Looking for love in all the wrong places? No problem. A guidebook titled "The Best Places to Kiss in Los Angeles" might be just the romantic compass you need.

Likewise, if you are trying to find a quicker way to cut through Southern California's traffic or a restaurant serving peppery calamari, there is a growing stack of handbooks providing advice.

Eight centuries after the philosopher Maimonides scratched out his "Guide for the Perplexed," an army of obscure authors and publishers are cranking out guidebooks for everyone else. But this time around, the reason for publishing has more to do with micro-marketing than metaphysics.

Just as consumer products companies are reaching out to customers by tapping small niches in the marketplace, book publishers and retailers are offering titles appealing to readers' interests in a diverse mix of local topics.

A few big New York travel publishers provide regional guides such as the Fodor's and Frommer's series, but they generally are aimed at vacationers and are sold across the country. The most off-beat travel books and the top-sellers locally tend to come from California publishers, including many mom-and-pop firms taking advantage of new desktop publishing technology.

Any author hoping to make a killing on a hot new local guide is in for a bad surprise; the markets for the books are limited by geography, so even fairly successful titles rarely bring in more than $10,000 to $15,000 in royalties. Plenty of writers still go ahead with these projects, however, motivated by the fun, prestige or ego boost of getting a book published.

For many of them, "it's an elaborate hobby more than a living," said Richard Saul Wurman, an author and owner of the Access Press guidebook publishing firm.

In Southern California, generally ranked the nation's first- or second-biggest book market, the result has been a wealth of offerings on everything from Santa Monica Mountains hikes to cheap places to eat in Silver Lake.

The locally produced guides range in quality from shoddy to inspired. Taken together, though, they speak volumes about what life is like in Southern California, particularly when it comes to the region's love/hate affair with the automobile.

By far and away, the leading sellers here are the Thomas Guide map books. "From the Rolls-Royce driver to the truck driver, everyone has them," said an executive with Crown Books, the leading bookseller in the Los Angeles area.