Rags to Rifleman

Bob Jewett said:
All suggestions like this assume that Buddy has some right to publish the book. I don't think any of us knows that. The copyright of the book is in the name of "Huckleberry Publishing Co." of Nashville. According to an on-line record, this is the only book Huckleberry ever published.
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I talked to Buddy about this years ago and he said that he and his wife do not have the rights to the book nor do they have anything but the book itself. I could be mistaken as the conversation was a good 8 years ago or more.

Buddy said he would be quite happy to see it reprinted but there was some issue that I can't remember as to why it's not being done.
 
JB Cases said:
I talked to Buddy about this years ago and he said that he and his wife do not have the rights to the book nor do they have anything but the book itself. I could be mistaken as the conversation was a good 8 years ago or more.

Buddy said he would be quite happy to see it reprinted but there was some issue that I can't remember as to why it's not being done.
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lol, minor detail, the author -- Buddy did not write the book.
 
1pocket said:
lol, minor detail, the author -- Buddy did not write the book.
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I did not say Buddy wrote the book. I said he said he doesn't have the right to reprint it which would probably be because he didn't write it. W.W. Woody wrote it iirc and he is in Hawaii also iirc which I probably don't.

But I seem to remember that Buddy said there was another problem, like no one had the original copy and so the only way to reprint it would be for someone to transcribe the whole thing from an existing copy.
 
JB Cases said:
I did not say Buddy wrote the book. I said he said he doesn't have the right to reprint it which would probably be because he didn't write it. W.W. Woody wrote it iirc and he is in Hawaii also iirc which I probably don't.

But I seem to remember that Buddy said there was another problem, like no one had the original copy and so the only way to reprint it would be for someone to transcribe the whole thing from an existing copy.
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I believe only the publisher has the rights, unless there was an agreement to the contrary before the original publication.
 
I can certainly dedicate a few chapters to playing at the RACK in Detroit.

wahcheck said:
...although the reasons given are that it's out of print and a "rare book"....
it still makes me scratch my head about the cost of the book, especially now that somebody has said that the print is substandard (sizewise)....No disrespect to Buddy, because he is def. one of the all time greats, but would any other pool book about other great players be so expensive if they were out of print? This also makes me wonder why other great players and gamblers don't do books of their own? Books I would buy and read would include biographical or autobiographical by Earl, Keith, Nick Varner, Johnny Archer, Mike Sigel, Billy Incardona, C.J. Wiley, and some others I can't think of right now, but you get the idea. Actually, the book I would really like to read would be about all those who participated in the Rack gambling days in Detroit.
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I appreciate the vote of confidence, I'll put the book writing closer to my priority list. I can certainly dedicate a few chapters to playing at the RACK in Detroit.

Play Well
 
Please do...

CJ Wiley said:
I appreciate the vote of confidence, I'll put the book writing closer to my priority list. I can certainly dedicate a few chapters to playing at the RACK in Detroit.

Play Well
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That would be great, CJ; I enjoy reading your accounts of the gambling days
and those adventures you had.
 
cigardave said:
My suggestion to Buddy would be to have someone professionally digitize his book and sell it online at $25 to $30 each.

Less money invested by comparison to printing another edition. And much simpler.
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Absolutely. I'd be all over the kindle edition of this book, though $30 would give me pause.
$20 is reasonable though. They have good OCR scanners these days that can get the book 90% transcribed in a few minutes, and then a human just spends a few hours cleaning up.
 
Pool & Billiard Magazine July 1996
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/i/p/y/ipy47c00/Sipy47c00.pdf

Huckleberry Publishing Co.
(Representing Buddy Hall)
5131 Linwood Rd .
Watertown, TN 37184
(615) 237-9460
Introducing Buddy Hall's
new video, posters & place mats
of terms commonly used .
First-time offered autographed
nine balls . Buddy's
autobiography, Buddy's
world-famous cue guide.
Booth: 1308

The book original price was $30.00 retail. Promotion [Free] items in 1996 with Book could of been Place Mat and Poster of Buddy Hall

http://www.billiardmemorabilia.com/images/Unframed/m550hall.jpg

m550hall.jpg

Buddy Hall poster, depicting Buddy Hall thru a charcoal drawing, signed by Buddy Hall, 14.5"x22"
Free in 1996 as a promotion items, now $100
 
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Bob Jewett said:
... How many here would be willing to pay $20 to borrow "Rags to Rifleman?" If there is sufficient interest, I'll set something up.
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Since there was no positive response, I'm concluding that everyone figures $20 is too high a price to get to read this book. That doesn't bode well for sales of a new printing except to collectors.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Since there was no positive response, I'm concluding that everyone figures $20 is too high a price to get to read this book. That doesn't bode well for sales of a new printing except to collectors.
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I would gladly pay you $20 to borrow the book. Unfortunately you would have to dog me through the forums because you would never get it back. I shouldn't have sold my last copy but I credited it with inpsiring me to go out and gamble on pool every time I opened it.

Actually to be serious for a second, the pool of people willing to spend money renting a book is small no matter what the book is I think. In fact that's fairly rare isn't it? I still think that a second printing would sell well.

But I doubt highly that this book would lend itself well to OCR being that the print is so small. Of course I bet Google has some cool tech to do their scanning.
 
JB Cases said:
I would gladly pay you $20 to borrow the book. Unfortunately you would have to dog me through the forums because you would never get it back. ...
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Well, that wouldn't be a problem considering the deposit.:wink: The book would be yours after a month and then neither of us would worry about you returning it.
 
Buddy's top speed was SUPER natural

wahcheck said:
That would be great, CJ; I enjoy reading your accounts of the gambling days
and those adventures you had.
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Buddy Hall was certainly a part of my development, more than he probably "real eyeses"......Buddy's top speed was SUPER natural. :eek:

I remember when Woody was following the tournament trail with Buddy writing this book 'Rags to Rifleman'......I'm going to make a point to read it after I'm done with the last two chapters of Alf Taylor's book I'm currently reading. Buddy used to give St. Louie Louie the 7 in Shreveport, that would have been awesome to see.
 
JB Cases said:
Actually to be serious for a second, the pool of people willing to spend money renting a book is small no matter what the book is I think. In fact that's fairly rare isn't it? I still think that a second printing would sell well.
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John, my copy is a second printing. So, it's already been through two printings. Not to nitpick, just sayin'....
 
It's a good book for sure

I bought one from Buddy years back. The reason it sells for so much now is...All it takes for something to become a collectable (this is the business I'm in) is for enough people to agree it's collectable. How would you liked to have bought a stack of Honus Wagner baseball cards, at one time, for less than a penny?

"The worth of something should be determined by the amount of a person's life that went into it". Henry David Thoreau 1850

The value of Buddy's book isn't determined by the time he took to compose it or the book printing quality, but by the lifetime of pool wizzardry he led to gain the information within. I'm proud to have traveled with him and matched up against him. Guess which one I didn't like.
Keep it nice. Alfie
 
JB Cases said:
But I doubt highly that this book would lend itself well to OCR being that the print is so small. Of course I bet Google has some cool tech to do their scanning.
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As long as the ink isn't smudged, size is no problem, I've seen fine print on verizon contracts OCR'd flawlessly. What sucks is to do it efficiently you have to destroy the book. I used to work with these huge machines similar to a supermarket checkout aisle, you unbind the book and drop the pages into a tray, the conveyor somehow separates and spaces every page, then runs them down the conveyor at like 20mph. An overhead camera snaps perfect shots, then the software auto-rotates and OCR's everything. It's unreal what they can do in five minutes. I'm told they cost about 250k.
 
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