PRCo Book - Is It Going To Be Published?

[Fred Schneider]

Thanks for setting the record straight, Ed.  It would be great to have such
a book but I doubt that I would even remotely consider investing my pension
funds into publishing such a project.  The people who want it are no longer
out there.   Randy Kulp once told me that he could sell 2,000 copies or more
of any spiral bound book the Lehigh Valley NRHS published back in the 1950s
and 1960s.  The people were still there that remembered the LVT or they were
pensioned and living in Florida.  In that same era, big thick top quality
trolley books might go as high as 20,000 copies!   I think I've heard of
some Santa Fe or Espee tomes going as high as 90,000 to 100,000.  

Well, folks, times have changed.  The two PCC books that Steve Carlson and I
did in the late 1970s and early 1980s may well have been best sellers for
that period ... I think they did much better than anything else that
Interurbans Press printed.  Volume 1 went 6,000 copies and volume 2 sold
4,000.  The press runs for most of their other books was in the 1,000 to
2,000 range!   And that was 20 years ago.   The market is proportionally
smaller today.   

To make matters even worse, the IRS allows the publisher to charge off
expenses only in proportion to sales in any given year.  Print 10,000 this
year and sell only 3,200 and you can only place 32 percent of your expenses
on your income tax return for this year.  Most publishers with any smarts
try to judge the market, release all their titles just before Christmas, and
remainder any leftovers at the end of December.  Unless they had
astronomical sales, don't ever expect it to be redone.  

Can the author make any money?   The royalty standard is 10% on publishers
net sales.  Take a $100 book, which wholesales at $60-70 or as low as $40 to
$50 if a major chain is squeezing you, and the royalties to the author might
run $5.00 a book.  But, the author cannot make money on only a 1,000 copies
so instead of a royalty scale that gives the author $5,000, it might be
graduated giving the author as little as nothing.  I can assure you that
Steve and I never even came near to minimum wage on the PCC  books!!!!!  So
the shelves are filled with quick-to-write, quick-to-publish picture books
with minimal editing.    



		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Edward H. Lybarger [mailto:twg at pulsenet.com]
		Sent:	Wednesday, January 12, 2000 12:21 PM
		To:	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		Subject:	RE: PRCo Book - Is It Going To Be Published?

		A lot of folks are eager for this production, but of course
a much smaller
		number offer legitimate assistance, and an incredibly small
number offer the
		significant management skills it will take to do it.

		Pittsburgh can't be done in one volume and be expected to
sell in sufficient
		quantities to make it worthwhile.  A single volume would
approach $100 or
		more, and narrows the market significantly.  So we are
obligated to consider
		it as five or six books, which in itself is not bothersome,
just
		time-consuming.

		The research, after all these years, is still not done.  I
discovered upon
		taking over the PTM Archives that no one had even bothered -
or considered -
		reading the local newspapers!  If you want a balanced book -
one that
		considers the economic, social, political, etc. aspects, the
author is
		obliged to go out and find out what others thought of the
company, what else
		was going on in the world, etc., etc.  (Of course if you
want to produce
		another glossed over railfan production about how wonderful
the streetcars
		were and what a shame it was that they went away, there's
plenty of material
		available.)

		Anything PTM would be responsible for will be balanced, and
will talk about
		why things happened, not just that they happened, and the
warts will be
		there.  PRCo was not a beloved company -- far from it, and
that fact screams
		at the newspaper reader.  Funny that it's hardly ever been
mentioned in the
		railfan accounts so far.  When you herd people in like sheep
most of the
		time because you don't have $$ for additional cars....when
you take away
		transfer privileges on holidays....and things like that, you
are going to
		incur the wrath of the public, and we have to talk about it.

		We now have one gentleman who is making his way through the
Pittsburgh
		papers, just as I have been doing for years with the
Connellsville Courier.
		Once the reading is complete, the clippings will need to be
indexed, and
		text will have to be prepared.  This means that an author
will need to know
		what is important and what isn't, and how each item fits
with Pittsburgh of
		the times.  I doubt that one person can be expected to do
this all, and we
		don't yet have enough qualified people who are both retired
and interested!

		I know of two other individuals who have indicated they will
publish a
		Pittsburgh book.  One would be a rehash of the 1918 Snow
Report which
		laboriously looked at all the underlying companies and
established a
		valuation for PRCo in a PSC rate case.  This is a great cure
for insomnia (a
		copy of the Snow Report is in our library) but a useful
source for facts.
		Most readers don't care about the pedigree of defunct
streetcar lines.  The
		second would be who knows what.

		I know what neither of them would be...a legitimate history
putting the
		companies in context with their times, and that would be
PTM's ultimate
		goal.  Meanwhile, we are fairly close to a greatly expanded
revision of the
		1967 booklet that Tom Parkinson did.  The text is
essentially finished but
		we need time to select and caption photos..time that's
scarce.  The museum
		has other things going on which unfortunately claim
precedence!

		Ed

		-----Original Message-----
		From: owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		[mailto:owner-pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org]On Behalf Of
		HRBran99 at aol.com
		Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 6:35 PM
		To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
		Subject: PRCo Book - Is It Going To Be Published?


		The following post was sent out over the "Trolley at Railspot"
discussion list:

		<<Please name one book, comparable to the above two on
Chicago, about
		Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo) - both a City Transit and
Interurban
		system!  I have honestly heard rumors for over three decades
that a
		PRCo book is *imminent.*  I have written to people who
should have this
		knowledge and while they will tell me that one is imminent,
they refuse
		to identify any authors.
		    I recently got wind of a potential author for a PRCo
book and mentioned
		that fact here - the book is expected by Spring of 2000.
But a letter
		to this author - with an enclosed SASE for a reply - went
unanswered!>>

		Does anyone on this list know, if indeed, a book on PRCo is
coming out?

		I know that many years ago (in the late 1970s and throughout
the 1980s)
		several individuals in Pittsburgh were working on such a
book. I also know
		at
		least one of them has died, and another had moved to
Washington, DC.

		Can anyone give an answer?

		HrB