The Why

"People don’t pay for what you do, they pay for why you do it."

For the past several weeks this email newsletter has been dormant, with only occasional posts, while I worked on editing and publishing a book which I consider an important contribution to the history of Alaska. You can read more about that book here. I have felt I should be tending to this newsletter, because I have many paid subscribers, more than a few gift subscriptions, and a handful of librarians, teachers, museum staff and others who have told me they value my content, but one can only do so much, and I learned long ago that trying to do it all can be a fool’s errand.

Recently, while reading an interesting post by another writer who also publishes a newsletter, I was struck by the statement that “People don’t pay for what you do, they pay for why you do it.” My immediate reaction was ‘wow, that is so true….’ And then I thought, ‘no, wait, people pay for what I do, which is writing about history.’

So which is it?

I think the answer is both. I think people might come to my newsletter and/or websites because they’re interested in something I’ve written about, whether that is barns, roadhouses, sled dog races, railroads or whatever, and then they’ve subscribed to my newsletter because they like what I write, and they want to support my writing and publishing books and articles and newsletters about the various aspects of Alaska’s history. Seems simple enough.

So what struck me about the comment? I think it was “People…. pay you for why you do it.” Which triggered a lot of thinking about why I spend my time researching and writing and publishing—none of which is easy—and none of which is financially rewarding. (Any writer can tell you it’s not about the money. Far from it.)

The key is in the first paragraph above, about the book I just published. If you clicked the link and checked it out, or if you already knew what I’ve been working on since last June, you’ll know it’s based on several years of the diaries of a physician in the U.S. Revenue-Cutter Service, edited and heavily annotated by a man who has worked as a research historian for the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in Anchorage, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. To produce this book he spent 40 years sifting through the doctor’s diaries, correspondence, scrapbooks, and photographs; and he researched natural history and ethnological collections located in various archives, museums and cemeteries in Alaska, Washington State, California, and Washington, D.C.

To be able to bring this outstanding book into publication has had me smiling from Dr. Stein’s first email saying ‘yes, let’s do this.’ I kept smiling through long days and even longer nights, with hundreds of emails and files flying back and forth between us, making changes until every space and comma was in the right place, and while I didn’t recognize it as such at the time, I realized somewhere in the process that this is my ‘why.’

As the reviews for this book have come in I have been overjoyed to see widespread congratulations and wonderful comments from many noted names in the fields of Alaskan and maritime history. I’ll share one sterling example, from the co-author of Captain “Hell Roaring “ Mike Healy: From American Slave to Arctic Hero, the multiple award-winning author of over a dozen books in the genre, Dr. Dennis L. Noble:

“The diaries of Dr. James Taylor White are important to the history of Alaska and Maritime History. There are so few works on the officers of the cutters and to have a good observer from 1889, 1890, 1894, and 1900-1901 makes Doctor White’s work and Doctor Stein’s narrative a book that should be read by anyone wishing to find information on Alaska.”

I have been many things in this lifetime, for many different reasons, and at this time I am a book publisher, because I love the history of this Great Land and I want to share it with everyone who is interested. Thank you, dear readers, and especially my patient newsletter subscribers, for helping me achieve that goal.

Helen