About Tim Remus

Who is Tim Remus?


The answer to that question is both simple and complex.

The simple answer would state: Tim Remus, with his wife Mary Lanz, is the owner of Wolfgang Publications, publisher of how-to books and calendars. Of course there's a bit more to it than that.

The books we publish run the gamut from Motorcycle Assembly titles to Airbrushing and Body Painting books. How we ended up with this rather diverse series of titles begins with my youthful obsession with anything mechanical. I was fixing broken lawnmowers and cars long before I had a driver's license. That fascination led me to Dunwoody Industrial Institute after high school, which in turn led me to employment in long list of shops both large and small scattered all over the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area.

After trade school I started taking classes part-time at the University of Minnesota. And in only twelve years I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and a strong interest in writing and photography. In the early 1980s, my oldest friend, Mikey Urseth, and I took over the publication of a small local motorcycle newsletter, which we eventually grew to a state-wide publication called Midwest Rider.

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It wasn't until 1984 that I took the plunge however. A nagging back injury combined with boredom prompted me to lay down my wrenches and try full-time writing and photography. In addition to working harder on Midwest Rider, I started placing more free-lance work with various magazines.

A few years later Mike and I took on another partner, Steve Hendrickson, and started another small magazine, Midwest Rod & Machine. We didn't know you couldn't start a magazine from scratch without any money - and struggled along with our mini publishing empire until 1989 when a bigger company bought us out. Life was fat until the new combined corporation hit a cash crunch one year later. The reorganization left me out on the street looking for work.

To fill the financial gap I came up with a two-pronged plan. Write a lot of free-lance magazine articles for magazines like American Iron, and crank out two or three books a year for Motorbooks International.

After writing a bunch of books for Motorbooks I started to realize that the publisher stands to make more money on a book than the author working on a 12% royalty. So in the mid-1990s I began to publish nearly all the books I wrote. Being the publisher means we are responsible for the layout, the printing and the marketing. After everyone else gets paid, whatever is left is our profit. The early Ultimate V-Twin series, the Jon Kosmoski Advanced Custom Painting book, and more recent books like Airbrushing 101 and Fix Your American V-Twin Motorcycle, are all our own publications. Most of our books are distributed to the retail book stores by Quayside, the company who now owns Motorbooks.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve begun to expand the reach of Wolfgang books. From motorcycle, hot rod and custom painting titles, to things like hobby-based airbrushing, tattoos, body painting and even musical instrument assembly. These most recent topics are so far from our original plan that it seemed only logical to group them under a new banner.


That banner is ArtKulture, "an imprint of Wolfgang Publications." More information on ArtKulture can be found at our new web site, artkulture.com.

For late 2010 look for more typical Wolfgang titles like Sturgis 70th Anniversary, along with a new pinstripe book, Pro Pinstripe Techniques by East Coast Artie and the East Coast Pinstripe Police. Both titles will be available by the middle of November.

In closing I have to say it's been one hell of a ride. We started out publishing a few motorcycle books - and look at us now. Apparently the ride ain't over yet.