I Have Always Wanted To Write A Book On A Railroad - Related Topic. I Always See New Books All The Time Come Out By Someone I Know Locally. I Am Interested In Writting A Book On The Tourist Railroads In The Blue Mountains ( Pennsylvania ).
I Want To Cover The Blue Mountain & Reading Railroad, The Reading Company Technical & Historical Society, The Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern Steam Railroad, And Railtours. I Think It Would Make A Great Book, But I'm Not Sure How To Go About Writting It?!?! Thanks In Advance!
Aaron Berger

norfolk_western_611@hotmail.com

Aaron,

Aside from compiling the information and placing it into a manuscript that should be edited by several other people (friends and relatives), once you are happy with content, it will need layout. Usually this is done with Qwark or Pagemaker (don't use Word or other consumer publishing programs for final submission to printers unless you want to pay a layout fee.)

We have published books electronically in a soft-bound format in quantities of 100 to 10,000. Your big challenge will be to decide what quantity to produce and what price use. The more you make the cheaper they are. You must decide your market. I always suggest less and set pricing for a small margin. If they sell like hot cakes, a second, larger printing will bring better margins.

Writing and publishing --we also can help with ISBN numbers required by many retailers-- are only two aspects. After printing how will you distribute the book? Museum bookstores, mainline retailers, a site on the Internet? This is actually the hardest part of a publishing project. We reprinted 500 copies of a 1891 book on wooden railway car construction written by a master carbuilder. It has taken 3 years to sell those books, because our museum is the only venue offering them, save one wholesaler.

The book is a gem with over 200 schematics and other diagrams. It 170+ pages carry a fascinating history and great reference which includes sections on Pullman and Wagner Palace cars, standard freight cars, and passenger cars from PRR, NYC&HR RR and B&A RR...mechanical aspects too! I would think modelers and rail historians would jump at this book (if they don't own the original).


wyld@sbcglobal.net

> I Have Always Wanted To Write A Book On A
> Railroad - Related Topic. But I'm Not Sure How
> To Go About Writting It?!?! Thanks In Advance!
> Aaron Berger

On behalf of everyone out there who has been wanting to say this:
ENABLE THE SPELL-CHECK (-that means turn it on-) program on your computer !