Would you read this?

jd2cyl1943

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Bemidji, MN
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I've been putting a lot of work into my book. I'm estimating it to be done in a month or two. The question I have now is would anybody buy and read this?
 
Steve, the book just sorta came out of a few things. I met Gary Biewer's 14 year old daughter, who is named Coleman after the tractor, at the Albany show last year. I didn't know what a Coleman Tractor was, so I tried looking it up, but a found about 2 sentences of info on it. I decided to find out everything I could about them, since all the company records were destroyed and nearly nothing was known about the. After coming up a fairly good amount of info, I thought I would make a book out of it to help other people learn more about the Coleman. I feel fairly proud of it as there was virtually nothing known about them and I have now managed to cover the history of the company and tractor, and have complied a close to 50 ads and photos, three of which are originals that I own.
 
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I've been putting a lot of work into my book. I'm estimating it to be done in a month or two. The question I have now is would anybody buy and read this?
Hey Andrew. I'm curious. During your research did you happen to come across any mention of the Sweeney School in KC MO? It was a Hands-On training school for auto and tractor mechanics in the early 20th century. My paternal grandfather graduated from there in 1920. Returned home and started an auto repair business. I think that failed and he went back to farming. He was a good tractor mechanic though.
 
I would buy it, since I'm from Missouri. If you want to find out market possibilities, I would think you would try to find similar books and see how many of them have been sold. I think you can find out how many of a particular book has been sold. I think there are people who study that.
 
Steve, the book just sorta came out of a few things. I met Gary Biewer's 14 year old daughter, who is named Coleman after the tractor, at the Albany show last year. I didn't know what a Coleman Tractor was, so I tried looking it up, but a found about 2 sentences of info on it. I decided to find out everything I could about them, since all the company records were destroyed and nearly nothing was known about the. After coming up a fairly good amount of info, I thought I would make a book out of it to help other people learn more about the Coleman. I feel fairly proud of it as there was virtually nothing known about them and I have now managed to cover the history of the company and tractor, and have complied a close to 50 ads and photos, three of which are originals that I own.
Ahhh. There's a girl involved! That makes a lot of sense. Young girls have inspired many a great work. I think you should finish the book, get a good editor to look at it, and then self-publish through one of the many print-on-demand services out there for niche interests. Even if you don't make any money, you'll gain a lot of experience, become a recognized self-taught expert in a historic topic, and the girl is surely going to be impressed!
 
Ahhh. There's a girl involved! That makes a lot of sense. Young girls have inspired many a great work. I think you should finish the book, get a good editor to look at it, and then self-publish through one of the many print-on-demand services out there for niche interests. Even if you don't make any money, you'll gain a lot of experience, become a recognized self-taught expert in a historic topic, and the girl is surely going to be impressed!
Here is an example of a print-on-demand book I bought from bookmagic.com. it was printed the day after I ordered it and shipped the day of printing. Cost was $26.95. if you can't get a regular publishing house interested, this type of operation might take you up on it.
 

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Andrew maybe you should check with Eric Mickelson the gentleman that writes about auctions in Green Magazine. He has published a 56 page book about growing up on a farm and life around that. He is from Oklee and is a member of our 2 cylinder club. I'm sure that he would be willing to help you with any questions you might have with you composition. You might be trying to fill a narrow nech with your topic. Good luck with it and getting the 43B up and running. Tom in Mn.
 
Love stories of manufacturers of tractor ,cars etc. There was an article about Rumley in one of the tractor mags and guys complained I thought it was great history
 
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I wrote this in 2019 and got it printed and published. my co-author collected some pictures and I put them into a book and wrote around 60.000 words to go with them. We then got some help from a couple of people who had also written tractor books and we then paid to have it printed and published. We thought we would sell around 50 to people who had worked for the company locally but we got excellent writeups in the tractor and vintage magazines and, so far, have sold over 1000 copies. Once published, it has to go into all the local libraries, the national libraries of England , Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by law.

I put it on e-Bay and my friend who has a machinery business sells it to his customers, I have also attended local craft fairs and got it on local radio. There is a lot of work involved and you will not get rich, we have broken even and made a small profit. Be careful of your pricing, I know two people who have done similar projects and priced in their time writing which has made the books very expensive, suffice to say their sales are not good and they wonder why. It is a labour of love really, it took us four years to get it to that stage. I have another book in the pipeline but that is suffering from "writers block" at this time, after another 50.000 words.
 
Hey Andrew. I'm curious. During your research did you happen to come across any mention of the Sweeney School in KC MO? It was a Hands-On training school for auto and tractor mechanics in the early 20th century. My paternal grandfather graduated from there in 1920. Returned home and started an auto repair business. I think that failed and he went back to farming. He was a good tractor mechanic though.
The name sounds sorta familiar, but since I wasn't specifically looking for info on the school I don't remember for sure. Sorry.
 

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