I just received a pallet full of the books that I wrote... The printing company delivered them yesterday... The book looks great, too! https://youtube.com/shorts/cRA9QkWhCl0?feature=share Now I have to get busy mailing these out! Many thanks to those at CoinTalk who have helped me along the way...
Congrats! I wrote a children's book in 2020 and it's really neat having it in your hands for the first time. It's also rewarding when you hear from people who enjoyed it, which I'm sure you'll be experiencing soon.
Looks extremely professional. I think I saw it listed on eBay. I thought about picking one up. I don't currently own any Korean coins, but the quality of the publication is compelling. Z
Just based on the size of your book, it appears to provide a fairly exhaustive study. Are there many books on the subject of South Korean coins? If not, yours may become a definitive source.
There are NO sources, in either Korea or English, that cover these coins as comprehensively as mine does. The country's central bank, the Bank of Korea, has its own publications in Korean and English and they cover all banknotes and coins, but these only cover basic facts, and have increasingly left the facts out of their newer publications and have only included glossy photo pages. And the photos of coins are horrendous (nastily corroded coins in their last publication in 2018). There is also one book that was written in Korea (in Korean) by a former Korean Mint designer (whom I quote often in my book) back in 2006. That one has information in it that obviously comes from internal Korean Mint documents and Bank of Korea documents, but this one also does not cover any one of the coin issues as much as mine does. Along with using more varied sources of information, and including more detailed information about each coin, my book gives readers an idea of how these coins functioned in the economy of South Korea in their years of circulation. No other book has any of this. My book covers all circulation coins (former and current) up to 2020/2021. The book stops its narrative explanations of the commemorative coins at 1988 (the Seoul Olympics coins) since that coin series seems to represent the pinnacle of the Koreans' efforts to become a fully-functioning national mint that could produce coins on their own and in high quality and large mintages. That's sort of the end of the "era of development". I do address all commemoratives since the Seoul Olympics, but only in chart format at the back of the book, with all their specifications, mintages, and descriptions of the designs. They also have incredible illustrations, as with the rest of the book. My book is indeed now the standard reference on South Korean coins, in any language. I find it hard to say things with confidence at times, but not that statement!
It already is. I state this with complete confidence, and support and admire the work of love that produced this reference book. Of course, he is only doing it for the money......
Ha! I'm SPENDING MONEY writing and putting in surplus labor for this book, not sitting back and making money! I will come out of this, easily, at a net negative $$. Let that be a lesson to any future authors who also aren't fully financing their own writing projects! Thanks for your kind words, Charley... It was indeed a labor of love.
Having funded "Looking Through Lincoln Cents", truer words do not exist. Chuck suffered trial and tribulation writing the book, at the same time he was encountering very difficult personal family issues, but he never gave up. he did not make anything, but it is an indication of his love and dedication that the book sold out and is still used today. The same will happen with this book. I know stuff. I really do and I am not telling. You can not get me to tell. Well, alright, just this once: Mark is the real deal (PS: send me lots of money to send him).
The hard thing with children's books is you need to have illustrations, and I'm not skilled at that so I had to hire someone. That accounted for well over half of the cost and basically ensures it won't be profitable. Still, it's really cool to know that I made something like that and I really like finished product, it's neat to hear stories about how it's a kid's favorite book or motivated them to start a garden (it's about gardening), and reading it to my son for the first time was priceless. It was a lot of work and I had to learn a lot, but I'd do the same thing again because I believed in the product and thought it was worth it. I'm not so sure I'd do a second book, but if I had an idea that I thought demanded to be made then I probably would. For everyone who actually writes and publishes a book there's 25 people who say they had a great idea but never did anything with it. Congrats for following through and going through all the work. You're an author now and no one can take that away from you.
Yep. It seems you have to do IT ALL for a book to be profitable (funding, text, illustrations), or find people who are willing to allow you to use their images or illustrations for small or no fee. Still, you can't PRINT the book by yourself! You gotta pay thousands for that! You have a very good take on your experience in writing that book, and I'm glad I asked you that question!
I think it's good to do something tangible that you can contribute to the world. You spend a lot of time learning things and this is a way to give back and share what you know. And it's a good ice breaker - do you know I wrote a book? I actually was job hunting this year and I felt like in some of my interviews it helped me stand out, so there's that too. As for printing, mine is print on demand so it's possible to save money there. But if I want to order copies and sell them myself of course I have to pay for it. I don't know if all kinds of books can be done that way though.
