Steaming Through Smoke And Fire
From James Donahue’s Journal
It was after we moved to Cass City that I began associating with the divers that discovered the Regina and were actively researching other wrecks in the Sanilac County Underwater Preserve. Jim and Pat Stayers, a husband-and-wife dive team, had just written a book and published it on their Macintosh computer, using Adobe Pagemaker software.
Jim told me one day he wanted to buy a larger and newer computer and offered to sell me his older Macintosh, including the software. I was then collecting data for my first shipwreck book, a collection of stories about events on the Great Lakes during the year 1871. Jim talked me into publishing my own book. I bought his computer.
It took a while to get used to using a Macintosh, and even longer to learn how to use the Pagemaker software. Once I got into it, however, putting that book together and getting it ready for publishing was a brand-new experience in writing and publishing. It was intense work. Eventually I had my book ready. I read it through at least three times, correcting every typographical error and blemish I could see. I knew a marine artist in Port Huron and asked him to design my cover. He said he didn’t have the time but suggested that I contact his daughter, who also could do marine art. I had her not only do the drawing of the bow of the 1800s steam ship New York from an old photograph of the vessel tied up at Port Sanilac, but also draw a profile of another steamship that sank in a storm in Lake Huron. All I had was a fuzzy image of this vessel, anchored with another. Her work was just what I needed.
Next I started calling around for printing houses. I found one in Ohio that gave me a good price for three thousand soft-cover books. I went to the bank and attempted to get a loan to cover the cost of printing my book. The bank refused the loan for lack of collateral. It seems that even though the house we lived in was going to be ours, it technically was not yet our property. Doris’s mother had drafted a quick claim deed that gave the property to Doris after her death. When I took this to the bank, they agreed to loan me the money.
The book arrived in several large boxes on a freight truck that backed up to our door. I was quite pleased with the outcome and began promoting it. I sent news releases out to all of the area newspapers and set up outlets where people could buy the book in almost every town. I also began a series of public lectures and book signings that took me as far as Barnes & Nobel in Detroit. It cost me about two dollars and fifty cents a book to publish three thousand copies. I sold them for seven dollars each, and wholesaled them at something like four dollars. Major bookstores as far away as Ann Arbor and Saginaw had them on their shelves. Soon I had a book wholesaler in Lansing ordering my books by the case. I had my bank loan paid off within a few months.
My book title was Steaming Through Smoke And Fire 1871. It involved all of the events, including shipwrecks, groundings, fires and collisions that occurred on the Great Lakes during that one year. That was the year of the Great Chicago Fire. Not many people know that the forests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and portions of Minnesota and Ohio also were on fire that same week. The lakes were so shrouded in smoke that shipping was brought almost to a stop. Many people escaped the flames by boarding the boats.
From James Donahue’s Journal
It was after we moved to Cass City that I began associating with the divers that discovered the Regina and were actively researching other wrecks in the Sanilac County Underwater Preserve. Jim and Pat Stayers, a husband-and-wife dive team, had just written a book and published it on their Macintosh computer, using Adobe Pagemaker software.
Jim told me one day he wanted to buy a larger and newer computer and offered to sell me his older Macintosh, including the software. I was then collecting data for my first shipwreck book, a collection of stories about events on the Great Lakes during the year 1871. Jim talked me into publishing my own book. I bought his computer.
It took a while to get used to using a Macintosh, and even longer to learn how to use the Pagemaker software. Once I got into it, however, putting that book together and getting it ready for publishing was a brand-new experience in writing and publishing. It was intense work. Eventually I had my book ready. I read it through at least three times, correcting every typographical error and blemish I could see. I knew a marine artist in Port Huron and asked him to design my cover. He said he didn’t have the time but suggested that I contact his daughter, who also could do marine art. I had her not only do the drawing of the bow of the 1800s steam ship New York from an old photograph of the vessel tied up at Port Sanilac, but also draw a profile of another steamship that sank in a storm in Lake Huron. All I had was a fuzzy image of this vessel, anchored with another. Her work was just what I needed.
Next I started calling around for printing houses. I found one in Ohio that gave me a good price for three thousand soft-cover books. I went to the bank and attempted to get a loan to cover the cost of printing my book. The bank refused the loan for lack of collateral. It seems that even though the house we lived in was going to be ours, it technically was not yet our property. Doris’s mother had drafted a quick claim deed that gave the property to Doris after her death. When I took this to the bank, they agreed to loan me the money.
The book arrived in several large boxes on a freight truck that backed up to our door. I was quite pleased with the outcome and began promoting it. I sent news releases out to all of the area newspapers and set up outlets where people could buy the book in almost every town. I also began a series of public lectures and book signings that took me as far as Barnes & Nobel in Detroit. It cost me about two dollars and fifty cents a book to publish three thousand copies. I sold them for seven dollars each, and wholesaled them at something like four dollars. Major bookstores as far away as Ann Arbor and Saginaw had them on their shelves. Soon I had a book wholesaler in Lansing ordering my books by the case. I had my bank loan paid off within a few months.
My book title was Steaming Through Smoke And Fire 1871. It involved all of the events, including shipwrecks, groundings, fires and collisions that occurred on the Great Lakes during that one year. That was the year of the Great Chicago Fire. Not many people know that the forests in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and portions of Minnesota and Ohio also were on fire that same week. The lakes were so shrouded in smoke that shipping was brought almost to a stop. Many people escaped the flames by boarding the boats.