Footprint Press

www.footprintpress.com

My husband Rich and I spent several decades climbing the corporate ladder at Eastman Kodak Company. Year after year, we laid off our employees in one successive downsizing after another, and each time wondered if we would be next. Each layoff was gut wrenching. Finally we reached the mutual decision that despite the good money, this was no way to spend our lives.

In 1996, we literally walked away and spent 6 months backpacking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. After completing the trail, we were both unemployed and unencumbered. We could go anywhere and do anything we wanted. The only thing we agreed on was that neither of us wanted to go job hunting.

Our bodies needed to keep walking. We knew that in our home base of Rochester, New York, volunteer groups had been building public trails through private lands. They were the area’s best kept secret. So, knowing nothing about book publishing, we began researching and writing a guidebook to the hiking trails of Rochester. We started Footprint Press as a sole proprietorship and stumbled our way through producing, marketing and distributing our first guidebook. It was fun learning a whole new business, and although crude by current standards, the book sold very well. We forged onward, eventually incorporating Footprint Press and producing a whole series of outdoor recreation guidebooks for Central & Western New York State.

As part of our sales efforts, we walked into bike shops and gift shops to ask them to sell our trail guidebooks. We found if we provided a stand, they'd display the books next to the cash register. We searched and couldn't find any book stands in low volumes and at a reasonable cost, so Rich made some - and another business was born.

We developed the web site www.DisplayStands4You.com and began offering more diverse models of book stands each year. DisplayStands4You.com now offers 12 models of book display stands, including one specifically designed for use in classrooms for teaching computer keyboarding. Schools are our biggest customers, but we get orders daily from publishers, authors, book stores, museums, doctor's offices, and even oddities like the US embassy in Kuwait!

In 2005 we moved both businesses to Florida. We continue to sell guidebooks and produce updated versions of our guidebooks. But, we have stopped producing new titles.

DisplayStands4You.com continues to grow. Since plastic book stands don't spoil, we make stands when we want and play when we want. Many mornings we're on the Gulf of Mexico beach doing sea turtle patrol. It's often hard for us to tell what day of the week it is. And, we haven’t wasted time in a corporate meeting for 12 years now.

 

 

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