[PRCo] Re: Equipment Question

[Fred Schneider]

Absolutely not.   It was a way of saying that I chose only the good photos while others might have published the crap in their books.   

There was a problem with the way we did it ... we had a huge volume of contributors, all of whom had a notion that they should get a free book and it was impossible to give away a hundred free books.   We gave away a few freebies and offered the rest a chance to buy a book very cheap, which offended some who thought they deserved a lot more for one picture.   

The other option would have been to do it the Harre Demoro did it ... use mostly his own pictures.   

No, Herb, I do not want to go back into the publishing business.  For one, the audience has dried up.   A small local railroad book with pictures that looked, as Lucius Beebe would have said, "were screened through a Navajo blanket" would sell 2,000 copies 50 years ago.   A really good trolley book might go 20,000 copies and a good railroad book could go 30,000 or more.  By the time I did the PCC books, the first one was down to 4,000 and the second was 2,000 and they were considered best sellers in 1980.   Today Arcadia figures on several hundred copies for a book.  You notice that Border Books is bankrupt and closing one in three of their stores because people are not buying books.   

Herb, since 1980 the entire small book publishing business has changed.   In 1980 we still had publishers out there who paid royalties to authors for giving them a book.   The standard trade royalty was 10% of net sales.   That is, if the jacket price was $40 and the publisher actually realized about $30 between full price to some railfans and discounted sales to book dealers, then the author would get $3 a book.   Out of that $3 he had to pay for the pictures and everything that went into the book!   Out of the $30 the publisher got, he had to pay his costs including printing and distribution.   

Today, most publishers refuse to pay any royalties.   Furthermore a lot of them expect the author to deliver the book already laid out, edited, and ready to go on the presses.   In other words, they want you to do their work!   I have a friend who has a contract with Indiana University Press which specifies that he has to write the book, then lay it out in some computer software such a Pagemaker, and deliver it to IUP with all the pictures scaned and in place.   In otherwords, all the camera and stripping work that used to be done by the printer is now part of the author's work and he has to learn how to use a computer.   Absurd.   And who is editing those books?   It used to be the publisher.   Don Duke, who used to own Golden West Books, once had a team of friends who read books out loud to find the mistakes ... or so he said ... one doesn't believe everything my buddy Don always said.  But I've watched him reading and red penciling manuscripts while he did his laundry. He edited what he published.   If you expect the author to do it, then every mistake you see me put into an e-mail will be in a book I do.   You cannot proofread your own work.   Someone and particularly two or three or four people have to read it.   Then after typesetting it has to be read again ... of course if the author is sending it on disc ... then you only correct his disc but still, others need to read it.

Arcadia's idea of royalties is to sell the authors so many books at the 40% trade discount so they can hustle and make a few bucks.   Hell, man, any reputable publisher in the past sold books to its authors at a trade discount in addition to the royalty.   This isn't a royalty.   This is cheating.   

Do you really think at age 70 I should go back into the publishing business and be swindled?  


On Feb 24, 2011, at 11:27 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Thanks.
> While I have you here, Fred. I finally read the "Preface" to PCC-From Coast
> to Coast" today. It is stated that 3/4 of the photos were not used and also
> that route maps could be made up. Have you ever thought of a supplement to
> that book with more photos and the maps?
> 
> On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 23:01, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> Freight cars were numbered in the F series.   I posted a roster twice in
>> recent years to the website and here is the line item from it that applies.
>> Group 16b Cars 3551-3554, ex Washington and Canonsburg 201-204. These were
>> the original W&C interurban cars. Built in 1903 by St. Louis Car Co. under
>> builder‚s contract #358. Trucks were St. Louis 47-A. At least in later
>> years, the cars had 4 Westinghouse 93A2 motors
>> 2and K35 control. Between 1916 and 1919 the four passenger cars became
>> freight cars F6 to F9, several of which lasted through the 1950s.
>> 
>> 
>> On Feb 24, 2011, at 10:53 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:
>> 
>>> Does anyone know the history of this car? Also, why is it numbered with
>> the
>>> letter "F" rather than the customary "M" for work cars ?
>>> --
>>> Herb Brannon
>>> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
>>> -- Type: image/jpeg
>>> -- Size: 58k (60069 bytes)
>>> -- URL :
>> http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/PRCo%20Old08.jpg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> In Cuyahoga Valley National Park
> 
>