Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

 

Chris Dale wrote:

All great suggestions guys/girl, but perhaps thescope of the book should be
slightly wider if possible.

Will the book include any observations/experiences of Chamberlin playing
(maybe Birotron as well - time to ask Wakeman/Earthstar)?

Otherwise the book will still be lacking a LOT of information and leaving
readers with many questions.

If you only had one chance at this and you wanted to do it beyond reproach
for all time - what/who/why would you ask???

I guess what I'm getting at is there's a whole plethora of musicians/people
(albeit not as well known) who would have been familiar with usingthese
instruments from the early 50's on up. Lawrence Welk was one of thefirst
people interested in the Chamberlin and even offered to fund it ifit was
called a "Welk Machine" (His interest in Harry's wife being a mootpoint).

That's an example of the kind of arcane info that would be worth reading
about, along with what we do and still don't know about Mellotrons.I think
this would make it a more worthwhile venture.

Another fact is that at least over here in Canada/U.S  the
Mellotron/Chamberlin have been confused together to the point whereone is
consistently mistaken for the other by musicians/liner note writersetc.
This was true in the golden days and it's still true now.  Thisis something
we tend to ignore because we're fairly well versed in the differences
between the two machines. Unfortunately, many others are not and thelaymen
don't care to be.

So.....can it be a 50/50 amount about the history of the machines
themselves/music celebrity observations or is that going overboard?

Chris

---

Greetings Again Everyone,

Chris made a great point above about including many details
previously unwritten.     Unfortunately, in today'sworld of
instant marketing/sales, I'm afraid that such a definitive undertaking
would never reap huge profits.......or even return on investment (R.O.I.).

....As an example, I have befriended people who researched
history of Edison/electric light and  early towpath canals ofthe USA.
These individuals spent decades creating  books on their specialties.
But ultimately, anything shy of  mass marketing   neverbrought
a customer sales base to fruition.   These books are stillout-there,
their  sales numbers are lackluster at best.  And now arebeing sold
used on eBay and elsewhere...... They're incredible sources of
information....but only to those who WANT to learn of  topicswithin.

A new Mellotron book sounds wonderful in principle, gang.
But would it appeal to the masses or just to a special-interest group
such as ourselves??   What factors these days creates a "best-seller?"

Rick, your experience with bookwriting and sales  is invited.....

-- JK --