Jerry,
Your anecdotes about being a tech writer are fine, however a digitized image will always allow for closer detail of the pixel data regardless of the PPM. You're comparing print quality of a holy 3000DPI with inspection via a monitor. Apples to Oranges my friend and you should know that. Any day of the week I can pick out better detail from a low resolution monitor than I can from a printed book. This argument is moot, anyone really interested in a photograph would do well to purchase a copy of said photograph for their own notes. Books and Internet sources are good for quick reference of images, not fine detail study.
My "opinion" about D&RGW books proves itself, every piece of evidence you've offered is anecdotal and not relevant. Why are there more models of the same classes of D&RGW locomotives Jerry? Because that was all that was being promoted during the tourist years of the D&RGW which raised awareness only of the D&RGW. It's simple cause and effect, you're simply biased by your own topic of choice. The expansion of the highway system increased tourism in these far off locations, thus leading to the exposure of the D&RGW to countless young boys and railfans who were enthralled by a living breathing narrow gauge.
THAT is why the D&RGW is so popular. The initial experiences of those children fed the hunger for knowledge on the subject. Prior to the 60s, narrow gauge kits were varied and the majority were NOT D&RGW primarily related.
CRRMs book sales issues are due to choice in topics printed and a dwindling market. I see that a good majority of the current CRRM books appear to be railfan picture books. I suppose that has nothing to do with why people aren't buying, there couldn't possibly be enough picture books right?
Your statement that you'd rather flush your work is a bit odd, as I was not arguing for you to publish your work as a "Online Book" in any sense. I was merely stating that smaller pieces of work like as simple as an article or collection of general information would be the largest boon for the hobby and help sell books in the long run. There are plenty of people who want things for free, they're spoiled little children and are not indicative of the average casual railfan. Many of the younger generation do have growing libraries filled with real honest to goodness books when they can afford it. However
blanketing the younger crowd as being a bunch of freeloaders on a public forum most certainly has not helped your case and has offended a number of "younger" readers who often lurk here. You're entitled to your opinions, however you do occasionally come off as a crass old man more interested in hoarding than actually sharing and educating those whom are interested (not my words).
I hope you can understand my point that the Internet works just fine for a tool to promote our hobby and can work hand in hand with printed materials. As someone who's been in the field at some point in his life you should know this already and we should not be having this argument.
Andrew Brandon
A fixture here since Y2k.
[
www.pacificng.com]
[
www.spnghs.org]
"An end to red domes in our lifetime!"
