Thursday, March 22, 2012

Another New Book On Track!

I'd like to make an announcement.  Just as this P42DC is about to appear beside an HEP-II coach, a new book is about to appear beside my current Trackside with VIA - The First 35 Years.  

At first, the thought of producing another book seemed at the least, daunting, and at most, highly unlikely.  Having thought about this for awhile, I realized there was still a desire for more information on VIA's equipment, trains, and routes.  I wanted to honour some of the questions that potential customers asked early in my last project:

1. Do you have any information on train such-and-such back in 19-whenever?

2. Can you include lots of photos?

3. Will it be affordable? If so, I might be interested in one.

Short answers, yes to all of the above.  This book will include observations and train information from across Canada, from all eras of VIA, and I hope to cover every train on every route in every era.  Whew! I'll be including data, photos, history, more data, and whatever else I can cram into a reasonably-sized book.  Price will only increase if content does.

This new book, as yet untitled, will share a 'family' appearance with my first book, and will be a companion volume, meaning there will be little duplication.  Although I'm announcing it now, I don't yet have a firm release date in mind.  My best suggestion to potential customers would be...stay tuned right here.  Of course, I'm completely enjoying my work on this project so far - one more trip down VIA's memory lane.

I'm committed to three things: it will be affordable, it will be very useful, and as I've shown with my first book, it will happen.  The target audience will be the same as my first book, and I want this book to have stronger regional appeal than I was able to offer in that book.

In the near future, I'll be releasing information on contents and contributors, but rest assured this book will be equipment-focused and data-dense.

Once again, I'm interested in your thoughts/suggestions/comments.

That's it for now.  I've got to get back to work on this thing.  I'm still able to keep the same domain name.  Convenient, eh?  Please roll along with me here,  for updates and more details.

Highball! (a second time)
Eric

8 comments:

  1. This is great news Eric. The first book was excellent and I look forward to the next one.

    Chris Mears
    princestreet.wordpress.com

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  2. Thanks for your kind comments and your enthusiasm, Chris. I trust you may find the second book more interesting than my first. I'm not planning a trilogy:)

    Eric

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  3. Hi Eric,
    You may not be planning a trilogy, but it may become one without your specific intent.

    Have fun assembling your next work!

    Adam
    http://walkerweb.ca

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  4. Well, I do believe in "never saying never" Adam, so I can't really disagree with you regarding a possible trilogy.

    I am indeed enjoying assembling the information so far, and will be posting my experiences here.

    Thanks for your comment and your encouragement,
    Eric

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  5. Awesome! I look forward to reading the book, and in the interim reading about your preparation of the book.

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  6. Thanks, Steve. Jam-packed is a term that comes to mind, regarding what I want this new book to be. You'll read all about it here, as I uncover new information I want to share in a unique way.

    Eric

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  7. More pictures would be fantastic as a companion to the first book. I'll definitely be picking this up whenever you get it out.

    Dave

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  8. Thanks for your interest and for your suggestion, Dave. This is frequently suggested, and while the photos in my first book were all mine, I will be including those of other photographers from areas I wasn't able to travel to.

    While it won't be a picture book, there are definitely more photos on tap.

    I hope you'll enjoy my second book as much as I am enjoying putting it together!

    Eric

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