Membership Directory

About Lost Art Press

Lost Art Press LLC was founded in 2007 by two enthusiastic woodworkers, John Hoffman and Christopher Schwarz, while attending a Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Open House in Warren, Maine.

The company started with a question: What happened to all the great woodworking books that used to be published? The books that changed the course of the craft and people’s lives? The books that explored our ever-diminishing link to the handwork of previous centuries?

And so we founded Lost Art Press on these simple principles:

1. To encourage high-quality books, we offer royalty rates that are two or three times higher than the industry average. This approach helps support the work of independent woodworkers financially, as woodworking is a difficult profession to succeed in.
2. All of our books are printed in the United States on the best materials we can obtain. We manufacture all of our books to last at least a century. That means using expensive sewn bindings, fiber tape and thick hardbacks.
3. We keep our books in print for as long as possible. Many publishers keep a book in print for 18 months and then sell it off to a discount bookseller to dispose of the rest of the inventory. This process, called remaindering, is one of the reasons most authors make a pittance from their books and discourages authors from publishing great, difficult material.
4. We offer our authors equal footing on the details of their books. Unlike with corporate publishers, the title of the book, its design and manufacturing details are joint decisions between Lost Art Press and the writer.
5. We have only one employee. We have to keep our expenses as low as possible because we return about half of all profits to the authors. So John and I have second jobs to make ends meet.
6. We accept no sponsorships, affiliate money or free or discounted tools. Everything we write is 100 percent unsponsored.
7. We operate without debt and pay our suppliers promptly.
8. We sell our books only through outlets we trust completely – family-run businesses such as ours. We do not sell through mass-market retailers or Amazon.
9. We do not discount or put our books on sale. We think everyone should pay the same price when they buy our books – a fair price that allows us to stay in business and keeps our authors fed.

I’ve been asked many times about the founding of Lost Art Press and how we started financially. Did we take out a loan? Did our families give us money? Do we have trust funds? Are we supported financially by our spouses? The answer to all those questions is no.

John and I each put in $2,000 of our own money to pay for the first press run of our first book, “The Art of Joinery,” and we grew the business slowly from there. It’s a difficult way to run a business and requires a never-ending focus on expenses. But growing the business slowly ensured that it would be difficult to fail.

For the first six years of the business, John and I performed every operation in creating books and fulfilling orders. We (and our families) packed every box, answered every customer service inquiry and drove boxes to the post office every day.

Today our books are fulfilled by a professional service in Indiana, and we work out of my storefront workshop in Covington, Ky. We ship about 60,000 books a year, which makes us a tiny publisher in the grand scheme of things. But it’s enough to support us and our families, and we get to do work we are proud of. So it’s more than enough.

Your Personal Information & Data

We pride ourselves on being a company that you can trust. We will never sell or share your personal information with anyone else. Ever. We do not (and have never) accepted gifts, free tools, travel, affiliate money or any promotional consideration from anyone. When we recommend a tool – in our books or on our blog – we have paid full retail for it. Just like you.

If you wish to read about the endorsement guidelines for bloggers and social media participants, we recommend this common-sense guide here. The complete law for Title 16, Part 255, can be found here.

Where to buy our books

In addition to our online store, we sell our books through a network of small family-run retailers that share our same passion for woodworking, customer service and making quality goods. We do not sell through mass-market retailers or websites. Note that not all of our retailers carry all of our titles.

In North America, you can purchase our books from these sources:

• Lost Art Press online store
• Lee Valley Tools
• Lie-Nielsen Toolworks
• Tools for Working Wood
• Highland Woodworking
• Downbound Books, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Page 158 Books, Wake Forest, NC
• Shelter Institute, Woolwich, Maine
• North House Folk School, Grand Marais, Minn.
• Florida School of Woodwork, Tampa, Fla.
• Norfolk Wood Shop, Norfolk, Va
• Garrett Wade, Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Colonial Homestead, Millersburg, Ohio (no website)

 Outside of North America, you can buy our books through these sellers:

• United Kingdom: Classic Hand Tools: www.classichandtools.com Phone: 00 44 (0) 1473 784 983
• Germany: Dictum GmbH, www.dictum.com
• Australia:
Lie-Nielsen Australia www.lie-nielsen.com.au Email: anthony@lie-nielsen.com.au Phone: 08 8293 1499
Carbatec Pty Ltd. www.carbatec.com.au  locations, Brisbane, Syndney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Launceston
• New Zealand: Carbatec Pty Ltd. www.carbatec.co.nz
• Sweden: Rubank Verktygs AB  www.hyvlar.se Phone:  +46-8-7247510