Northwest Dive Club

Yes -- I keep telling Jan he needs to put a bunch of these educational pictorials together in book form as a guide to Emerald Sea marine life!

LCF wrote:Yes -- I keep telling Jan he needs to put a bunch of these educational pictorials together in book form as a guide to Emerald Sea marine life!

Amen!

Jan, I realize that there probably isn't a big enough market for a book like that to pay for printing and make much money, if any. But I'll bet a lot of people in the dive community around here would donate a little to help pay the publishing costs just to see your work more widely recognized - I'd gladly pitch in 50 bucks - and to then buy a copy after it came out! In fact, maybe you could say everybody who "donated" a certain amount ($50?) towards publishing would get a copy free when you'd raised enough for the first printing! And every dive shop in the PNW (and perhaps some other businesses as well) would probably pay $100-$200 to have a small mention (with phone number, address, website) included in a few "sponsors" pages at the front! Finally (while I'm brainstorming out loud here), you could form a 501c3 charity, to use any profits for local marine protection, etc., and that would encourage all kinds of people to donate (I'd increase my donation to 100 bucks!) because it'd be tax deductible AND be supporting a good cause. That all might give you enough to get a few thousand copies printed, and I'm SURE every dive shop in the PNW would carry them for sale! Just a thought or two on how to finance the first printing...

Well, I don't know what to say.. Coming from a photographer of your caliber, it is more then just a compliment. I am glad that my diving obsession is making also other appreciate what our waters have to offer. However, I have no experience with publishing and when I peeked into the possibility to get something printed so it doesn't cost arm and leg, I found that one has to order thousands of copies and I am afraid, there just isn't market for that many... As I said, I don't know anything about the business end of it ... Thank you for your kind words, of course I am always open to suggestions. Meanwhile, I keep on diving

Sea of Light

Mr. Salas did it. He took advance orders until he had enough to pay for the first printing, and less than six months after he began taking them, the book was out. And it's beautiful. And Mr. Salas told me he would be MORE than happy to talk to you, Jan, about what he did and how he did it.

There has to be an entreprenurial (sp) book seller that would know the process - Hope Lynne's suggestion works.

Distribution would be key - message board orders and word of mouth and a booth at the expo would move a thousand or so, but I'm betting Jan's work would sell in book shops in the area as well, greatly increasing it's audience.

And, my apologies in advance Jan for any over eager planning of a future you may or may not desire!

I bought one of the few copies my LDS had of one of Jan's books to take to my parents. They are pretty thrilled with it (they aren't sea-people so don't really have any idea of what I mean when I describe fishies to them), and even asked me for the address of this thread!

More books of Jan's stuff would be a wonderful plan imo! Sign me up.

Yes, I've given copies of Jan's prior small books to any number of folks, and whether or not they were divers, they have all though they were wonderful. In fact, a horseback riding friend of mine in Eastern Washington, who has never been diving and has no desire to do so, keeps the book on her coffee table for friends to admire!

LCF wrote:Sea of Light
Mr. Salas did it. He took advance orders until he had enough to pay for the first printing, and less than six months after he began taking them, the book was out.

Great idea! And let me throw one more idea out there (and then I'll leave it alone so this wonderful thread doesn't get totally hijacked!). If you don't think a book is feasible, consider doing calendars! They're far cheaper to produce, and you can sell them for $20-25, which is about the same as most books! I did that a few years ago (you can see mine at http://www.underwaterreflections.com/gallery/1749596) - my company paid to have 800-1000 produced at $5-6 apiece as I recall, and after recouping the cost, I netted over $12,000 for the charity I was supporting! Your stuff would be perfect for that because you come out with great new stuff each year, so PNW divers would buy them year after year (I'd buy half a dozen as gifts for friends)! I had mine produced at http://digi-labs.net/pricing.shtml. I'd be happy to discuss that with you offline if you're interested (NOW is the time of year to be doing it) - PM me! Bottom line: I think it's a shame that your stuff doesn't have a bigger audience, and I'll bet if everyone here put their heads (and personal contacts) together, we could remedy that problem...

I don't see why a professional coffee-table-book publisher wouldn't be interested in picking up such a book and paying Jan royalties for it. The quality is certainly there, and a "real" publisher would be able to do a lot more marketing. I'm just sayin'...

Thank you all for your input in the now continuing saga of "How to transform Island Critters into printed form" .
Meanwhile, my quest of learning more about the Lingcod cleaning continues in the murky waters of Keystone.
For en minutes I waited to see if any sculpin does show up for work. One Longfin skirted around the waiting Lingcod who advertised for the cleaning job by keeping its mouth wide open. No cleaning was performed this time....

Jan, I took my son to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium today, and noticed that several of the fish in the big tank there have that popeye thing going. If I hadn't seen your post/picture on it, I would have had No Clue about what I was seeing. More kudos for your education-ating me!

Blaiz wrote:Jan, I took my son to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium today, and noticed that several of the fish in the big tank there have that popeye thing going. If I hadn't seen your post/picture on it, I would have had No Clue about what I was seeing. More kudos for your education-ating me!

I agree! I've seen that on numerous fish in the wild, and never new what it was.
Speaking of which, the Marty Feldman comparo is abso-friggin'-lutely hilarious! :roll:

Thanks. Here is another critter with interesting lifestyle ...

Fascinating! I've seen those things from time to time but thought they were just juvenile Oregon tritons. May this thread continue forever!

Thanks Dave,
And from the underwater chapter of "It's a dog-eat-dog world" book - snapshots from the life of
Morning Sun Star - critter with lovely name and terrible reputation ....

As for the Wrinkled Amphissa aka wrinkled dove snail presence at the star dinner -
maybe it was homing in for a free meal instead of being part of the menu...

Maybe this one hung out with one Amphissa too many, and ended up sleeping with the fishes?

At first I thought it was a piece of long red string ...

Oh, ribbon worms are so cool! I found one at Cove 2 one day, and at first, I was sure someone had dropped some climbing rope, because the color and markings seemed SO artificial.

Although they are soooo many, I have a hard time to get a decent picture ..

Nice work to get a pix that good. They are sooooo small and almost transparent. There were tons of them at Sund rock yesterday.

Oh, cool page, Jan! I always assumed those swarms of things were juveniles or larvae of some kind. (It isn't only your camera that has trouble focusing on them!)

Although majority of these nudibranchs do not port the white dots, some do.
I asked. Nobody knows why...

Starmonkie and I were diving once, and I saw one of those spotted hoodies. I had thought it was a different species because of the spots, and that it was half the size of the other I saw.

Well, Jan, if you don't know, I would imagine nobody does . . . I have always wondered if it's some kind of disease, or a dietary thing. We saw many of them today, and about 25% or so had the spots.

So I finally had the honor to meet some of the NWDC members in person here on Whidbey Island.
Although the visibility was not that great, they were polite to proclaim that it is indeed a great
place to dive ...
I found the shallows in kelp forest the most rewarding place on this particular day.
Graceful Kelp crabs climbing on kelp, schools of rockfish in the canopy//
I missed the Northern Kelp Crabs which are normally very common here, now they are starting to show up again..