#1 - You will not get rich writing instructional books about pool. To quote the great philosopher of Metallica, James Hetfield, It's sad but true.
#2 - The atmosphere in the forums is much different today than it was 4-5 years ago when we had Earl & Johnny posting here (infrequently). The problem is NOT that the pro's ego gets in the way of passing along knowledge...it is because some people don't have any respect for anybody ... they act like A- holes because they believe they are entertaining (probably only to themselves)- the pros get disgusted and stop posting - and in the end everybody loses out while A-holes celebrate.
#3 - In the straight pool forum we have had Grady Mathews, Darren Appleton, Markus Juva, Nick Van Den Berg, Ray Martin, John Schmidt, Danny Harriman (and on occasion we have Travis Trotter show up to share his whimsical wisdom to us mere mortals) - some of them share their knowledge on a daily basis - because the atmosphere in that forum is directed towards learning about the game of 14.1 continuous. You can go there right now and find a lot of great information that would help you improve your game.
#4 - Thorsten Hohmann was posting in this forum until some people started writing ugly comments about Charlie Williams. I understand that a lot of people don't care for Charlie personally - but the comments in that thread pissed Toastie off. He hasn't been back - I've tried to get him to participate in the Straight Pool forum - but he hasn't come back - thanks to the idiot crowd. At the time that occurred, Toastie was the Straight Pool World Champion. FWIW, he posts a lot of great stuff in his blog - I read it every chance I get - but I wish he would comeback here and participate.
# 5- Think what you want about Charlie... he is one hell of a great player with awesome knowledge to share that could help a lot of people. All he posts is updates to the events that he is promoting and very rarely will he respond to questions, but he is here everyday.
I am grateful for guys like Grady, John Schmidt, Danny Harriman, SJM, Bob Jewett, Steve Lipsky, and most definitely -Hall of Fame World Champion Ray Martin for all of the knowledge that they have shared with us in writing and in videos.
I completely agree with Donnie about watching the great players. I used to go to tournaments just to watch Buddy Hall's cue ball control and Steve Mizerak's beautiful stroke.
Even though there are not many pros sharing their knowledge - I take advantage of learning from Stan Shuffett, Randy Goettlicher, Scott Lee, Bob Jewett - and though they may not be pros, they have information, knowledge, and experience that is worth a hell of a lot more than what they charge for lessons - trust me on that!