AstroBoy Online Forums

Seems like the forum is all but deserted. Well, I guess I must liven it up a bit.

As some of you know, I have been working on an Astroboy book for several years, though it might never be, it gives me something to do. I have written a good deal so far, but putting it all together is taking time. That, plus the fact that I figure if anyone should take it seriously, it ought to have a few pages of references - a bibliography, & such. I have books by F. Schodt, F. Ladd, & several other English-language books about Tezuka or Atom. Because Atom is a Japanese creation, at least some of these sources should be in the Japanese language.

So far, I have

1. DVDs
2. Reprints of original versions of comics
3. Kappa Comics
4. Kobunsha Comics
5. all 6 volumes of Tezuka Characters Guides
6. several other JLV books

But looking at Schodt's ASTROBOY ESSAYS' bibliography, over five pages, & he has a notes section, with over 100 items. Powers' book has 5 pages of nothing but Tezuka works. Her entire bibliography is 20 pages!

So, I need more sources, if I hope some publisher will take my book seriously.

I am open to questions/discussions on this subject. I am not likely to give away much of what I am writing, though.

Most of idle chat has turned to discordapp, which may give an impression of the forum being inactive.

I'm not exactly sure what is your problem, are you afraid that you don't have enough references and potential publishers won't take you seriously ? I know personally someone who has published 2 books already (in video games, so not exactly the same topic), and there was not even a full page of sources. If you want, I can ask him to give you advice on this matter.

I'm here every day, just lurking.

My sister published a non-fiction reference book recently and she did some research on going through a publisher vs self publishing. She heard so many horror stories about going through publishers. One guy she spoke to said it was the worst experience he'd had, the publisher didn't do any promotion or even mention it on their web site. They just took a huge cut of the sales and did basically nothing. He got $1 from the sale of each book, but his second book was self-published and he got $10 from each sale. So my sister self-published and it's been a success. She promoted it through a blog even though she's fairly tech illiterate. She did a book signing at her local library which the library was really enthusiastic about. The online self-publishing stuff is really good now, you get an ISBN and they list it on Amazon and BookDepository and other sites. Printing is done automatically on demand within the country of the buyer. The only caveat is there's a big learning curve if you're being your own editor so it pays to have family and friends go over it. I think she also got some professional help with the cover.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the size of your bibliography. It's not a university essay. There are museum-published reference books on my shelf that have zero references because the entire thing was ground work by the author. If the bulk of your work is independent research that's too original to reference other things then that sounds pretty good to me.

Some authors have gone the vanity press route. Here you end up paying up front for the printing of every copy of your book, and YOU end up being the distributor. For specialized works that will see to 'captive' audiences, this can be work out, if you can 'buy' inventories in small volumes until sales pick up.

fafner wrote:Most of idle chat has turned to discordapp, which may give an impression of the forum being inactive.

I'm not exactly sure what is your problem, are you afraid that you don't have enough references and potential publishers won't take you seriously ? I know personally someone who has published 2 books already (in video games, so not exactly the same topic), and there was not even a full page of sources. If you want, I can ask him to give you advice on this matter.

Yes, please do, fafner!

DrFrag wrote:Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the size of your bibliography. It's not a university essay. There are museum-published reference books on my shelf that have zero references because the entire thing was ground work by the author. If the bulk of your work is independent research that's too original to reference other things then that sounds pretty good to me

O.k., you have convinced me! Having a large bibliography is not so important. But, I failed to mention the part about getting permission to use images. That & the permission to cite sources. I really dislike the idea of saying its all "fair use", as it seems to be a much abused concept.

DrFrag, you speak of 1st and 2nd books. I had been thinking that the 1st book just gets my name out there, while the 2nd book actually earns the money, as you have stated. My idea was to write a broad but shallow coverage of the subject as a 1st book, followed by in-depth coverage in later books. I have tons of content!

Tetsuwan Penguin wrote:Some authors have gone the vanity press route. Here you end up paying up front for the printing of every copy of your book, and YOU end up being the distributor. For specialized works that will see to 'captive' audiences, this can be work out, if you can 'buy' inventories in small volumes until sales pick up.

I had examined one such publisher, but aside from running a go fund me campaign, there is just no way I could go this route. Besides that, I fear having my work stolen by the publisher. I need to get an agent to deal with such things. I want to copyright my work before submitting it to a publisher.

Thanks for the input, all of you! As it is, I am currently doing research; it may be March before I return to the writing phase.

Under the Berne Convention your work is copyrighted as soon as you've written it. You don't have to do anything more and the risk of having work stolen by a publisher is practically zero. The real thing to watch out for is lopsided contracts that put all the profits in the hands of the publisher and leave you with virtually nothing.

I asked to my friend, and it seems this is more a legal problem. Basically, writing a book on a specific topic with borrowed material could turn out to be a copyright minefield unless you get written authorization by copyright holders (Tezuka Production at least, but maybe Sony or others for the DVDs, Dark Horse for the mangas, etc). Citing your sources is important of course, but it would not necessarily need to fill pages.

DrFrag wrote:Under the Berne Convention your work is copyrighted as soon as you've written it. You don't have to do anything more and the risk of having work stolen by a publisher is practically zero. The real thing to watch out for is lopsided contracts that put all the profits in the hands of the publisher and leave you with virtually nothing.

True, but if need arises to defend my copyrighted work, that helps not at all.

fafner wrote:I asked to my friend, and it seems this is more a legal problem. Basically, writing a book on a specific topic with borrowed material could turn out to be a copyright minefield unless you get written authorization by copyright holders (Tezuka Production at least, but maybe Sony or others for the DVDs, Dark Horse for the mangas, etc). Citing your sources is important of course, but it would not necessarily need to fill pages.

I intend to cite more than a few other works, The Twilight Zone & The Outer Limits, among them.

Thanks to you both, for the input!

Currently, I have this, though subject to change. Comments desired!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Mighty Atom: CHARACTER EVOLUTION, 7 POWERS, CHANGES IN THEM OVER THE DECADES, COMPARISONS TO OTHER CHARACTERS
2. CHARACTERS/ACTORS: COVERS THE IMPORTANT AND SOME OF THE OBSCURE
3. The Mighty Atom corpus, an introduction: DETAILS ON THE MANGA (COMIC BOOK) VERSIONS: BOYS, ADULTS, LITTLE KIDS 1ST, 2ND, & 4TH GRADE SCHOOL MAGAZINES. THE LIVE-ACTION SERIAL, 1963 ANIMATED VERSION, Jetter Mars VERSION, 1980S ANIMATED VERSION, AND THE POST-Tezuka (DIED IN 1989) VERSIONS
4. Atom and Tezuka’s other Boy Heroes: Osamu Tezuka WROTE MANY ADVENTURES FEATURING YOUNG BOYS AS HEROES. Mighty Atom's adventures are of the same type, and more than a few of his 1963 animated series' episode were adapted from them.
5. related robot stories:
   i. Robots raising humans
   ii. Robots for Dead Loved-ones

Very nice and very precise.