From the Past Comes a Guide to Ocean Sports

‘We were just floored by how many people liked the idea.’

--Publisher Craig Lockwood

It was the sort of ultimatum all “pack rats” hear sooner or later: Either clean out the old surfboard, the broken swim fins, the musty Marine Corps uniforms and assorted other “junk” you have been storing in the family garage over the last 20 years or the whole mess will be thrown away.

Craig Lockwood of Laguna Beach opted to clean out the garage.

“I walked into the garage with a cup of coffee in my hand and pulled out the first box and on top of that was an old ‘Whole Earth Catalog,’ ” recalled Lockwood, 49. “I said, ‘Gee, I haven’t seen this in years.’ So I sat on the box with my coffee, and 3 1/2 hours later I emerged: The garage hadn’t been cleaned, but I had a great idea.”

Published in December

The result is “The Whole Ocean Catalog,” a “Sports Resource Guide for the Active Waterperson,” co-published in December by The Body Press of Tucson and Surfer Publishing Group of San Juan Capistrano.

As the title implies, “The Whole Ocean Catalog” is an aquatic version of “The Whole Earth Catalog,” the counter-culture publishing phenomenon of the late ‘60s which successfully tapped into the organic gardening, back-to-the-land movement. More than 2 1/2 million copies of “The Whole Earth Catalog” have been sold since the first edition appeared in 1968. The current edition, “The Essential Whole Earth Catalog,” was released last fall.

But instead of being an informational guide to buying such items as log splitters, wood-burning stoves and hand tools, “The Whole Ocean Catalog” serves up the equipment, publications, films/videos, competitions, individuals and services that encompass what Lockwood calls the “exciting world of ocean sports”--everything from jet skis and sail boards to tanning products and bikinis.

Always a Big Fan

“I had always been a big fan of ‘The Whole Earth Catalog,’ ” said Lockwood, who has been a Laguna Beach lifeguard lieutenant, water-sports enthusiast and free-lance writer for outdoors magazines. “I thought, ‘Why not do something that encompasses the whole world of ocean sports?’ I thought it’d be great to have this resource where you didn’t have to go to 50 different shops or get brochures from all the little one-man shops spread all over the country. It would be an access guide that would allow the reader an easy way to find information.”

The $7.95 catalogue features 1,200 items and is illustrated with more than 800 photos and drawings. But it’s more than just a product guide for the estimated 175 million Americans who participate in water sports.

There are tips on how to filet a fish or patch a surfboard, and mini profiles of people like big wave pioneer Fred Van Dyke and surfboard designer Dale Velzy. There are poems, short stories and brief essays and articles on topics that range from Laguna Beach lifeguard training to Frisbee throwing.

Nationwide sales of the catalogue have been brisk over the past five months, with only about 1,500 of the first 20,000 copies printed remaining, according to Lockwood. Based on the strength of sales, Lockwood said, they are in the process of planning future editions.

In his introduction to the catalogue, Lockwood gives ample credit to the inspiration for the project: Stewart Brand, founder of “The Whole Earth Catalog” which, in Lockwood’s opinion, “is probably the most significant culturally unifying document that was published in the ‘60s. It had really had an enormous impact.”

Marketing Ideas

While preparing the catalogue, Lockwood said, he spoke to Brand. “He gave me a lot of encouragement and gave me some excellent ideas about marketing.”

Brand, in a phone interview from Sausalito, said that over the years he has seen many imitators come and go, including “The Whole Horse Catalog” (“pretty good.”) and “The Whole Baby Catalog” (“fairly good.”). The problem with most of the imitators, he said, is that “they did it once and that was it.”

Brand said he had had high hopes for “The Whole Ocean Catalog” but is not pleased with the result, which he feels is “too commercial and too uncritical” of the ocean products contained.

“It seems more interested in being a benefit to suppliers than of being a benefit to readers,” said Brand. “You see things you may not have run across elsewhere, but there’s no real deeper evaluation of the stuff and that’s the opposite of what we (‘The Whole Earth Catalog’) set out to do.”

Part of Lockwood’s success in selling the idea to Surfer Magazine publisher Steve Pezman “was predicated on a concept that I had to make the catalogue pay for itself,” Lockwood said. “I called it ‘cooperative publishing.’ ”

Share the Costs

Lockwood said the idea was to have the product manufacturers who are featured in the catalogue share part of the $52,000 production cost: Manufacturers featured in the catalogue paid $90 for a quarter-page and up to $360 for a full-page of space.

The unusual approach paid off. “At the time we went to press, the project was showing a small profit, which is absolutely unheard of in publishing,” said Lockwood, the catalogue’s publisher and editor-in-chief.

Lockwood said he and assistant project director Ian Hunter and editor Sara Forbes selected the products that appear in the catalogue--items they either had personal experience with or that had been recommended by people who were active in ocean sports and whose judgment they trusted, he said.

After selecting the products, the trio mailed brochures to the manufacturers explaining the concept of the catalogue. In direct-mail marketing, Lockwood noted, “you can only expect a 2 to 3% response. We got much better than that--probably a 15 to 18% response.” They also talked to manufacturers at trade shows and made follow-up phone calls to those who hadn’t responded to the mailer.

“We were just floored by how many people liked the idea,” said Lockwood. “One of the most incredible things about it was how much positive input we got from people who had such good ideas. People suggested stuff or sent us (how-to) tips and poems. So much of this enthusiasm came because people liked the idea of having an open forum in which they could contribute.”

Guarantee Circulation

Lockwood said one of the biggest selling points for the manufacturers “was that we intended to mail out catalogues free of charge to every marine specialty shop, surf shop, dive shop and action sports kinds of businesses. And this would automatically guarantee their product would reach about 3,500 people who would use (the catalogue) as a reference guide. Most of the people felt that was an awful good deal for 90 bucks.”

Brand, told that suppliers had paid to be included in the catalogue in order to help defray production costs, said: “That’s disgusting. That was not made clear to the reader. The reader has to figure that out.”

As for “The Whole Ocean Catalog,” Brand was not entirely negative. “There are always moments in any publication where you’re delighted. I think there is a lot of stuff in there that’s good. . . . It was just a disappointment.”

Told of Brand’s critique, Lockwood conceded that his “cooperative publishing” concept “doesn’t allow us to be as objective as we might like to be.” But, he said, “We tried to pick products we knew to be sound products. We certainly tried to be objective as we could, but we had to accept a certain level of (manufacturer) participation to make the project happen.”

Paid for Itself

In fact, he said, without the first edition having paid for itself “it wouldn’t have come about.”

Lockwood said the possibility of not charging suppliers to be included in succeeding editions of the catalogue has been discussed.

“I’d prefer a more objective approach in the future, but it (the first edition) certainly got us started and we can go any way we really want now,” he said.