by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
A new book about Jacksonville will hit the streets in early 2007 and don’t expect any exposes — it’s going to make the city look like a Utopia.
The as-yet-untitled book will be the product of Cherbo Publishing Group, an Encino, Calif. based publishing company that specializes in “profile-funded” books on cities and even entire states.
“They are generally used by city governments for economic development purposes,” said Margaret Martin, managing feature editor for Cherbo.
Martin said her company contacted the mayor’s office back in November through a written proposal and said the City got back to her fairly quickly. The company has compiled similar books for other cities such as Dayton, Ohio, Milwaukee, Phoenix and even the state of Missouri. And, because there is no out of pocket expense for the featured city, most jump at the chance to get 200 pages of good publicity.
Susie Wiles, Mayor John Peyton’s Chief of Communications & Special Initiatives, said the project sounded good from the start.
“We met with them several times and the whole project is privately funded,” said Wiles. “It will not cost the taxpayers anything.”
“Typically, the book starts with a section on the quality of life in the city,” explained Martin, who has been with the company and said Jacksonville is the first Florida city Cherbo has produced a book for. “The book promotes the city and all the good things about it. Things like the culture and recreation and low cost of living. The other part focuses on the major industries and how they contribute to that quality of life.”
Those major industries are exactly how the cost of producing the book is covered. Martin said no one from her editorial department will come to Jacksonville during the two-year process, but her marketing staff will be in town several times.
“We will be selling advertorials,” said Martin.
Advertorials are a marketing tool used by companies that want to get their message across through much more than just an advertisement. Think TV infomercial. In this case, local companies will pay to have glowing stories about their company included in the book.
“We are just getting started contacting businesses in the area,” said Martin, who will oversee the project to include approving the final version and all photos used. “We will start writing the book in about four to five months. We will write the book regardless how many companies agree to profiles. In the past, we have done books on cities with very few company profiles.”
While the City won’t spend anything on the project, City officials will provide some editorial input but won’t have any influence on the tone of the stories or final version. Martin and her staff will go through the mayor’s office to create a list of people, places and things that the mayor’s office would like to see included in the book, as well as a list of things that will be downplayed or ignored altogether.
Martin said it was likely projects within the Better Jacksonville Plan that are finished or will be done soon — the baseball park, arena and library — will be featured, but the new county courthouse won’t. It was originally scheduled to be completed in 2007 but is currently well over budget with no start date in sight.
“We might mention the courthouse, but we won’t dwell on it,” said Martin.
An author hasn’t been selected and, while Cherbo will consult with the City on the selection, the choice is ultimately only Cherbo’s since the author is being compensated by the publisher and not the client.
Once the book is completed, it will be sent to the companies that participated in the editorial content and the City.
“We will do a limited print run of about 5,000 to 10,000 copies. People who buy profiles will get copies of the book,” said Martin. “We do give some to local organizations to distribute and some to the City for them to distribute.”
Cherbo has been in business for 40 years, producing similar publications for cities across the country. This is the first book on Jacksonville that Cherbo is compiling, but not the first of its kind on the city. In 1998, Windsor Publishing printed a hard-cover book on Jacksonville and three years later Towery Publishing produced another version.
Wiles said it would have been nice to have the book available before the Super Bowl, but considering the overall success of the game, it may prove beneficial to have a chapter in the book that covers the game and how things went that week. Although she has no say, Wiles does have an idea for the cover.
‘It would be great if they put one of the fireworks pictures on the cover,” said Wiles, of the many shots taken during Super Bowl when nightly fireworks illuminated downtown like never before.