Publisher Profits From Horrifying And Bizarre

PORT TOWNSEND - If the subject is bizarre, shady or even horrifying, it's likely to have been covered in a book from Loompanics Unlimited.

The tiny publishing house is contained in a one-story building on the edge of this Olympic Peninsula town. Loompanics founder Michael Hoy likes to keep a low profile and is uncomfortable even releasing a street address - possibly for good reason.

Loompanics has published books on manufacturing methamphetamine, stealing cars, getting rich and getting sex. Its best selling title is "The Complete Guide to Lock Picking," written by Eddie The Wire.

Hoy, 46, began Loompanics in 1975 by compiling and printing an index to the first four years of National Lampoon magazine.

"I sold 63 copies out of a run of 500," he said. "I hauled the rest to the dump. But I kept plugging away."

Eddie The Wire was driving a delivery truck in Lansing, Mich., when he approached Hoy about

the lock-picking book. To date that book has sold 35,000 copies.

Hoy began soliciting authors through "Writers Market." He started receiving and publishing manuscripts from amateur detectives, professional marijuana growers, con artists, game poachers.

Now Loompanics employs seven people and posts gross sales of about $1 million annually.

The company's current list includes "Physical Interrogation Techniques," by Richard W. Krousher. It goes into detail about humiliation, confinement and restraint, intrusion into bodily

orifices and mutilation to extract information.

"This is a book so violent and disgusting that several printers refused to do the job!" the Loompanics catalog says. "It is just simply the best book ever written on torture and interrogation techniques. You may not `enjoy' this material, but you will never forget it!"

Steve O'Keefe, Loompanics editorial director, said: "It's extremely gross. It's kind of nice that we haven't sold that many copies of it."

Hoy's publishing guidelines are simple: He rejects anything that bores him, would get him sued or arrested.

"The quickest reject I ever made was to a guy from California who wrote a detailed manual on how to rip off the telephone company," he said. "Every state but New York will prosecute for that."

Hoy champions books about how to avoid banks, how to skim money, how to invest unreported income or falsify tax returns.

"The backbone of these books is ordinary people (angry) at the government," he said. "I get very angry thinking about pay raises for senators, Pentagon overbilling and trips for John Sununu."

Hoy, a former accountant in Lansing, said he hasn't set an alarm clock since moving to Port Townsend nine years ago. He wears a T-shirt and jeans to the office and does virtually all his business through the mail.

"We don't even have a cash register here. Once a month we might get a walk-up sale. I have no desire to operate a bookstore.

"I just like having a business where I can read and learn," Hoy said. "I worked for years to bring this about. I wanted to live in a nice town and do what I love - monkey around with crazy books."