Ghost-Writing the Work of a Favorite Author

As noted elsewhere, I've written several collaborative novels and non-fiction books. I also ghosted a book. The collaborative novels included The Odysseus Solution with Dean Lambe, and two with Mack Reynolds. Among the non-fiction titles were a word processing book and a telecom book written with Jerry Pournelle, Pournelle's PC Communications Bible. and, of cousre, CROSLEY.

My ghost-writing credit was the 1986 book Rogue Bolo, by Keith Laumer. I'll explain how I came to write the book, but first a few words about Laumer and his "Bolo" series. Rogue Bolo was one of a series of novels and story collections about immense, self-aware fighting machines--the descendents of today's tanks--that Laumer created back in the 1960s. (He was also noted for the creation of Jame Retief, interplanetary diplomat who was sort of a future James Bond with a sense of humor).

The typical Bolo story is told through viewpoints, including that of one or more Bolos. Much is put into showing how powerful and invulnerable these machines are. Bolos can ravage continents, and have a masterful knowledge of military strategy, tactics, and history. Scenes from war are few; many tales involve a Bolo awakening (or being awakened) from a completely powered-down state with minimal reserve power. The awakened Bolo is often missing part of its memory, and believes it is still in a battle zone or has been tricked by the enemy into thinking the war is over. It is ready for action, even though it may have been buried under tons of rock and dirt or set up as a monument after being deactivated. The trouble begins as soon as the Bolo awakens and decides it must take action. Sometimes the action is prompted by the memory loss, and sometimes by an outside stimulus that may or may not be an enemy from the past ...

I wrote this sort of by default. Laumer had had a series of incapacitating strokes, and publisher Jim Baen asked me if I knew the Bolo series, and did I think I could write like Laumer. I had of course been reading Laumer since the 1960s, and the Bolo series was one of my favorites. Baen had already scheduled the book, and it was obvious that Laumer would not recover in time to complete the manuscript on schedule.

Baen gave me the 20 or so pages of manuscript Laumer had completed, along with a partial outline, and I took it from there. My name would not appear on the cover, nor anywhere else in connection with the book; Laumer, Baen told me, would have gone berserk. Besides, because Bolos were Laumer trademark, my name on the cover would only have confused readers.

Luckily for me, Keith Laumer was a fairly straightforward writer with a competent workman-like approach to style. And I knew his work as well as I knew Heinlein or Clarke, having read it for years and years. I kept my collection of old Bolo stories close to hand to help me hew to Laumer's style, and whenever I was in doubt about how to write a scene I found something similar in an existing Bolo work to serve as a guide.

Laumer used a few unusual techniques in the Bolo series, but they were easy to analyze. There was a lot of viewpoint shifting, enough that a long tale might have 200 or more chapters, one for each viewpoint. This technique was also used to drop in background that would have required a lot of gratuitious narrative; instead of having a character explain matters, or writing a lengthy backstory, Laumer would drop in a news story excerpt, a few lines from an interview, someone's military report, a scene with a couple of walk-ons, whatever--and that would be a chapter. With the current story narrative (including dialogue) strung among these background chapter-ettes, the story grew step by small step.

The Bolos themselves were the point and carried the story, but at least one other major character (normally human) was part of the tale. Recurring bit-part characters like Georgius Imperator and Lord Margrave filled in background and at times moved the story along. The result might be light-hearted or sentimental, but it was always fun.

When I first read Laumer's work in my teens, I would have laughed at the thought that I might some day be writing under Laumer's name; it's just not the kind of thing one thinks about. I like to think that I wrote it as Laumer would have (he passed away not long after the book came out). Save for a few personalizations--names of people I know for characters, for example--the book stands in the tradition of Keith Laumer.

--Mike

http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Copyright � 2007, Michael A. Banks

October, November, and December Speaking Engagements

For those who may be interested, I have these speaking engagements coming up in October, November, and December:

• Monday, October 29, 2007, Miami University Institute for Lifelong Learning, Oxford, Ohio, Noon. Contact: (513) 529-8600.
• Saturday, November 3, 2007, Books By the Banks, an event featuring Ohio Writers held at the Duke Energy Center (Level 2, South), 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM.
• Sunday, November 11, 2007, Ohioana Library Assocation, Cincinnati Public Library, 1:30 PM.
• Saturday & Sunday, December 1 & 2, at the Crosley Mansion in Sarasota, Florida (next to the Ringling Museum), I'll be talking about Crosley and signing copies of Crosley. A couple dozen Crosley automobiles, along with other Crosley artifacts, will be on display.

At each talk, I'll be sharing new facts and stories about Crosley autos, radios, the Crosleys themselves, and more. I'm bringing a number of Crosley artifacts from my collection to each program. Here's the tentative lineup for 2008:

• In April, 2008, I will be giving a talk at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention.
• May 2-4, 2008, I'm doing a Crosley presentation at the Early Television Convention, in Hilliard, Ohio.
• June 6 & 7, 2008 I am the keynote speaker at the Mid-Atlantic Antique Radio Club's annual gathering (this is a large regional organization). Unless something else gets in the way, I hope to be at the Crosley Automobile Club's annual meet in July. More to come.
  In the meantime, listen for me on WLW.

--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Tuesday, October 23, 2007, Green Township Branch Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, 7:00 PM. Tom Miller will be there with his 1948 Crosley Station Wagon! (No charge. Call 369-6095 to register.)

Fort Myers, Florida: Edison Inventors' Group

Thanks to everyone who came out for the meeting of the Edison Inventors Group at the Thomas Edison Museum in Fort Myers, Florida, last Wednesday, October 17. This is an impresive group, with over 80 members at that meeting. They're a real hands-on organization, with lots of experts willing to educate and train others. Anyone in the area who is an inventor or wants to be an inventor should join.
For a map, contacts and additional information, click here. Or call (239)-275-IDEA (4332).

--Mike

The Gillette Printer?

I’m still on the road and currently visiting relatives who have some photos I need to scan. I have my laptop computer with me, but had to reason to bring a printer. These folks have no computer equipment, so I went shopping for a scanner. I looked at flatbed scanners, but the cheapest one cost twice as much as a low-end color printer/scanner/copier combo. After seeing what was available at a local Circuit City, I picked up a Lexmark X2500 at Wal-Mart for $46.97 plus tax. I might have bought a Hewlett-Packard, but none of their equipment is Windows Vista certified, so the brand choice was in part made for me, by Microsoft.

Interestingly, the printer came with everything except the black ink cartridge. The color cartridge was supplied, but a note on the box stated, "Black cartridge sold separately." This reminds me of the King C. Gillette marketing trick of selling shavers at little or no profit in order to create a repeat market for profitable double-edge razor blades. (If you check, you’ll find that the shavers weren’t all that inexpensive, but they did create a market.) The cartridge cost $17.97, so in reality I paid about $66 for the printer/scanner.

This is the first time I’ve encountered this situation, though I have seen printers sold without cables--sort of a variation on the "monitor sold separately" gag. Is Lexmark selling printers cheap, giving retailers the lion’s share of the profit in order to make money on ink cartridges? No doubt they’re making money on the carts at the selling price, and it may well be that, as with other Lexmark printers I’ve owned, they won’t last as long as the carts for the HP printer I have at home. Time will tell. At least I’ll have an emergency backup on hand when the HP gives out. Plus, the X2500 really is small enough to be called portable. Maybe I’ll pack it next time I travel by car, just to have it available.
(Update, Oct. 22: I've since read reviews that say this printer really eats up cartridges. Still, the price is worth it to get a portable copier and scanner--cheap.)
--Mike

Finding Myself at a Yard Sale

It’s always fun to come across a rare item in a junk shop or yard sale. There was a time when I spent quite a few summer Saturdays cruising to find yard sales. But after a while it seemed that I was hitting a dozen or more yard sales to find one good item, and I backed off. I still swing by yard sales when I’m traveling, though. The lure of new hunting grounds is hard to resist.

Traveling in Florida today, I stopped by a church yard sale where I found some old computer equipment, among it some original Tandy DeskMate 3 software. As I looked through the box containing the items I spotted a familiar book: Getting the Most Out of DeskMate 3, a book I wrote in 1989.

DeskMate was then a contender in the PC multi-tasking software arena, but Windows 3 was close to winning the field. In the few months before DeskMate was overwhelmed by Windows, though, my book sold over 62,000 copies.

Spotting the book in the bottom of the box of old computer junk was a kick, just like the first time I saw one of my novels in a used bookstore, and later on eBay. It brought back some pleasant memories, and I was happy to pay three bucks for the book (even though I have several copies) along with the original DeskMate 3 disks and the scant documentation that came with them (I’d lost those over the years).

More than finding something I had forgotten I’d lost, the discovery was something of an affirmation of my career—proof that my work had reached across the country and helped new computerists master their machines. It was every bit as gratifying as seeing copies of my books in Indonesian, Italian, and Japanese, or learning that pirated copies of a couple of my titles exist in Russia and China.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com
Copyright © 2007, Michael A. Banks

Do Writers Get Vacations?

Everyone needs a vacation now and then. Writers who are employed (newspaper reporters, magazine staffers, technical writers, etc.) can take vacations and just stop working. However, self-employed writers tend to be "at work" all the time. This is because much of the creative process takes place inside our heads and doesn't require equipment or supplies.

Some of us are accustomed to working and find it difficult to stop. (Hm ... sometime I'll write a post about "worth ethics.") You get that way either because events have taught you that not working may be followed by a serious shortage of money, or because it's too tempting to leave the big money in front of you. Either way, you just keep on working.

I know writers caught up in those patterns. It's easy to do. For my part, I'm sitting in Florida right now, a thousand miles from my home, and I haven't done any writing other than blog postings for over a week.

Am I losing money? Perhaps. But in the long run I'll be ahead, financially and otherwise, because of this time off. Whether you write full- or part-time, you need to take that vacation. Just let it all go and and recharge.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Was I Expecting Too Much?

I've been traveling and haven't posted for several days. After spending a few days in North Carolina, I'm now in a mid-sized Florida city. I spent part of yesterday at the local library. I'm not new to the city, but it has been several years since my last visit, so I missed a turn on my way from my hosts' home to the library.

When I realized I was lost, I circled a block and found myself next to the city newspaper's multi-story building. I pulled over and walked into the newspaper's lobby, confident that I would get quick directions.

It was a large lobby, with five people at work doing whatever it was they were doing. A woman approached me from behind a counter. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Hello," I said. "Where is the public library?"

"I don't know," she replied. She turned to the others. "Does anyone know where the library is?"

Three of the others shook their heads. Only one guy out the five knew where the library was. "Go two blocks that way, turn left, and you'll see it."

The directions were perfect. But I was more than a little surprised that only 20 percent of the employees (that group, anyway) at the newspaper were informed enough to know the location of this major landmark. Was I expecting too much, thinking that anyone working for a newspaper would know the location of a public building three blocks away?
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com

Crosley Program in Fort Myers, Florida, October 17

(Note: in an earlier post I listed this a week early. The meeting is on the 17th.)
For any who may be in the area, I'll be speaking at a meeting of the Edison Inventors Group at the Thomas Edison Museum in Fort Myers, Florida, Wednesday October 17.

I'll be speaking about Powel Crosley, Jr. as an inventor and entreprenur. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM. For a map, contacts and additional information, click here. Or call (239)-275-IDEA (4332).

--Mike

http://www.michaelabanks.com/

When Completing a Book Depends on Someone Else

As noted a few posts back, Blogging Heroes is complete, as far as I know. I spent part of September going over the galleys and answering a few last-minute editorial and production questions. The cover looks good, and I assume the whole package will be sent to the printer any time now.
While we're waiting for copies, I'd like to talk about writing the book.

As a rule, projects that are simple in appearance turn out to have all sorts of complications. If you’ve ever built a deck or planned a cross-country trip, you know that. So it was with this book. Asking a bunch of bloggers questions about blogging, and putting the questions and answers into a book seems simple enough. But, as I knew going in, there would be far more to it than that.

For one thing, the interviews would have to be edited, reviewed by the subjects, and edited again. You can't go with straight transcription in a book--it ends up reading a deposition, like the Warren Commission's report. You have to smooth out the hesitations, stutterings, repetitions, you know's, and al the other little peculiarities of human speech that don't translate well to print. Each interview should be conducted like a conversation, and be written to read like a conversation--while retaining the original meaning of the interview subjects' words.

Beyond that, the chapters would need an introduction, with background about the blog and relevant biographical material on the blogger. I felt confident enough about that part (the last biography I wrote made The New York Times bestseller list). Then there would be a Preface and Introduction to write, plus various other front matter and back matter elements. (The publisher would find an indexer to create the Index. That was just as well; indexing is a specialized skill. Check out a book titled Indexing Books, by Nancy C. Mulvany, to see what I mean.)

That gave me the skeleton. I knew that the really difficult parts would come later, in the form of a seemingly endless series of complications, unforeseen events, and peculiar little problems that accompany the writing of just about any book.

This one would turn out to have some peculiar problems, indeed--largely because writing it depended on other people. The more people you add to anything, the greater the chances of things going wrong--or at least in unforeseeable directions. And I had several dozen people to deal with in writing this book. (I should note that the editors didn't generate problems; they're always a factor in writing a book, and they are there to help solve problems.) Equipment problems figured in the mix, too.

Before I finished writng the book, I would feel a lot like the guy who said, "It's hard to remember that you started out to drain the swamp when you're up to your ass in alligators!"

Stay tuned for more.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

What Will Happen when Bill Gates No Longer Runs Micosoft?

Many of you who follow Microsoft or work in the tech industry are readers of Mary Jo Foley's All About Microsoft blog at ZDNet. Mary Jo has been covering Microsoft in print and online for two decades and is the last word on the company and its effects on the world as we know it.

Now she's taking a step farther out to give readers a look at the future of Microsoft in a book titled Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era (her first book). The book was inspired by the upcoming changing of the guard at Microsoft, when Bill Gates hands off the reins of the behemoth he created. (The transition is scheduled for June, 2008.)

How will this affect those who buy from, supply, work for, or compete with Microsoft? Read Microsoft 2.0. Mary Jo is still working on the book (scheduled for Spring, 2008), she is open to any suggestions or contributions for the book.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Another Book Completed!

I finished writing a book titled Blogging Heroes some weeks ago, but my job wasn't complete until this past week. Those of you who have published books know what I mean. After (and during) the writing, there were questions, changes, and corrections from the editor and copyeditor to consider. Then the book went to production, and they had questions. The cover and cover copy came in (more than once) to review and comment on. Then came a small flurry of last-minute questions. This is good; it means the Production Editor is doing a professional job.

I haven't had any of those for four days now. so I infer that my part is done.
At this point I have proofs of the book (marked-up PDF files) and an image of the cover. The next thing I should see is a bound book. Meanwhile, I've printed out the galleys and will put them in a binder with the manuscript for my collection.

The process goes faster than it did before computers. Word processing speeds up the writing, of course, and there's no need to have a typesetter key in the manuscript, if you can imagine that. Illustrations and galleys can be sent via E-mail in minutes, rather than the one-day minimum imposed by overnight delivery services. Writers with questions or answers to questions don't have to wait to catch the editor or production manager by phone; E-mail allows the writer and editor to work on their own schedules.

I do miss getting the marked-up manuscript and "dead matter" back from the publisher at the end of it all. Ditto, the galleys (or "blues"). But overall putting a book together is such a streamlined process that I can't imagine doing it any other way. The only thing that hasn't changed is the wait for the finished product. Target dates are set for getting printed copies, and for publication, but they're never quite exact. Blogging Heroes, my forty-second book, is set for publication in early December. I expect (hope) to see printed copies by mid-November.

Having wrapped up this book, I'm at work on some magazine articles on broadcast history and classic cars, while planning a couple of new books. Both are histories--one a biography of WLW star Ruth Lyons, and the other a history of the pre-Web Internet.
(NOTE, October 1: Since writing this I received one more question from the Production Editor, Liz Britten. This is going to be a good book.)
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/
Copyright © 2007, Michael A. Banks

Radio and Rock: Recommended Reading

I often write about broadcast history, and I'm always pleased to find a book that can add to my knowledge of the subject. Such a book is Something in the Air by Marc Fisher. This 375-page hardcover is a look at the growth of radio in the 1950s and 1960s, the emergence of the star deejays, storytellers, rock, underground radio, and more.

But it's not just a chronicle of who did what to whom. It's loaded with well-written anecdotes of the "Wow--that's something!" variety. The tale of the hoax book I, Libertine, perpetrated by Jean Shepherd and ghosted by one of fiction's master writers, Theodore Sturgeon, is worth the cost of the book.

But don't mistake this for a simple collection of stories of freaky people who made their names in radio. Those stories are there, but the book as a whole is concerned with following the evolution of radio--in the public perception, legally, commercially, and ethically. As such, it is an important work. And for the writers out there, Something in the Air is a fine example of how to create a social chronicle using personal stories as building blocks, cemented by facts, narrative and a touch of one's own viewpoint.

Fisher gets a few of the facts wrong, but you can overlook those in favor of the history and the enlightening, entertaining anecdotes. The whole thing reads smoothly--Fisher's a fine writer, skilled at narrative. If you're looking for a good non-fiction read, one of those books that draws you in and keeps things fascinating, this is it.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Self-Referencing and Self-Study

I must have hit some sort of milestone this year, for I found myself looking up facts in one of my own books from the 1980s. I guess that's to be expected, because a couple of my books were the leading titles in their subject areas back then.

That prompted me to read some of my old work from the 1970s, and most of it turned out to be better than I imagined. An article on electric cars that I wrote in 1977, for example, could be published today, and I wouldn't change a word.

But I still found many things that could be changed. And in general I found my old fiction to be a bit less readable than my nonfiction. Perhaps that's because I'm more critical of the writing in fiction, the form being part of the content.

That inspired me to do some comparisons between my old and current work. I picked out a few stylistic tricks that I hadn't been aware I was using. (All of which will go into my book on writing style and technique.) Try it yourself.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com
Copyright © 2007, Michael A. Banks

Research Tip: Use eBay to Browse Old Magazine Contents

In the old (pre-Internet) days, The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature was one of the top two or three most valuable research tools for writers. Carrying bibliographic listings for every article in every issue of selected magazines, The Reader's Guide was the starting point for research on almost anything. Its only limitation was that it did covered only high-circulation, well-established, and predominately mainstream magaiznes were included.

Today the Internet offers a variety of resources for tracking down articles on specific subjects. But The Reader's Guide remains a viable resource. I find it particularly useful when I'm researching historical topics; I can go back and find all articles on a given topic in 1938, for example. I'm fortunate to have access to the back editions through the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Unfortunately, most libraries don't keep decades of old Reader's Guides. Fortunately, you can access those old editions online (back to 1890) if you're affiliated with a college or library that subscribes to the service. Click here for more info.

But those institutional subscripions are pricey and odds are you probably don't have access to The Reader's Guide. Don't despair; you can still search out articles on specific topics (or by certain authors)--and in a wider range of magazines than old editions of The Reader's Guide cover. After Googling your subject, search eBay. More often than not people selling magazine back issues there list the articles and stories in each publication they offer. When I was researching CROSLEY, I turned up dozens of useful articles through eBay searches. Seller listings pointed me to magazines from the 1920s and 1930s that I would never have found otherwise. (And thanks to the archives of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County's Magazines and Newspapers Department, I didn't have to buy most of them.)
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Business Groupies?

I just came over Amazon.com, where I was reading about the umpteenth book written by a self-made multimillionaire, this one a woman. Now, if you look at the business/entreprenur and self-help lists, everyone is a self-made millionaire. There are so many of them, you have to wonder who's left to buy their books.

I expected something different from this book because it's written by a woman. Maybe, I thought, she'll have something realistic to say, something other than stuff from the "think and grow rich" genre, investment advice and so forth. Something other than the usual bullshit, in other words.

Nope. A very succienct review of this book notes, "... the author's real passion is for recounting her affairs with various billionaires." The fluff from Publishers Weekly echoes this, talking about her "... dating Bill Gates to learn confidence." hahahahahahahaha! ROFL LMAO and all that jazz. Whew! Looks like a safe bet that nobody is going to be able to replicate this woman's approach to success!

If you'll pardon the expression, she blew her chance to consumate her avowed purpose of helping young people get ahead. From the reviews and the parts of the book I've read, this is not a book that will help you get ahead in your career. It's one of those books that results from too many friends saying, "Ooh! What an exciting life you've had--all those fascinating people you met! You should write a book!"
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

What Am I Doing Here?

I wanted to title this "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Keyboard," but I couldn't think of a way to justify the title. Perhaps another time ...

One of the main reasons I post here is to float material from a book that may or may not be titled The Real Writing Life. But that's maybe a quarter of the postings. Otherwise, this blog is largely self-entertainment, so it's not all that serious. But I do have a serious need to share some of the experiences of living life as a writer who has no other income. (What's that? The ads here? AdSense says it owes me five bucks for the past 10 months' clicks. The point of AdSense isn't to make ten million dollars while I sleep. The point is research, though it would be nice to make ten million dollars while I sleep, like the books promise. What the heck--I sleep too much, anyway!)

Bits of what I have to share could be important to some people. It depends on who you are and what you're doing. Maybe my advice on collaboration (still to come), or tales of getting ripped off or quicky ways to get magazine assignments will benefit a few readers. If so, good. If not ... well, I hope some of this is entertaining.

Anyway, there's a lot more to come. I haven't gotten to the groupies yet, nor the big "I told you so" from my seventh-grade English teacher. Then there's surviving the theft of a quarter-million dollars, being ostracized by certain family members with Appalachian antecedents, what it's really like to have 200 people waiting for your autograph, and lots more, some of which hasn't happened yet.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com

Working on the Road in the "Old Days"

Back in the late 1970s I was still working a full-time job and writing on the side. My writing income was approaching half my job income, and taking less than half as long to earn, but I hadn't given any thought to writing fulltime (that wouldn't come up until 1981).

As I had small children then, it was typical to take a vacation trip during the summer, in addition to getting to several science fiction conventions each year. (This was during my annual vacation from my job.) One year I had a two-week trip set up. First a con, then a day and a half at Mammoth Caves, followed by two in Nashville, then a week in the North Carolina mountains, driving all the way. (I think we spent a day at Redstone Arsenal during that trip, too.)

But I had magazine assignments and other work to do. So I put my Smith-Corona non-portable electric typewriter in the car trunk and off we went. I put off working until we were settled in for the week in North Carolina, though. There were too many interesting things to do, and lots of (enjoyable) driving, during the first week. I got a lot of work done, but looking back I hardly believe I loaded up the heavy beast (along with paper and envelopes, etc.) and took it with me. Just a few years later I would be toting a TRS-80 Model 100 slab computer and silently working with that--what a difference!
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com

Turn a Dial to Set the Price You Pay for a Book with Advertising

The latest experiment in E-Books has the reader selecting the quantity of advertising in a book as it is printed by a POD device. You can read about it here, at Joe Wikert's blog. He has a link to more info on the subject.

This might take off fast as a novelty, then slow down a bit. I think the average paperback novel reader would accept advertising in exchange for a reduced price--or no price. But I don't believe there will be enough advertisers to support the concept in a big way. There are already so many other advertising venues that it would seem the advertisers' budgets can't stretch any more. But then, I don't know everything about advertising.

For a look at free downloadable E-Books supported by advertising, see this post, or check out WOWIO, which offers free E-Books--both classics and more contemporary work by people like Kurt Vonnegut. (Or, read my post about WOWIO here.)

It's a nice place to start if you want to try out reading E-Books on your PC, laptop or other device.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Personal Databases and Research

It wasn't long after I began researching the book CROSLEY in 2000 that I began to pile up a lot of resources--magazine articles, books, newspaper stories, and more. There were hundreds by the time I started writing in 2001. I had dozens of originals on a set of "Crosley shelves" in my office, and even more photocopies of reference material in three-ring binders. I eventually ended up with more than 1,500 sources, not counting personal inteviews.

These were difficult to organize because many of them applied to more than one topic. Fortunately, I had started keeping a database into which I entered each book, magazine, or newspaper as I found it. (Only the fact that I entered each item as I found made it possible for me to build the database. I would never have started such a project knowing that there would be so many entries.)

Each entry includes title, issue date, publisher, topics--everything I needed for my purposes. I included materials I didn't have as well as those I did. When I needed to brush up on a particular topic, I went to the database and did a search to quickly locate the references I needed. A hardcopy version of the database turned out to be of interest to Crosley collectors, so I've sold a few here and there as The Crosley Bibliography. (Click here for more information.)

I've since done the same with three more subjects. I doubt I'll be selling copies, though. Nor will these subjects collect anywhere near 1,500 entries.
--Mike
http://www.michaelabanks.com/

Upcoming Crosley Events in Fort Myers, FL, Cincinnati, and Elsewhere

For those who may be interested, I have these speaking engagements coming up in October, November, and December:

Tuesday, October 23, 2007, Green Township Branch Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, 7:00 PM (No charge. Call 369-6095 to register.)

Monday, October 29, 2007, Miami University Institute for Lifelong Learning, Oxford, Ohio, Noon. Contact: (513) 529-8600.

Saturday, November 3, 2007, Books By the Banks, an event featuring Ohio Writers held at the Duke Energy Center (Level 2, South), 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM.

Sunday, November 11, 2007, Ohioana Library Assocation, Cincinnati Public Library, 1:30 PM.

Saturday & Sunday, December 1 & 2, at the Crosley Mansion in Sarasota, Florida (next to the Ringling Museum), I'll be talking about Crosley and signing copies of Crosley. A couple dozen Crosley automobiles, along with other Crosley artifacts, will be on display.

I'll be sharing new facts and stories about Crosley autos, radios, the Crosleys themselves, and more. I'm bringing a number of Crosley artifacts from my collection to each program. In April, 2008, I will be giving a talk at the Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention. May 2-4, 2008, I'm doing a Crosley presentation at the Early Television Convention, in Hilliard, Ohio. June 6 & 7, 2008 I am the keynote speaker at the Mid-Atlantic Antique Radio Club's annual gathering (this is a large regional organization). Unliess something else gets in the way, I hope to be at the Crosley Automobile Club's annual meet in July. More to come.

In the meantime, listen for me on WLW.
--Mike

http://www.michaelabanks.com/