Arbutus Press publishing house founder Susan Bays loves writing and books. She brings books about Michigan and the Midwest to readers.

Her background is biology and chemistry.

Her business sense almost led to a blockbuster windfall.

Her love for writing, however, is what makes Susan Bays wake up each morning with a smile on her face. She knows she has “hit the big-time” now.

“I love my work,” says Bays, a mother of three and grandmother, who is the founder of Arbutus Press publishing house near Traverse City. “I wake up with my feet running as they hit the floor. I love the freedom and creativity of it—from choosing titles to editing and working with wonderful authors.”

Her goal is to bring books about Michigan and the Midwest to readers, while making the publishing experience “a great one” for authors. This not only includes publishing a book, but creating marketing plans for her authors and making readers and booksellers aware of the books.

“I think one of the most important and enjoyable parts about Arbutus Press is the relationships,” explains Bays, whose grown children live in the Ann Arbor area.

She graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry, and worked as a researcher at The University of Michigan hospitals.

But she always had a flair for writing and business.

Her business acumen, in fact, almost paid-off big time.

“While raising my family in Ann Arbor, my business partner and I created the concept of selling used sporting goods on consignment,” she says. “We called it ‘Play It Again, Inc.’ We held the business for three years and closed up shop. After a year, we found the concept was a big hit and the business exploded into the national franchise, Play It Again Sports. Unfortunately, that was not us, but the consolation is that the business met and filled a niche.”

Never one to look back, Susan used her entrepreneurial skills a few years later to start a business called Discovery Travel Tours.

“I wrote and produced three audio cassette tapes,” she said. “They were called ‘Guided Tours,’ and they were about Sleeping Bear Dunes, Leelanau County and Mackinac Island. I guess the natural progression of my career was to take the audio tape and make a book.”

She did. She published “The Road Guide: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore” in 1998.

Then, inspired by the grandeur of Mackinac Island architecture, she wrote “Historic Cottages of Mackinac Island,” with co-author Lea Ann Sterling.

The Mackinac Island book was wildly successful and won the Michigan Notable award in 2002. It also brought attention to Arbutus Press.

“I started to get queries from authors with well-written manuscripts,” she says. “So, I decided to become a regional publisher of Michigan books. That now includes the Midwest. My motto is ‘publisher of fine books about history, travel and fiction in Michigan and the Midwest.’”

Arbutus Press has turned out many good books over its first 10 years—from Bays’ own “Century of Summers: A History of Arbutus Lake” to others about Old Mission, Grand Rapids, northern Michigan cuisine, and motorcycling in Michigan.

What are the challenges of the publishing business?

“For me, the timelines are difficult to stick to,” she says. “I try to remain small and nimble so that I can get books out on time to meet certain market opportunities. But I work with so many other people who also have timelines that it’s not always possible. The challenge is to keep calm and breathe.”

The process starts when an author writes to Susan to see if she’s interested in reading the first three chapters of their book. If she agrees the book is good enough, a royalty contract is signed and the manuscript is turned in for editing and layout.

“Authors don’t pay for me to publish their work,” she said. “That would be vanity press—where you pay to play, so to speak. That’s not Arbutus Press. I’m sort of like Random House, except tiny.”

And successful.