The name ‘Filter Press’

People often want to know why the publishing house is named ‘Filter Press.’ 

Filter press technology was (and still is) used in the mining industry to remove water from mining concentrates. Typical filter press applications include copper, zinc, lead, nickel and other metallurgical processes.

Because the first book published back in 1957 was entitled Thirty Pound Rails and told of the Denver & Rio Grande Narrow Guage railroad, the publisher felt ’The Filter Press’ would be a clever name for his new business.  Gilbert L. Campbell, who started the business, was also in fact the author, writing Thirty Pound Rails and other titles under the pseudonym ‘Kelly Choda.’ The first rails made in Colorado weighed 30 pounds to the yard, and in 1882 the Durango-Silverton route was laid with rails rolled at Pueblo, Colorado.

Although we no longer carry any of the old railroading titles, we keep the name and are proud to see the business now into the fifty-first year of continuous operation. 

(Actually there are a few copies of a 1965 title Transcontinental Rails  still around, and you can order one at www.filterpressbooks.com.)

CIPA Makes College Fun

Joyce Lohse attended the Colorado Independent Publishers’ Association CIPA College for the first time last month and had these thoughts. (This was the first time the CIPA awards annual banquet was scheduled to follow college sessions that day, a good and effective change.)

I had a blast at CIPA College, and at the banquet that followed. It helped that my book, published by Filter Press, Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story, was selected as a CIPA Award Finalist receiving 2^nd place in the Juvenile division. Beyond that, I spent a most worthwhile day, soaking up information and networking with some great people in the book world.

I have been a serious author for more than a decade, a pre-press and graphics professional for a quarter of a century, and a writer all my cognitive life. Although I’m fairly road-tested by now, I don’t presume to know it all, nor even know a good portion of it all. From that standpoint, much of what I saw and heard was already familiar, but there were plenty of ideas and bits of wisdom I was pleased to learn and to add to my arsenal.

My biggest thrill was meeting John Kremer. This is THE marketing guru who wrote the book I picked up some 25 years ago entitled, 101 Ways To Market Your Books. The book and Kremer are still going strong, and his latest version is called 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. I am trying to catch up on my reading so I can study the other 900 ways to market my books. CIPA College’s rotating roundtable format allowed me to talk one-on-one with The Man himself. Wow. I hope my rock-star hero worship wasn’t too apparent.

At any rate, I consider my day at CIPA College a huge success and an injection of inspiration, especially in my weak areas of marketing. I appreciate the folks who brought together these professionals so that we could benefit from them. And thanks to them for the recognition of our work with a much appreciated CIPA EVVY finalist award!

CIPA Award 2

 

Joyce B. Lohse’s biography, Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story, received the Juvenile finalist EVVY award from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association on March 23, 2007. Joyce is author of the award-winning First Governor, First Lady: John and Eliza Routt of Colorado, and she employed the same intensive research methods to write the story of Mrs. Brown.

As a child-friendly biography, Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story presents an unusual treatment of a familiar story. It sorts through the myths and legends surrounding the life of Mrs. J.J. Brown to reveal a real-life heroine. As a survivor of the Titanic disaster, Mrs. Brown’s followed many adventurous paths toward varied interests, finding her niche as an activist, philanthropist, and scholar. The book tells her story from a human perspective, revealing a personality, which goes beyond the myths created by others.

Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story is Lohse’s third historical biography in the popular Now You Know Bio series from Filter Press.

Historical photographs and documents are interspersed with the text, as well as a glossary, timeline, bibliography, index, and activities for young readers. Some of the graphics uncovered by Lohse have not been revealed since they were first published in the newspaper in 1912, concurrent with the Titanic disaster.