If any publisher has remained true to its roots, it is Storey Publishing. The company began on July 1, 1983, with about 65 books and 100 bulletins on topics as varied as building your own log cabin, tanning leather yourself, and canning your garden’s bumper crop of fruits and vegetables. Since then, Storey has become something that is rare in publishing today: a book publisher with a strong, independent streak and a deep backlist of more than 450 titles.

Country Roots
Storey has always been in and of the country. The first offices were in an old creamery in Charlotte, Vermont. When the company moved its staff — all six of them — to new quarters in Pownal, Vermont, it took over a former motorcycle repair shop. Today Storey’s offices are in a restored textile mill in North Adams, Massachusetts; drive ten minutes from Storey’s front door and you’re deep in the hills and forests of the Berkshires.

To get paradoxical for a moment, country life is Storey’s corporate culture. Most people on staff garden. Nearly everybody hikes and cooks. Storey’s president raises chickens. Storey’s knitting editor keeps Romney sheep. Storey’s horse editor rides horses. Walk through the offices and you’ll find warm, friendly, down-to-earth people who can give you practical advice on everything from how to distill herbal vinegars to how to move a pig.
The company’s name comes from John and Martha Storey, who bought the Garden Way imprint in 1983. The first title published, Joy of Gardening (773,000 copies sold), is still in print. Other early bestsellers still in print include Carrots Love Tomatoes (579,000 copies sold), revealing the beneficial relationships between certain garden plants, and The Classic Zucchini Cookbook (500,000 copies sold), brimming with tasty recipes that make use of that most prolific of vegetables.

During those first years Storey stuck close to Garden Way’s original vision: gardening books and back-to-the-land titles that offered practical information for self-suffiency, such as Tan Your Hide! (249,000 copies sold), Low-Cost Pole Building Construction (293,000 copies sold), and Storey’s Guide to Raising Poultry (243,000 copies sold). In time, Storey began to explore new categories: cooking, crafts, nature, birds, and pets. Each new title had to measure up to Storey’s mission statement: “To serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.” That phrase, “to serve our customers,” is broader than it may appear at first. Storey’s customers are not just book buyers, but also booksellers, book authors, even an author’s agent.

Storey’s production values for each book are high. But we are even more demanding when it comes to a book’s content. Storey’s editors look for authors who are leaders in their fields and can deliver in-depth information that readers can really use. They want a book that is so clear, so reliable, so reassuring, it’s like having an expert on the subject right there by your side.

Our Authors are “Doers”
We seek out authors who are “doers.” Life-long gardener Barbara W. Ellis (Deckscaping) lives in a 200-year-old stone farmhouse surrounded by a large, organic, wildlife-friendly garden. Donna Smallin (Organizing Plain & Simple) is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers. Lewis and Nancy Hill (The Flower Gardener’s Bible) have 75 years of flower-gardening know-how between the two of them. After mastering the fine art of cheese making in England, Ricki Carroll (Home Cheese Making) opened New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.

Our Readers Discover New Skills
Storey wants books that offer fresh ideas, lend encouragement, and help the reader succeed at something specific and get greater satisfaction out of life.To chart our readers’ responses, we enclose a “We’d Love Your Thoughts” card in each book. And it is astonishing how many readers jot down their comments and mail them back. Here’s an example from a reader who wrote about Keeping a Nature Journal (44,000 copies sold):
“This delightful book inspires one to reach for a sketch book, colored pencils, pen, and go right out to put a part of the natural world onto and into the pages of the book.”
And as Storey’s customers’ needs and interests evolve, we continue to publish books that keep up with trends but remain tied to our original mission. Open up the Storey catalog today and you’ll find such classics as Horsekeeping on a Small Acreage (149,000 copies sold), From Vines to Wines (89,000 copies sold), and Home Sausage Making (118,000 copies sold). But you’ll also find new titles: The New England Clam Shack Cookbook, Knit Christmas Stockings!, Poolscaping, The Kayak Companion, and Will Yoga & Meditation Really Change My Life? (the first collaboration between Storey and the internationally reknowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health).

With the Storey Kids imprint, we are expanding our line of nature, horse, and craft books by offering new titles for young readers. This line is gaining momentum, collecting awards, and winning new readers with such titles as Raptor!, Nature’s Art Box, and Horse Care for Kids. Since 1983 Storey has grown and flourished because it never departed from its guiding principle: to provide practical books for independent people. Storey Kids extends this tradition by offering children the information and understanding they’ll need to become responsible caretakers of the natural world they will inherit.