Trains & Grains Now Available!

The books have arrived! To order, see sidebar at left. I usually ship within two business days of receiving your order. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed, commented or supported this Trains & Grains project in any way!

Sample pages! Volume 1: Data, text, observations and photos. Portage la Prairie 1976 to 1986! Click for larger versions of each sample page.

Sample pages! Volume 2: Photos and text. Grain elevators 1976 to 1986! Click for larger versions of each sample page!

Background is Green!

The background is green. That means the books have been prepared, published and printed.

Look up, look way up,
Eric

Roll the Presses!

It was seven months ago when I officially launched this book project. Now I'm proud to tell you that both books are with the printer. Preparing for the launch!

Look up, look way up.
Eric

Printable Order Form

The Numbers Game, and, You'll Be The First to Know

I've been a little too cryptic lately in these update posts. Two questions to stress right now:

• How large a print run?
• How will you know it's done?

I'll guess at the first bullet point. I'll include contributor complimentary copies and expressions of interest in Volume 1 - TRAINS and Volume 2 - GRAINS. There will be no formal expressions-of-interest from me. No pre-booking. No pre-publication. I've predicted 10 copies and I'll be thinking hard about that number.

For the second bullet point: I spoke to my graphic designer on the weekend. Volume 1 is just about done, and Volume 2 is 50% done. And yes, faithful reader, you'll know when they're ready. Between rolling the presses and availability, there'll be final pricing, marketing and getting ready to fill orders.

I am still promising Spring 2018 availability!

Seems do-able.

Look up, look way up,

Eric

Draft and Cover, Volume 1

There are a couple of holes to plug, but here's the cover that accompanies the first draft of Volume 1 - TRAINS just received from my graphic designer. I've got some reading to do!

Look up, look way up.
Eric

Portage la Page 27

When you get an email from your graphic designer with 'Ready for you' in the subject line, you click on it. Bryan is asking what I think of the layout so far? My response, "Yessir!". Other appropriate responses would have been, "Whee doggies!" or "Slap my ears with honey and roll me in a beehive!". Crushing it. Schooling it. Taking it to church.

I've wondered how many photos would fit on a page. I was thinking six. But there are plenty of pages with seven and eight. Fully captioned from original observations. Portage in portrait and landscape formats. And though neither you nor I can afford full colour on every page, ten colour pages and colour covers give us over 70 photos in colour. And they will be the most colourful, if that makes any sense. Seeing this stuff in print after forty years makes me completely nonsensical.

And very proudly happy. Happily proud. There I go again.

Thank you for that email, Bryan!

Look up, look way up,

Eric