particularly those of us embroiled in the guidebook producing world, would be surprised at just how little interest there would be in making such a thing available...

Personally, I am a fan of open information, and public access to information.

I think that that access to a decent guidebook is essential to going climbing. Ok a lot of crags in the UK are easy to find, have clear lines and phone signal.

But remote places, or foreign lands aren't so easy to get to or have phone signal/data. Areas where there is continual development will have a new routes book that you'll want to flick through to supplement your guidebook for example. 

One point that I haven't seen made is the cost of gearing or regearing a crag that is carried by the club, community or even author. Bolting of a new sport crag can cost thousands, making sure that there is something safe to belay from or abseil from costs money! The guidebook author will need gear for themselves, a good camera, maybe a drone operator for those crag overview shots. 

Mostly, the point of a new guidebook is that it has new information in it, new crags, new routes and new access info.

Richard is so right here. When we have done stands at shows and had a box of old guidebooks, even £5/copy for a £25 guide is too much. No-one wants old guidebooks to use.

However an online resource of all the classic old books would be great, but only really for the historian and enthusiast. I agree that numbers would be very limited - 10s at most - and no-one is ever going to make any money out of it. A labour of love if ever there was one.

Alan

All right, a bit more seriously.

1. Why would you use an old guide if a new one became available? The old one is likely to contain out of date and possibly dangerous information. In the Lakes for instance if you used an old Langdale guide and went to climb Deer Bield Buttress you could end up in serious trouble. Out of date guides are only really any use to guidebook writers, historians and that strange (almost exclusively male) breed, guide book collectors.

2. You are assuming that clubs like the CC, FRCC etc have anyone interested in or are capable of doing what you suggest and that the clubs might be willing to pay for it all to be set up. Most unlikely on all counts, unless you personally join the club that produces guidebooks for the area that you are interested in and then persuade the committee to release the funds - also most unlikely. Basically climbing clubs are full of climbers who want to go climbing and producing guidebooks is something they do on wet days and dark winter evenings. It is not a profitable business that results in a huge surplus of funds to be invested in the latest technology. 

All the club produced guides are incredibly good value yet many of them sell in very low numbers. By buying them you are helping the club pay for the next edition and ensuring that even relatively infrequently climbed in areas like Buttermere or the Carneddau will still have guidebook coverage in years to come.

Because it's cheaper and there are more than enough routes at your grade to keep you going? There aren't too many crags that have fallen down, and it's usually pretty obvious. Or of course if you're climbing in Borrowdale, the latest guide is only selective so for definitive coverage you'll want the old edition too.

Fair enough but I’d rather have the shiny new A5 guides and deal with the size/weight issue one way or another. 

Of course it’s a joke, I’m not aware that house elves are a real thing but I might be wrong of course.

some of this pressure in academia is because the public have already paid for the research, not so in the guidebook world.

I'm really not interested in pdfs, unless they're for somewhere I'm likely only ever to visit once and don't want to spend £30 on something I'll never use again.  Pdfs are a nuisance to handle and probably only single use before they get torn or the ink runs in the rain. On the other hand, in those situations I might not be too bothered that the information was old and out of date, provided it gave me enough for my visit, and I might put up with the inconvenience because of the saving. So in those situations a free/cheap out of date pdf might prevent the sale of a more up to date guidebook.

I'm not interested in apps, or taking pictures of a guidebook on a phone, because of the risk of breaking the phone and because they're impossible to read in sunlight.

I'll happily buy a guide to a place I visit fairly often.  However I won't buy a new version for the sake of it - at the grades I climb they're unlikely to have many more routes of interest to me. I will buy the new version if it is significantly better - so for example I have the new Tremadog guide as well as the notoriously rubbish old one, and I have a series of both Rockfax and CC guides to Pembroke, where the newer versions have steadily improved on older ones.

Good point. I'm not sure. But assuming the answer is, not many people, then there can be no impact on sales, and hence no reason not to, unless there are costs in doing so or effort required. Which I think is your next point.

This is the kind of thing I'm trying to get to the bottom off. Is there a disconnect between what people or clubs might think this entail or costs, and reality? What I'm talking about is sliding a file (if it was a new-ish guide) or taking 200 photos of pages if an old pre-IT guide, over to a google drive-like host. So 30 seconds in the first case, and an evening for one person in the latter. Most clubs will have someone who does something similar everytime they go to the Alps. Cost-wise I would expect 10 years of hosting for one book to cost less than one paper-based guide book.

This was one of the questions I would like some data on. Of the cost of a guide, (a) how much is printing and distribution and retail. My solution removes these, and hence the Carneddau problem is removed.

Agreed. You have hit the nail on the head.

In part it depends on if you see those that buy non-commercial guides as part of your community or customers.

If the former, then when they bought the guide they were helping to pay for the creation and production of the guide, they like the UK tax payer own the research. So, it would be a nice thing to do to offer it to them (the community) for free via the web after a couple of years.

If they are seen as just customers, then that changes things. But is also eliminates the distinction between commercial and non-commercial production.

If you repurpose the fictional hut elves which purportedly appear at the end of all club meets you might need members to clear up after themselves!

Personally I am perfectly happy using older guidebooks to go climbing, I usually see copies of peak gritstone east, eastern grit (with the grey cover) and the current version of Eastern grit emerge from various people's bags when I go somewhere like Stanage!

How much is printing and so on is sensitive commercial information as I’m sure you can appreciate, so I don’t think anyone will provide that on a public forum. If it were the same for every guide book and every publisher, it wouldn’t be as sensitive but it’s probably not the same. So sorry, there’s no way I’m going to tell you!

Re owning the research. I don’t know about academia but that’s simply not the case with guide books. The consumer owns the book, not the IP that went into it. In the same way that if you buy the car, you own the car, not the IP that went into it. You wouldn’t expect the manufacturer to provide you with a technical drawing of the engine and an explanation of how certain technical issues were overcome, for example. 

I can understand that from a commercial operator for a non commercial one less so, particularly as we are only talking indicative fractions 

For books like mine and Andy's which are on kindle etc. anyone can simply look the numbers up. 

Again, some volunteers might see things slightly differently and think more that they were providing a service to a community they are part of. Rather than creating IP

It would be good to hear from a few more volunteers to garner their thoughts on whether they feel the wider distribution of their past efforts is something they would support or not  

"The old one is likely to contain out of date and possibly dangerous information"

I've seen plenty of new ones with out-of-date and dangerous information!

You seem to adopt the view that there are commercial and non commercial operators. I would argue that all guide books are commercial ventures in that they have to cover their costs and in the case of clubs provide cash flow for future titles (including less popular, slow selling ones) and indeed other purposes.

In any case, I don’t think it’s appropriate for any given publisher to know what another publisher’s cost base is, given that these cost based may well vary. It could lead to awkward conversations with third parties involved in the process - you charge X to Y so how come you charge us more than X. 

Maybe some volunteers feel that but clearly it’s not happening so presumably the committees that run these things don’t feel it’s appropriate or worthwhile or they simply don’t have the time (more effort for little or no benefit to anyone) or a combination of all of these factors.

However if you feel strongly about this, why not approach the publication committees of the various clubs with your proposal and offer to implement it? Who knows, you might get a positive response. A lot of the time it’s simply a lack of volunteer time which holds things back. 

Yet it appears that the organisation/company which has done most to creating a freely accessible public record of British climbing is UKC/Rockfax. Every word of text in a Rockfax guidebook published since 2002 has been freely available online and the UKC logbook is probably the world's biggest route database, certainly the UK's biggest. 

Why is that? I suspect the answer is because of resources that we can tap into using our more commercial approach. (One could argue that this is a bandwagon that the BMC missed out on since they too could have had access to those resources). What it does show is that David's assertion that making this stuff easily available doesn't effect sales, in fact you could probably argue that it helps promote it in our case.

Alan

I have never really understood this cloak and dagger approach of the CC and a few other clubs. If a printer is giving a better deal to someone else then I want to know that so I can go to the printer and get a better price.

Jon Barton (Vertebrate) and I regularly have chats where we exchange all sorts of details that might be thought of as commercially sensitive. We give each other printer advice, have swapped rough sales figures and even schedule and plan our publication dates so as to suit both of us for rival publications.

I would welcome doing this with anyone and I am always open to helping small independent publishers with their publishing enquiries. I would also be more than happy to share printer information, publication dates and help predict print runs with clubs if they ever asked.

Alan

That’s mostly correct. Certainly for research projects funded by UK research councils and EU Horizon 2020 for example, there’s a requirement to publish via open access journals and make them and associated data sets available via open access repositories. However, the public doesn’t pay for all university research. I’m currently running programmes paid for by external companies where publication only happens after IP protection is in place and often the journal papers are heavily redacted before publication. There is no requirement to share data sets.

yes i am aware not all research is required to publish stuff (hence the some in my post) I work in academia as well.

I was rather drawing a distinction between guidebook producers like CC/FRCC and academia. 

Websites like 27crags and thecrag.com do have online free stuff (but some also have paid 'pro' versions)

anyhow ...  back to finding Kirkus routes !

Which supports my point that, worldwide, it has only really been done successfully so far by businesses. Mountain Project was set up originally as a people's wiki, but it now has the huge REI behind it.

Alan

UKC/RF have full time staff. The clubs don’t. So that’s the main reason the clubs physically can’t do something similar. It’s hard enough bringing out new guide books. 

To be fair, you don’t make photo topos freely available - that’s a key part of the IP. I think David’s idea was to make everything available. I don’t disagree about making descriptions available. That would be a massive effort though.

We get input from Richard on print runs, which is much appreciated.

As for financial details, I think you’ve proven my point. If I said that we paid X for Y copies of Z guide book and RF then realised that they paid more than X for something similar and raised it with the supplier, that could spur our relationship with that supplier. In the business world it’s generally understood (and indeed normally written into any contracts) that pricing is confidential. Guide books are no different. Even if a club is happy to publish the details, the club’s suppliers / distributor / retailers may well be unhappy about it. It’s their confidential info as well as the club’s and it would be disrespectful (and potentially in breach of any contracts) to disclose it. Bear in mind that what David is after is not just the publishing costs, it’s also details of the cover price breakdown between the club, the retailer, Cordee, the printer and any other costs.

I don’t mean to be arsy about this, just trying to be factual. 

I was only after very rough figures to help frame everyone's thoughts. Is this level of detail that sensitive ? 

I. E. For a £25 guide, x might be for expenses  y for publication z for retail x retained as profit to help fund other books or activities etc 

Not a true cost breakdown for any particular guide 

Prices from printers don't need to be confidential. They change every time anyway - the price of paper goes up and down, some are in China, some in Slovenia, some in Wales. Keeping these confidential is petty. We are all after the same thing here - a good price with a reliable printer. The printers just want the work so they don't care.

As for relationship with retailers - well the clubs probably don't have one since all sales are likely to go through the distributor.

That leaves the distributor where you can have as much discretion as you want.

I just think that we could help each other more, as Jon and I do with our direct rival publications.

Alan

Sometimes coming across a guide can be that trigger that excited an interest in climbing itself. My own experience dates back to the original Lliwedd guide of Thompson & Andrews from 1909. It was the venue for my first ever rock-climb in Wales. Without it's inspiration I doubt I would have ever visited that unfashionable crag.

However if someone wanted to copy descriptions of some of the older routes in  the Lakes, then much information is available via the online Journals of the e o, if ges iuidt just takes a bit of excavating.

One unique aspect of the hard copy evident in a guidebook is the historical section at the back. Both the Llanberis & Ogwen are classics in this respect. This all has to be researched and checked and often absent from general guides, but this history is important to the sport. 

There is a problem with the guide-book size but Jack Geldard's Ground Up Welsh guide was one solution that worked well, if limited  in the number of routes. Area guides can appear to scoop the cream, but the definitive guide remains the ultimate reference point for regular visitors to that venue. How often do you visit a friend's house and spot their guidebook collection on shelf? I know I have wandered off topic a little but just a few thoughts.

Finally a big thanks to all those such as Don Sargeant, Mike Bailey, Pete Saunders, Andy Marsh, Simon Cardy & countless others who have devoted numerous hours to give us the guides we have today.

Not sure if you mean this book - https://www.rockfax.com/climbing-guides/books/north-wales-classics-2010/ which is Jack Geldard's Rockfax compact guide

or this book - https://cordee.co.uk/ccw067 which is Ground Up's not-quite-as-compact-but-not-as-big-as-an-A5 guide.

If the former then I can assure you that it isn't popular and hasn't sold well, in fact nowhere near as well as our A5-sized North Wales Climbs.

Alan

The compact guide Alan.

That is a cost break down!

Out of interest, how does the collaboration with Vertebrate fit with the requirements of the Competition Act?

(Genuine question - I don't know).

Regarding volunteer costs, for guidebooks produced by clubs there may be a few people who get paid for providing professional services where the skills aren't available in-house through volunteer effort. Authors, editors, etc won't be paid and probably won't bother to claim expenses. They're doing the thing because they love it. Given the hundreds of hours of labour that go into production, if you were to actually pay somebody a fair wage to produce a book I doubt that you'd be able to break even through book sales. I expect Rockfax are able to do this because they outsource much of their research to the customers via the UKC database.

I'm sure the UKC votes and logs are of some use when Rockfax compile a guide but I'd be surprised if their impact on the overall workload is very substantial. Most of the information is freely available online anyway, so it's open to the climbing club guidebook authors as well. Perhaps Rockfax might have private APIs for automating some queries but the basic information is there for anyone to peruse.

Will, this was one of the facts that led me to start this post. Given the massive effort made by volunteers that we all benefit from, would the average volunteer prefer their efforts were reflected just in a physical book, or in a physical book and a free open copy on the web?

To me, there seems a natural synergy between volunteered-produced material, and open distribution.

The level of cynicism people like you sometimes manage Will is unbelievable. I can’t really believe you are asking this question. Yeah, I fixed the price of Peak Bouldering at £5 more than the Vertebrate book. Nice to see you are on trend and not letting any evidence get in the way of your conspiracy theories there.

We are just two tiny companies swapping notes on printers, print runs and publications so that we can make sure we are getting good printer deals and not over or under print. This helps everyone, including you.

er ... we do pay someone for the hundreds of hours, ask our authors. I suppose you are insinuating that there is more work per page in a club guidebook. This is not true. Every new guidebook we produce starts with a blank document. No-one has started a club guidebook like this for 50 years.

Which we also pay for. Nice active logbook you have there Will!

Alan

The cynicism keeps me busy, Alan. That and chucking information in to my logbook. Guilty! But you have to admit there are few in climbing who are as easy to wind up as you. You could be the new Ken Wilson with steam coming out of your ears a la the old Pockettz cartoons!

I wasn't seriously suggesting malpractice with regards to competition law, it just piqued my interest as I recently did the training module on it at work. Law is interesting, innit?

I'm intrigued by what you define as a blank page. Do you mean you write a fresh script, or do you mean you start from a point of no knowledge? If the former, its not true that definitives don't do this (as far as I'm aware, Robin totally threw out the old YMC grit material and I have done likewise for limestone), if the latter then surely this either can't be true or would be impossible?

... and very useful it is too! Not so much the grade voting (although I wouldn't ignore that completely); but the logbook notes in particular can be very revealing: not only can you see why people think the way they do, but also you can check out who they are (i.e. how experienced).

Ah, so when you said "Genuine question - I don't know", what you are now saying you meant is, "Just joking, trying to wind you up"?

Best illustrated with an example:

In 2012 James Rushforth had good knowledge of the Dolomites but had never written a guidebook. In two years he took a completely blank template document to a 496 page finished guidebook, with crag text, route text and hundreds of photos and topos. Every single bit typed up, photographed and researched by him and the small group of people he was working with.

This is similar to everyone of our first editions although Mark and Chris are more experienced, so don't learn the basics on the job like James did, but still essentially start with blank documents on their new areas, of which we have 14 in the last ten years. In these cases, the information on UKC is helpful but limited since it is usually only after we have published that the Logbook database becomes tidy and complete, and the area becomes more popular.

Alan

Well I can only speak for myself, as "club" guidebooks are very much team efforts. But for 2 of the 3 crags I wrote up for the YMC crags, I very much started with a blank sheet of paper and wrote all descriptions from scratch based on having climbed the routes and/or spoken to others who did. And I know I'm not the only one who took this approach.

I have a couple of comments on that then:

1) If you really are discarding everything that has previously been written then that seems a pretty stupid thing to do. Not only are you getting rid of what may have been quality information from previous authors, you are creating so much extra work for yourself tapping in route names, grades, first ascent information, basic crag information and simple route descriptions where there was nothing wrong previously.

2) On a quick glance at three crags in a couple of editions of the YMC Yorkshire Limestone guides, it doesn't appear that the route descriptions and crag information have changed that much between editions for most routes and the crag introductions.

Alan

(1) I fully accept it was mildly silly, but it was also fun, which is surely half the point. And I picked obscure crags - if it was places like Almscliff or Brimham then it makes more sense to keep what's gone before, as it's been used and checked by hundreds of climbers over the years. Whereas the ones I chose are rarely visited - in all my trips we never met anyone else. Obviously we kept the route names, and used the grades as a starting point (most of them we left unchanged, as you'd expect). With one route, the description in all previous editions turned out to be wrong, with "left" instead of "right" having been copied unchallenged. And a bit of research in Phil Kelly's archive came up with a few errors in route names, and firmed up on some FA dates. The basic crag information was severely lacking in previous editions, leading to lots of wasted time actually finding the crags.

(2) If you want to check: Horsehold Scout and North Nab. I also did Darby Delph, but due to lack of space all the descriptions ended up being removed in favour of a topo.

PS I'd recommend a visit to Horsehold Scout to anyone adventurous who's not put off by a bit of green rock. As esoterica goes, it's rather good.

It was a genuine question in that I'd be interested to know whether the collaboration was, technically speaking, unlawful. Likewise, it'd be interesting to know whether the link between Rockfax and UKC is entirely lawful. For instance, if UKC occupies a dominant market position (probably), is it anti-competetive to give such prominence to Rockfax publications in the UKC crags database? When I say it's not serious it's because whatever the answers to these academic questions, I think it unlikely that anybody would be bothered taking it up with the CMA.

I'm not sure what your point is here. You're saying that Rockfax books start from a blank page if they're a first edition? Well, yeah! If later editions use the old text and build upon it then this sounds like exactly the same position as the clubs are in, just that they're probably on their 5th or more edition depending on the area. Personally, I think that for a new definitive it's nice to rework the text and make it feel fresh. The two yorkshire grit books did this and benefited from it and it's what we'll do for limestone in the future.

With all due respect Alan, I would say that every new guidebook you produce starts with someone else's guidebook! At least when I bumped into Mark Glaister working on the new Rockfax Lakes guide, what was he clutching in his hand but the FRCC guide to the crag he was writing up.

It is getting a bit petty now and it is a tiresome point you are trying to score. There are of course  Rockfax guides that are predominantly new stuff - the Peak and Dorset Bouldering guides for example. Or ones which are substantially new like the Lakes and Dorset books of 1994, and the Clwyd series. The France guides where many crags were only in magazines or not published anywhere, the three editions of Peak Limestone following on from the last BMC effort in 1987 where we kept the information going for some areas during a 20 year gap. Or the Pembroke guide in 1995 which was a 10 year update to a fast developing area, or the two North Wales limestone guides of the 1990s and Mick’s original Yorkshire limestone guide which were similar. South Wales Sport Climbs contains many routes not previously published, same with the Lofoten guides and the recent El Chorro guide, and Dolomites and Chamonix contain much stuff not previously published. These of course become areas where other publishers can improve their guidebooks using ours (and if they say they don’t then they are either fools or liars.)

But yes, there are many areas we cover which others have covered before, but there is a huge difference between opening a digital document of the last guide with everything in place and editing it, and opening a totally blank document and starting from scratch. That is the point I was trying to make which was initially disputed by Will and Simon, but later pretty much confirmed as correct in their subsequent replies.

Alan

Ok, I can see your point - like Microsoft bundling Explorer with the operating system. I don’t really know the answer to that one. There is a difference in this example though apart from the obvious one of scale. A user invests in a computer, then the Microsoft OS channels them towards their free products. It is the other way round with UKC. Nobody invests to be on UKC, we just advertise our products within it which in turn helps make it free. Of course other publishers could advertise their products on UKC as well, but no-one can embed their browser in the Microsoft OS.

I also agree that it is all very hypothetical. 

Alan

Had another thought about this one Stephen. 

During the last 30 years the vast majority of new route development has been sport climbing and bouldering. The documentation of this development has been predominantly led by 'independent/commercial' guidebooks from Rockfax, Ground Up, Vertebrate, On the Edge and smaller operations like, for example, Mike Adams' North York Moors Bouldering, Robin Muller's Lancashire Bouldering and Gary's sportsclimbs.co.uk web site. This is true for virtually every area in the country, particularly where bouldering is concerned. So whilst it is obviously true that commercial guidebooks have relied on the older club-produced books for their historical information, we have added a great deal to the overall record and the club sector has benefitted from this coverage in the same way that we benefitted from the historical coverage. Whether there is equivalence in this coverage, I don't know and it doesn't really matter but I think your comment above seems to be short of acknowledging this fact.

Alan

Your preconceptions are certainly packaged into that sentence!

If you are talking about academic work where the taxpayer has in most cases ultimately paid for the research, there is a clear case to be made for papers to be freely available. 

For members' organisations like climbing clubs, what they choose to do with their IP is entirely up to them. There's no moral obligation at all to make their property freely available on the web.

At no point did I suggest there was a moral obligation to do so. I asked how well evidenced any resistance to doing so was, please don't read anything more in to it than that. People do things for reasons, I wanted to know those reasons, and if they were pub-style arguments, or things based on "well x tried and look how that ended up". If they don't want to place it on the web, it is up to them of course, but, I would have thought they would have at least some thought out reasons to not so.  Ones I thought of included, concerns over the profit and the good use they could put this money to; thoughts on sales being lower if info was also free, possibly pushing sales so low production becomes impossible; the effort required to shuffle stuff to the web; the technology required. I was asking for any other reasons. If you have some, please add them.

So far we have seen in this thread that at least as far as guidebooks from 2000 or before  goes rockfax do not think there would be much/any impact on sales and might well be willing to join such a library; that the technology is simple; the effort required minimal. I have also had indications in private emails, that the profit per book is very low indeed. So maybe selling pdf's of older books for 50p might make a very small flow of money, even if many climbers didn't bother to pay the 50p. Maybe those 50p's might be a source of funding for sending rock shoes to refugee camps or Palestine, as others are attempting to do.

The only possibly controversial thing that has come up is that there might be a different understanding of non-commercial and commercial than many climbers previously thought. My view had previously seen non-commercial guides as volunteer efforts, very much for the love of it and the area and the organisation in question just helped it happen. Hence I had assumed maximising readership and miminsing costs to said readership, might have been of great interest. However, several people have pointed out that the whole commercial non-commercial split might be red herring. And the non-commercial wing of guide book production a little more commercial than I had suspected. Which isn't a criticism in the slightest, but is different than I thought.

Please everyone, keep the thoughts coming.

'I would have thought they would have at least some thought out reasons to not so'

Really? When I do something I think of reasons why I should do it, not reasons why I should not.

Hi

If I was suggesting something unique and radical, yes, but I'm not. 

I would have thought it highly likely that someone might have said, shall we put this on the net ? And at that point someone would have come up with a bunch of reasons not to