The One You Feed

Jon Barton, Vertebrate MD, on the Bridge To Nowhere, Belhaven Bridge, across the Biel Water, Dunbar, Scotland. © Markus Stitz

In our latest blog, Vertebrate MD, Jon, reflects on a year of publishing past, the adventures our books have inspired in 2025 – from Wainwright bagging with Sir Chris Bonington to ticking off the Ethels – and, most importantly, your support, which enables us to continue our mission to inspire everyone to explore, discover and enjoy the outdoors.

You all know this story but… I’ll bore you with it again ...

An elderly Cherokee grandfather is teaching his grandson about life. He explains that a terrible fight is going on inside him; a battle between two wolves. One wolf is full of anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. All that shit. The other, let’s call him Jon, embodies positive qualities like joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy (not so much, but I believe Jon Wolf is working on it), grace, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

Let’s leave the wolves scrapping while I talk about books.

I’m climbing up the trail following the River Tees, past Cauldron Snout heading into the heart of the Pennines. The light is failing, I’m alone, I’m singing. I’d just left a checkpoint in Middleton-in-Teesdale and I’m heading to a safety checkpoint in Dufton before continuing on, in worsening weather, towards Cross Fell, or Cross Hell as I likened it that night during the storm. Out of the gloom, friend and author Hannah Collingridge appeared. We've two new books (remember this is ultimately a blog about books) from her this year: Mountain Walks Yorkshire Three Peaks and the rather excellent Dirt Directory. She’d taken the time out of her day to cycle up just to say 'hi' and give me that little boost as I ran by – fourteen hours into what would turn out to be a seventy-hour run.

In Dufton, the race safety team met me, as they do every competitor in the Spine Race, just to check everything was okay and deal with shit if it wasn’t okay. Without all these volunteers the race couldn’t happen and competitors wouldn’t be safe to push themselves through their limits. 

I head on North. A few of you may know my personal journey has been somewhat fun these last few years and completing events like this has been greatly assisted by knowing people care about me finishing them. Even when half the time it appears I don’t really care myself.

The past year has been much like that. Publishing books is a tough business to be in. I will say it is the only business I know intimately, and I’m sure other industries are finding things a challenge. I think if publishing wasn’t in crisis then we probably wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. We face the high margins that online retailing demands. Please use our website now you are here. A sale here sees about 80% of the money going directly to the people who make the book, whereas a sale on Amazon sees as little as 20% going to the people who make the book.

Amazon’s discount is 60%, distribution to get it to them is 12%, advertising and promotion for it to appear in search and not be buried by AI tat is another 10% etc. etc ... We face rising printing costs, rising running a small business costs (our bookkeeping software just doubled in price). Anyway, enough of the woe. I actually don’t really mind the woes, after all, what would a climb be without a crux?

Very much like a race we have our volunteers, our checkpoint staff, our safety team, all keeping us going. This year, more than any other, people have come through for us. Firstly, it is obviously you lot, buying, and more importantly, using the books.

There have been so many little acts of kindness this year. Our big book of the year has to be Extreme Rock. It has literally hundreds of contributors – many donating time, essays or photography for nominal amounts or just for a book. You may have seen that film I did where I climbed one of the routes, Old Friends. All the contributors gave their photos for free; the film maker gave all his time and considerable expertise for free. The list goes on. I went up to Edinburgh this week to meet Markus Stitz, author of Gravel Rides Cairngorms and Perthshire as well as several other books he's written for us. He kindly spent the day with me showing me all the riding delights of the city, while Toppings bookshop took time out from a hectic day, at their busiest time of the year, to make me tea and talk bookish things for an hour.

The list goes on, you may have seen us with our roving bookstall at Britrock Film evenings, selling books and chatting to people – the venues just allow us to do that. Of course the authors are our biggest asset and this year they have been exceptional. Mountain leaders Tina Codling and Graham Uney wrote their love letters to Helvellyn  and the Scafell range with their Mountain Walks books – finishing season one of the series off. Sarah Lister recorded an excellent podcast series featuring each of the Mountain Walks authors to celebrate the books. Nicola Hardy saw her book, and perhaps one of our most ambitious books ever, published – Peak Bagging Munros. I know I’m biased but if you want to climb the most spectacular mountains in the UK, this is the guide to have. We also finished the third in a series of quite challenging narratives that explored deep into our psyches as athletes and people: And So I Run, by Jamie Doward. I’ll say it, as a work of literature, it is the best running book I have ever read, and I have read a lot ... Following on from Peak Bagging Munros, Anna Paxton saw her book – Peak Bagging Peak District published. This has been my favourite book of the year, I’ve enjoyed working my way through her list of 121 Peak summits – I have fewer than forty to go now – and thank you to all the runners and walkers who have accompanied me on them this year. It was a great honour to drive up and see my old friend Chris Bonington in the summer and take him a copy of Everest the Hard Way. Make no mistake, Chris is still a mountain tiger, even insisting on following me out the door and part way up the trail as I left to get in some sneaky Wainwrights before the drive home. Another title, edited by Jo Moseley, but with many generous contributors was  Adventures on the Water, a beautiful book with many essays to dip into. We continued our series of climbing training books with Mina Leslie-Wujastyk’s  Eat To Climb, which follows the enormously useful book  Fuel for Thought, published earlier in the year from Renee McGregor. Believe me these authors don’t do it for the money. Paying royalties promptly is one of our values but their motivation is more than that reward, it's often because they have so much knowledge and passion for what they do that they are happy to share it. Our final publication of the year epitomises that like no other. Dennis Gray’s  Essays from the Edge is a reflection on a very full lifetime spent observing the art of climbing.

So yes, without the land we use for our play, without the authors and the contributors, our industry as a whole, especially the people who work in it, the team here and our industry colleagues, we wouldn’t be able to continue our mission to inspire adventure, which is after all, all we want to do. And with your help we will continue to do that. So thank you.

At the start of my career I was told the internet would kill off books, and my answer was there isn’t any internet on the side of a mountain where I want to be. Likewise I haven’t seen much of that new trendy AI down at the climbing gym, on the trails or above the snowline recently. I’m sure it will catch on somewhat, but not so much where we all have our fun.

Oh yes, back to the wolves. 'Which wolf will win, Grandfather?'

The old man smiles and replies simply, 'The one you feed'.

Thanks to all of you for feeding us.