New book

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com, Pat Bowerman <bowerman at rog_ar.ispnet.com>
Subject: New book
From: George Booth <booth at hpmtlgb1_lvld.hp.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:50:31 -0700
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 17 Mar 1996 15:39:02 EST." <199603172039.PAA13316 at looney_actwin.com>

> From: Pat Bowerman <bowerman at rog_ar.ispnet.com>
> 
>      Now for the good stuff, have any of our experts ever thought of
> authoring a book on our hobby? I think that we would all agree that
> there is a shortage of really good, beautifully illustrated books on
> aquarium plants.  

You haven't looked hard enough.

> I would buy it. (providing you kept it affordable)

Ah, always a catch :-).

> Also, I would like to see an American viewpoint on the subject. Not
> that I have anything against our German and Japanese friends, but I
> don't believe that they are the only ones qualified to write books on
> the subject. My personal preference would be an illustrated plant
> identification book with a small how-to section.

I have been thinking about this for quite a while.  I have receieved
much positive feedback on my SST series (net postings, Krib archives,
TAG series, AFM series) and have sold about 100 copies of a
photocopied version of it.  

Based on my experience, the market has a plethora of books with
pretty pictures and IDs (the Dennerle ad/book is THE best, IMHO).
What is really needed is an in-depth "How To" book.  This is what I
receive the most comments on - "Finally, a step by step procedure on
how to do this".  "The Optimum Aquarium" comes close but stops just
short, probably so you will buy their products (which also fall short
since the instruction sheets are a bit :-) cryptic). 

I currently have about 7 megabytes of stuff on disk that just needs "a
little formatting" for a book.  Too bad I already have a job and three
hobbies ...
 
George

PS: How much would you pay for a book?