Publishing a book on Al Mooney

m.mooney

m.mooney

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MarthaMooney
I recently contacted publisher of my grandfather's book "We all fly through the same air" , and they weren't interested.ĺp I know it wouldn't be a bestseller I know it wouldn't get a lot of people buying it because it's a very specific group meant for a very specific audience but I wanted to reach out and see if anybody has any advice. The fact is I've got a lot of stuff that isn't in Gordon Baxter's book, but I think it would be worthwhile to publish
While I know this might not happen, I do believe it is worthwhile to pursue.
 
m.mooney said:
I am not sure if this is an email or what. Can you clarify what they are so I can reach out to them?
And thank you for the help by the way!
Martha
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Those are links to their board names. Click on the names/links and then "Send Direct Message".
 
m.mooney said:
I am not sure if this is an email or what. Can you clarify what they are so I can reach out to them?
And thank you for the help by the way!
Martha
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You can feel to contact me. I've been self-publishing books since 2015. That is an option as long as you hold the rights to the book. How you go about it depends on whether your book is picture or graphics intensive. If it isn't, it's easy and you can make your book available in both ebook and print (POD/print on demand) form. If it is, self publishing is a little more problematic as graphics don't play well in ebook form, and photographs don't display in good quality on POD paperback form.

Oh and by the way I wouldn't dismiss trade publishing too quickly. Publishers are never interested in authors that directly approach them. You might try querying agents - I can point you to an author forum which can offer some good advice.
 
m.mooney said:
I am not sure if this is an email or what. Can you clarify what they are so I can reach out to them?
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I was paging our resident authors in the hopes that they'd chime in.
 
So this is a lot of information I'm going to have to sit and look at as far as the rights to the book I'm his granddaughter and I have possession of the book my mother and father have passed and neither one of my brothers have the wherewithal to do any of this I appreciate the advice and help I'm going to look at all this and figure out what I should be doing I will do some research and then go forward thank you for your help
 
Might want to do a copy right search and see who owns it. I also have no idea what the length of time is for something to pass into public domain.
 
m.mooney said:
I am not sure if this is an email or what. Can you clarify what they are so I can reach out to them?
And thank you for the help by the way!
Martha
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When you put an @ in front of someone’s POA name, they will get a notification. Like this @m.mooney
 
McGraw Hill inherited all the TAB aviation books in the mid-90s (including mine). Other than royalty statements, I haven't had much contact with them for ~20 years. I see they do have a submissions portal:

Guidelines for Proposal

Guidelines for Proposal in Prospectus, Sample Chapters, VITA/Web Sites, and Reviewer Suggestions
www.mheducation.com www.mheducation.com

Depending on the previous publisher, you might need to get a release from them before anyone else will consider it.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Are you talking about writing a new book yourself or publishing something that someone else wrote?
 
Okay, I think I understand what you are trying to do.

There is an existing book about Al Mooney. You want to add to it and republish.

You have two choices, either you acquire the rights from the publisher, which is going to cost you, or you write your own version from scratch, adding in what you want. You can certainly cite the original book, but citing entire chapters or large quantities of text starts to infringe on copyright laws.
 
I realized yesterday that you were right. What I wanted to do was just publish my grandfather book exactly as he wrote it without adding or taking anything away but because it's tied to Gordon Baxter's book there's not much I can do about it.
It's a shame too because there's a lot of information he wrote down only not to be shared.
 
Lindberg said:
Are you talking about writing a new book yourself or publishing something that someone else wrote?
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I'm talking about the book that my grandfather actually wrote that Gordon Baxter used to write his book.

Only I would publish it exactly as he wrote it without adding or taking anything away
 
m.mooney said:
I'm talking about the book that my grandfather actually wrote that Gordon Baxter used to write his book.

Only I would publish it exactly as he wrote it without adding or taking anything away
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Also the publisher is Shearer publishing
 
My grandfather did a lot of writing to and from people and he wrote some things that did not come in the book so I still might be able to put together something just based on what he wrote people I probably wouldn't title it letters my grandfather wrote and put his name in it
 
m.mooney said:
I'm talking about the book that my grandfather actually wrote that Gordon Baxter used to write his book.

Only I would publish it exactly as he wrote it without adding or taking anything away
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You need to get a copy of the agreement between your grandfather and Baxter and have a copyright attorney review it. The details matter. You also need to figure out who inherited your grandfather's intellectual-property rights.
 
So I don't think there is a agreement between Baxter and my grandfather he would have saved it and I've got all those papers and I haven't seen anything. (they were handshake kind of guys), but I still will see if I can find that. Maybe Shearer publishing has that. I'm not too shy to ask.
One sad note I tried to find out how to contact
Jenny his daughter that he wrote about in his book. I was going to send her some of her dad's letters that he wrote to grandad. But sadly I found she had passed. I found not only did she have health problems and problems walking due to an aneurysm, I also found she was murdered by her living boyfriend and it saddens my heart because I am sure Gordon loved her so very dearly but at least maybe she was in his arms now. From what I see she was also a writer.
It breaks my heart and makes me cry to think of what happened to her.
Martha
 
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m.mooney said:
So I don't think there is a agreement between Baxter and my grandfather he would have saved it and I've got all those papers and I haven't seen anything. (they were handshake kind of guys), but I still will see if I can find that. Maybe Shearer publishing has that. I'm not too shy to ask.
One sad note I tried to find out how to contact
Jenny his daughter that he wrote about in his book. I was going to send her some of her dad's letters that he wrote to grandad. But sadly I found she had passed. I found not only did she have health problems and problems walking due to an aneurysm, I also found she was murdered by her living boyfriend and it saddens my heart because I am sure Gordon loved her so very dearly but at least maybe she was in his arms now. From what I see she was also a writer.
It breaks my heart and makes me cry to think of what happened to her.
Martha
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If there was no written agreement, that may be strongly in your favor. An oral agreement could at most be a non-exclusive copyright license. You should speak to an experienced copyright attorney.
 
the author has the right in the us to terminate the copyright after 35 years if it was published 1978 or later
 
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