Warren, TLC asked me to do a 100-page, soft-cover, all-color book about my Chessie/CSXT train photos in 1993 just as I lost my job with CSX Corp. I promptly wrote the copy and did the page layouts for the horizontal format book, and sent them the slides, copy and layout dummy. For numerous reasons that I will not bore you with, they could not get the book out right away, but were planning on it. TLC then said that they wanted the book to be hardbound and asked me to expand it to 128 pages, but that required an entirely new layout since you just can't drop 28 pages right into the middle of things. I got all of the slides back last summer and reworked the book's pages last fall. I placed each slide into my enlarger, enlarged them to the proper size, and traced the images onto paper for my new layout dummy. I wrote new captions for the newly added photos, and changed some other photos. It has been finished this second time for 10 months, and here it sits. I spoke to TLC about it six weeks ago and they said they were still planning on publishing it, but gave more excuses about not having a good color printing shop to do it justice. I guess that they could not find a good printer in four years. (Right.) I have done all of this work twice now for as yet no remueration, and have no idea when (if) TLC will get the book out. Originally I had intended to use the book as a promotional piece to help advertise my new free-lance photo business when I lost my job at CSX, but that opportunity is lost. I was supposed to call TLC today about some other books that I am doing for them (NKP, W&LE), but was too busy and did not get the chance. I'll be sure to call tomorrow and ask again about the publication of my Chessie/CSXT book. If they do not act soon I'll take it elsewhere for publishing as I have had requests for this book from other publishers. Watch this space. John B. Corns
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