In the early 1990s, Jim Parham worked at the Nantahala Outdoor Center as a river guide and loved mountain biking. His girlfriend, Mary Ellen Hammond, worked in NOC’s marketing department and also loved outdoor sports. They were just like thousands of other people in the region.

But Parham noticed something - there were no guidebooks for mountain bikers. So he and his future wife set out to write one. Parham would leave for days at a time to research trails, camping in the rain, snow and cold while Hammond stayed home, worked to pay the bills, compiling the information Jim brought back.

Eventually, in 1992, they self published Off the Beaten Track, Volume I: A Guide to Mountain Biking in Western North Carolina - The Smokies. That was the beginnings of what is now Milestone Press, a company they operate out of their Almond home that now boasts 14 titles and specializes in guidebooks.

“The stories from getting those first two mountain biking books published are pretty amazing,” said Hammond.

The couple followed the first book with a second mountain bike guide, this one dedicated to trails in the Pisgah National Forest. They now have six in the mountain bike series, covering everywhere from North Georgia to East Tennessee to West Virginia’s Northern Highlands.

Jim is the one who gets out to ride most of the trials, and he admits that the research remains the favorite part of his job.

For a couple of years after the first book, Hammond kept her job at NOC.

“We wanted to publish books, but we did not know if we could make any money. We did know there were no guidebooks,” Hammond said.

Milestone’s collection includes natural adventure guides, road bike guides, mountain bike trail map books, playboating guides, and their newest - Motorcycle Adventures in the Southern Appalachians.
Specializing in guidebooks has its own challenges, the couple say.

“The visuals are very important. Jim has become a great mapmaker. We get lots of comments about how easy they are to read,” Hammond said.

“The other part of our style of guidebook is that people should have their own experience. Our books are more informational, we don’t talk about the emotional part of riding or touring,” Paham said.

The Parhams rely on being on the front edge of popular activities, first with the mountain bike guides and now the motorcycle touring book.

“When we started, bike stores did not sell books. Now motorcycle stores don’t sell books,” said Hammond. But many are now carrying the motorcycle touring guide. Milestone Press, in fact, sells more of their books in bike stores and outfitter shops than they do in traditional book stores.
Their style of guide books, in fact, have been copied by other publishers.

“We noticed some larger publishers started seeing our books and they started putting together similar books,” said Hammond.

One of their strengths is keeping their books regional in nature.

“You don’t necessarily want a book with all the mountain bike trails in the Southeast,” Hammond said. “Ours are destination oriented.”

Becoming proficient at the business end of being a small publisher is a constant learning experience for the couple. At first they would pack up a car and try to peddle the books in book stores, an experience both found painful. Now they rely on connections already established and some smaller book distributors to get their titles out.

“Like any entrepreneurial endeavor, it can be a roller coaster,” said Hammond.

Their best seller has been the mountain bike guide to North Georgia, which sold more than 20,000 copies. It obviously had immense appeal to people living in the metro Atlanta area.

Using outside authors is more difficult than writing the books themselves because of the editing process. But now that they’ve established a niche in the outdoor adventure guidebook area, Milestone is being approached by potential authors.

“Typically the people we get to do books are not writers, they are experts on their topics,” Hammond said.

Hammond is the nitpicker, the editor with the red pen who pores over the galleys to create easy to read, informational material.

“There is a real satisfaction in staying close to the material. Other publishers let guidebooks go for years without updating, but we try to keep ours updated,” said Hammond.

Like many entrepreneurs who live in the mountains, the couple fear getting too big and too busy. They’ve had stories about their success in magazines and newspapers, but they don’t want a whole bunch of employees and a frenetic lifestyle. In a perfect world, the Parhams, who have young son named Sidney, would publish two to three titles a year that would sell moderately well over a several year period. Since they do all the editing, layout, design, and graphics - sending their books to Michigan to be printed - that is plenty to keep them busy.

“We went into this to provide a service, not to get rich,” said Parham. “We certainly didn’t plan that this would become our lives.”

Hammond admits that their lives as small publishers is as surprising to them as it is to anyone else.
“I always have felt from the beginning that this was a business that grabbed us instead of us choosing it,” she said.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News