"Some of it was 9/11, some of it was just the nature of publishing these days," Bates said. "That was sobering, and painful. My thing was, I'm not doing that again."
By handling "Hometown Pasadena" herself, she was able to use local talent not only in its creation but in its sales and promotion. One of her co-authors, Sandy Gillis, has kept the book supplied at her hairdresser.
Even more surprising, Bates has gotten the book into a Pasadena Barnes and Noble, despite the difficulty of small presses reaching the chains.
Bates also handles her press' non-bookstore distribution, which for months meant hauling boxes of books into her Subaru and driving them around town.
"I did it all," she said, "and have the chiropractic bills to prove it."
Some of the secret lies in Pasadena itself, the author believes.
"It's a very literary community, very educated," Bates said. "We have, outside of Powell's, the healthiest independent bookstore on the West Coast. There's educational institutions and culture and art and architecture. And food, and neighborhood identity. It has everything that makes for a complete community: There's a 'there' here."
Now, she's putting the finishing touches on "Hometown Santa Monica," which will offer a chapter on beaches instead of gardens, and entries on Venice instead of Eagle Rock, Michael's restaurant instead of the Parkway Grill.
That one, and the two she's planning for next year, on Santa Barbara and Berkeley, will follow the model she's already established. But now that she's left Pasadena behind, she's lost the ability to run these new projects entirely through her existing network. She plans to hire a local staff in each city so that the books really are about their contributors' hometowns.
It's here, said Cader of Publishers Lunch, where projects sometimes get snagged. "Sometimes," he said, "one is perfect. And trying to do more doesn't work."
Either way, it takes the right balance of size, cultural sophistication and local roots -- and possibly insularity -- for a city to be right for one of her books, Bates said. San Diego, for example, is too large and sprawling.
She's looking forward to producing a book on Portland, Ore. "It's one of the most forward-thinking cities in the country," she said, "but it's still small enough to be a hometown."
It also may have something in common with her original model: "Pasadena has a healthy self-image," she conceded. "It's in love with itself, and that helps."
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scott.timberg@latimes.com
