The Imaginary Press Let the beauty we love be what we do
THEN and NOW
George Pfeiffer, from the California Historical Society's interview, 1984:
"I wanted to publish western history books, and we contracted with the Western History Association to publish their magazine. That way we gained a mailing list and got to know the head men of the Western History Association, two-thirds of whom had written books. The Western History Association had been hoping for about 1500 subscribers. We did a mailing, and the response was overwhelming. We came in with 25,000 subscribers! The first publication was in February 1965. Since it was a quarterly, the next issue was to come out four months later. It had started off with a great rush, and was a memorable thing to the people in those quarterly journal fields."
When George reached his 50th birthday, he decided to leave Sunset and begin his own publishing company. At that time "The American West" magazine was gaining momentum. Lane didn't want to keep the American West account, and allowed George to take it with him. The Western History Association agreed to the new arrangement for the publication of their magazine. George incorporated the "American West Publishing Company" so that he could also publish Western history books --a subject near to his heart.
He remembered: "When the transition was complete, the American West Magazine was managed from my new office in Palo Alto. The publishing company grew from Louise and I alone, to a staff of thirty-six at the high point."
"We owned the book business separately. The Western History Association didn't have money to publish books, nor the ability to gamble. Publishing a book is a gamble; we took the risk ourselves. As the business grew, Louise and I had to raise the money for the big books by putting a mortgage on our house. The books were about Western history and Western states and nearly all written from the Western point of view. I was mighty proud of those books, and they were good books, they were books selling for $14.95 -- it would be would be $30.00 or more now." (in 1984 at the time of the interview)
In 1975, George sold the American West Publishing Company and entered into an active retirement. He consulted about publishing out of his home office in Los Altos Hills. He also published two corporate histories, Castle & Cooke and Meet Me at the St. Francis.
"The short answer about American West Publishing Company is no, it does not exist as a publisher any longer.
The books line was sold to Crown Publishing which dropped the name of American West as an imprint, and only one or two titles remain in their line under the Crown name 25 years later.
The magazine, The American West was sold to a division of ABC Television who sold it to the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. They sold it to a gentleman in Arizona named Tom Pew. He operated the magazine for a number of years while transforming it from a history magazine into more of a southwest arts magazine. It went out of business at least 5 or more years ago."
