John Harlin Media will bring books like this back to life. Click to enlarge.
Here you will discover a vast library full of incredible books. Books you’d have a hard time finding elsewhere–mostly since we gave birth to their digital editions.
That’s the plan, anyway. We’ll have to wait a few years before the term “vast” can be used with a straight face. But we’re already pretty cool, as you’ll see.
A world of mountains:
We’re launching this softly by introducing the Mountain Clubs Bookstore. This is the only place where you can find journals from a wide range of the world’s great climbing associations. There’s some mighty fine writing here and irreplaceable information, at least if you like to travel and climb. As the 10-year editor of the American Alpine Journal, I’m particularly proud to present recent AAJs, including first-ever digital compilations devoted to individual countries, starting with Peru and Bolivia.
In the next few weeks we’ll introduce a number of e-books from several writers whose major works have so far been limited to print, including my own and those of my great friend and hero, Mark Jenkins. New writers will join us in the next weeks.
I have the great good fortune of owning a large collection of books about mountains, travel, climbing, conservation, and other outdoors pursuits. They’re treasures, and yet few currently exist in digital format. These books inspire me to share them with you. As soon as I’ve tracked down their authors and have the books scanned, I’ll post them in a few of these bookshops. Meanwhile, if you have a printed book that you love and would like to see digitized, please get in touch.
The bookstore experience:
Admittedly, we’ll never recreate the smell and the feel of an old book printed on paper. But there are some things we can do better. Once our virtual bookshelves are well stocked, you’ll want to browse here for hours. For more on our ambitions for the future, please read below. Better yet, sign up for the newsletter (above right) and we’ll send you regular updates on new books, along with free sample chapters.
It’s a pleasure to welcome you; I hope you find what you like and like what you find.
Cheers,
John Harlin III
Founder, John Harlin Media
Below you’ll see some of our long-range goals. Please be patient as we gradually achieve them.
Reviews and essays:
We’ll feature the usual reader-generated reviews, like you find everywhere, which can be quite good. But our authors will also post published reviews that appeared (and then vanished) when a book was first printed.
We’ll also solicit new essays on books in a genre (“the six best books on Nepal,” “50 mountain books every library should have,” “10 books that changed…,” etc, etc.) and reprint similar collections of old.
And there will be comprehensive annotated bibliographies—with an emphasis on annotated—that survey the literature in depth. These generally appear in academic journals, but we’ll search them out and update them when possible.
Browsing:
Just as good as finding what you were looking for is being surprised by what you never expected. The John Harlin Media bookstores will be designed with both experiences in mind. You’ll find that title you could never download before. And three others you had no idea existed. Here is a blog posting by someone who captures this spirit nicely. (PDF) Scroll past page 1 to see some wonderful scanned photos and quotes that illustrate just how much older books still have to offer.
Storing and viewing:
Everything you buy from John Harlin Media will be stored in your account in the cloud for you to access wherever you are, on any device you like. Download what you want to read offline. Flip through the pages at an Internet café and resume at the next one. Or ask for it to be printed on paper at your local print-on-demand shop. Once you’ve bought it, it’s yours to read however you like.
Old becomes new:
Many previously published books are perfect just the way they are. But many have also become out of date, or need color photos, or become much more interesting with an annotated map, perhaps even a video or an entire film that the author starred in or produced. Perhaps a new introduction by the author’s great granddaughter or the author herself. At John Harlin Media you’ll find the original, but for many books that’s only the starting point. Please see Digital Transitions to learn more.
Authors:
Digital Outdoors is author-centric—after all, we put time, effort, and sometimes genius into creating these books, often with little financial return. When you buy an out of print or used book on paper, the author earns nothing. At John Harlin Media, the bulk of each sale goes to the author.
Newsletters and e-magazines:
Sign up for beautiful, thoughtful, e-newsletters and magazines that introduce you to new authors and to new works by our established authors. Once our library grows, you’ll be able to select one or more fields of interest and the frequency you’d like to receive them.