I don't sleep much at night, but there's an upside. A couple of nights ago I realized I should try and bundle up all the E. L. Moore posts into a book. That thought gave me a pleasant sense of rightness, whereas you may recall I had recently experienced its opposite.
A few years ago I thought the article I posted to Wikipedia would be enough*. Although it's fine at covering the basics, it doesn't really address Mr. Moore's full legacy in model railroading and his connection to American folk art.
I also thought the blog would be able to tell the fuller story that Wikipedia couldn't. My sense is it doesn't because of its posting-based structure. People cherry-pick what immediately interests them, which is fine, but the bigger picture gets lost. A book would allow for the information to be structured as I think is proper, but haven't been able to do at the blog.
In the past I was hung up on producing a definitive E. L. Moore compendium that included all his articles, along with my posts, analysis, and photos, in one huge volume. That proved to be impossible given all the copyright issues. However, I have enough of my own material here at the blog that I think would do justice to E. L. Moore's story and legacy.
I'm not yet fully committed to the project and will take some small steps to check feasibility. I think I'll create some sample chapters from material I have here, build a table of contents, and see where that takes me.
This won't be a moneymaker and I'll probably be lucky if I cover costs. I'm thinking a self-published ebook along with a print-on-demand option. That way if Google pulls the plug on Blogger, at least the E. L. Moore story will be out in the world. And, more importantly, what I think is the full story on E. L. Moore's legacy will be properly documented.
*I'm somewhat disappointed with the Wikipedia articles on 'famous' model railroaders. If I didn't know otherwise, from most of them I'd find it hard to understand why what those people have done is so significant. Lots of tv shows and fictional characters have better entries! On the one hand I could go in there and wrestle them all into shape, and add a few more bios, but that seems like a waste of time. I'd rather get E. L. Moore's story straight as well telling about the tradition he comes from, where he fits in, and where it might lead.
This is exciting! I think a book would be a great way to tell his story. I like your blog posts about him but it's hard to get a "big picture" view from a series of posts.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of print-on-demand services like Amazon Kindle or Blurb that will allow you to produce a book without any up-front investment beyond time - lots of time.
Thanks. I imagine one of the big jobs will be to figure out what service to use, and then how to use it.
DeleteIt sounds like a great idea. Would you please mark me down for a copy.
ReplyDeleteThere could be a wait :-)
DeleteCheaper to keep it in PDF form. Costly otherwise. Plus PDF's are much easier to share.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information, although I would like to somehow get something like a traditional paperback out of this if possible.
DeleteOutside of getting it spiral bound in b/w, I can't find a bound version for less than $175 and then they want you to order a minimum of 10. I left mine in PDF for that reason.
DeleteThat price would be out of range of course, and I'd rather not go for spiral binding. I hope I can find something more reasonably priced.
DeleteIf you find one, let me know where. I prefer bound books over spiral unless it's piano sheet music.
DeleteWill do.
DeleteI'm sure it will be worth the wait, and I'm in for a copy when it is ready. Take your time and be pleased with the result before you release it. For this niche market, I think a thorough approach is appreciated.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I need to give some serious thought as to how I can make this project feasible - cost and time - and still cover everything I want to cover.
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