The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 26, June 25, 2006, Article 3

MEMPHIS SPMC AUTHOR's FORUM REPORT

An E-Sylum subscriber submitted the following report on the
author's forum at the recent Memphis Paper Money show:

1)  The meeting was held in a function room at the Memphis 
Marriott on Friday, June 16th, early in the afternoon.  The ground rules
were laid out by Bob Schreiner of the Society of Paper Money Collectors
(SPMC).  Each speaker would have 15 minutes to talk about his/her
book(s) and publishing intrigues encountered.

2)  The first speaker was Carlson Chambliss, who talked about his
contribution to the new Hessler/Chambliss US Paper Money catalog.
As expected, the verbose Dr. Chambliss sailed right through the 15
minute limit and had to be curtailed by Bob Schreiner.  The new book
was passed around the room.  The prevailing opinion seems to be that
combining forces to produce this book was a brilliant idea. Instead
of continuing to produce competing volumes, Hessler and Chambliss
have used their expertise in different facets of US Paper Money to
produce a great book.  This may be a case of the whole being 
greater than the sum of its parts.

3)  The next speaker was Gene Hessler.  Gene talked about the
difficulty of gaining access to engravers in far flung parts of the
world, and how his perseverance ultimately paid off.  He also
talked about some of the vagaries of the book printing field.
Gene seems to think Eastern Europe may offer the best bargain in 
terms of quality and price.

4) Wendell Wolka was up next.  As you may know, Wendell authored
a massive tome on a subject once thought to be too overwhelming:
The Obsolete Bank Notes of Ohio.  Wendell posed the question:
"How do you notify the buyers of your catalog of the updates that
have occurred since the volume was published?".  Wendell ran 
through several print options and explained why each had substantial 
drawbacks. He then explained that for him, the ideal means of handling 
updates was the CD/ROM.  The cost of producing a CD/ROM with the updates
was under $1.00 per copy.  Oddly, the cost of the label was more
expensive than pressing the CD/ROM.

5) Q. David Bowers was the next speaker.  Dave talked about his
various projects with Whitman since the firm was acquired by the
Anderson brothers.  Since this was a paper money forum, he devoted
more time to the paper money books he has authored recently, including 
his US Paper Money reference, the '100 Greatest US Paper Money
Notes' book, and the soon to be released book on Obsolete US Bank Notes.
Dave talked about locating original reference sources that presumably
have never been previously tapped for numismatic purposes.

6)  Mary Counts of Whitman Publishing was the next speaker.  Mary is
A charming young woman from Atlanta.  She introduced herself as the
President of Whitman and went on to describe how her parent firm had
purchased  Whitman and revitalized it.  She said that Whitman would
entertain any  numismatic publishing project that appeared viable.
Someone in the audience asked about the minimum number of books
they needed to sell to make a project worthwhile.  Mary's answer was
5,000 copies, but they might make exceptions in certain cases.

[Many thanks to our correspondent for the detailed report! -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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