New Dallas-Fort Worth freeways book, free download

[NE2]

Harsh critics are encouraged to reply.

Well, OK then. It failed because Bengoatse.

[Chris]

Perhaps people thought it was more of the same. But it may also have to do with the increased amount of information easily available on the internet. Back in 2003, Wikipedia was pretty much unknown and tools like Google Earth did not exist yet.

On the other hand, the volume of large-scale road projects in DFW is unprecedented, you'd think that generates some additional interest in freeway history. But freeway history will always be a niche market beyond several hundred road enthusiasts and (former) TxDOT employees. I may be the only person in the Netherlands genuinely interested in the DFW freeway system.

[MaxConcrete]

But it may also have to do with the increased amount of information easily available on the internet. Back in 2003, Wikipedia was pretty much unknown and tools like Google Earth did not exist yet.

Yes, I definitely agree. And the more I think about it, the increased availability of information was probably more influential than I realized. I think if Houston Freeways was published today, interest would be much lower. I cited the reason "The subject of freeway history is past its peak" as a contributing factor, but I'll probably revise the list with a new reason like "Increased online availability of historical and current information makes a book less relevant" and cite it as a major factor.

But freeway history will always be a niche market beyond several hundred road enthusiasts and (former) TxDOT employees. I may be the only person in the Netherlands genuinely interested in the DFW freeway system.

I know of one other person in the Netherlands who is interested in the subject. :-)
And I also agree, this is a niche subject with a very small audience. For that reason I attempted to broaden the audience by including the related historical topics which I perceived are popular in North Texas - the JFK assassination (a whole chapter), Texas Stadium and the Dallas Cowboys (another entire chapter), Tom Landry, the Delta 191 crash, Six Flags Over Texas, technology and the Telecom Corridor, and Las Colinas. But those topics fell short and are the least viewed topics in the book, usually around 10-15 views per month.


By the way, I did a European road trip in May (Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands) and I was really impressed with the Netherlands freeways. Definitely the best of what I saw in those countries. I may post on the international forum sometime with some questions/comments.

[Alps]

Seriously - outside the several hundred (1-2 thousand, roughly) active roadgeeks, there's almost no market for a book about roads. This has been demonstrated before when people have tried to publish books. If I ever do a book, it will be about travel stories, with a few selected photos of scenery.

[US81]

I like both books. Although I'm clearly part of the "niche,"  I would have preferred the book to have been less "popular" and more informative, even at the risk of becoming pedantic. I preferred the tone of the Houston work.

Also, the geographic organization makes it almost seem like Ft. Worth and the mid-cities are an afterthought, since they only come into the last two chapters. Ft. Worthians are somewhat used to being subsumed into Dallas, but they do not like it; "Cowtown" has a distinct identity. (Even on the website, the Aerial Challenge is all Dallas-area.)  I think I would have preferred a chronological organization that included the entire area, especially given the title "DFW Freeways."

Most people have much less disposable income now than in 2003, and part of me wonders how much of this factor might have combined  with the fact of increased availability of information on-line.  I still would've bought print copies, but I do understand that physical books are becoming quaint and antique.

These are my relatively minor criticisms of what I consider to have been a good book. I appreciate and thank you for all your hard work in writing it.

[Road Hog]

Good effort nonetheless. Hope you're able to monetize your research.

[MaxConcrete]

Thanks for the feedback.

The "dumbing-down" of the book was a conscious decision to try to expand the market. As noted in the post-mortem report, that plan not only failed but caused a loss of audience since I lost much of the core market and did not gain any new audience.

As for neglecting Fort Worth, there just isn't much interesting freeway history in Fort Worth. In fact, writing the Fort Worth chapter was painful but it had to be done for a complete historical record. In retrospect, it would have been better to have done a Dallas Freeways book since it would have been less work and would have still covered just about everything of interest in North Texas.

Seriously - outside the several hundred (1-2 thousand, roughly) active roadgeeks, there's almost no market for a book about roads. This has been demonstrated before when people have tried to publish books. If I ever do a book, it will be about travel stories, with a few selected photos of scenery.

I agree, the market is very small. But the roadgeek market is only a small fraction of the overall market. For Houston Freeways about half of the 5000-unit print run was bought by the highway and construction industry. They bought in bulk and distributed the copies for free to their suppliers, associates, customers, employees, etc. I don't know if this represents a true "market" (since many cities like NYC probably have a minimal highway construction industry) or just that I was lucky. But even without a large customer who buys in quantity, the engineering, construction and consultant industry market is larger than the roadgeek market.

Another market segment which is larger than the roadgeek market is architects and urban planners.

The roadgeek market is next, followed by the market of persons with a general interest in history.

The market is very regional - I would estimate that 98% of Houston Freeways book were purchased locally. The few books that left the Houston area overwhelmingly went to Austin (probably TxDOT folks).

That being said, my view is that in 2003 under normal circumstances a high-quality book which is priced correctly (not too high) and aggressively marketed in a market with 5-6 million people had a top market size of around 2000 units over a period of years. The book market is continuously shrinking so by 2013 that market size could be as small as 1000 units. Expect a much smaller market if quality is lower, marketing is low or the city is smaller. Dallas-Fort Worth Freeways was victim of numerous problems and mistakes, causing it to fail with a market size of a few hundred hundred units, even when offered for free. Fortunately there was never any consideration of actually printing the book, but of course I still lost a lot of money and sunk a lot of time into it.

I don't have my notes available, but I seem to recall the L.A. Freeway book had 5000 units printed and was in print for a very long time, more than 10 years.

So the bottom line is that you are never going to make money on a highway history book. In fact, you can expect to lose tens of thousands of dollars in direct costs and receive nothing for the time invested (which will be more than a man-year for a book like DFW Freeways). But of course you don't do it for the money, you do it for other reasons - like achieving a personal goal or documenting history as a service to society.

That being said, I would certainly be interested in knowing any other sales figures that are known or available. For example
The American Highway  (William Kaszynski)
The Roads That Built American (Dan McNichol)

Around 2002 I remember contacting Tom Lewis, author of Divided Highways, to ask him about sales numbers. He would not disclose information, which leads me to believe that sales were low.

[MaxConcrete]

I just posted an updated version of the eBook with functioning hyperlinks within the book for ease of navigation.

www.dfwfreeways.com

[MaxConcrete]

A new updated version has been placed online and printed books are now available for purchase.

Printing a small quantity of this 550-page book using print-on-demand was obscenely expensive and the obscenity was passed on to the book price, $150. I'm not expecting any individuals to drop that kind of money on the book, especially since the eBook is free. I'm hoping to get some sales from organizations with acquisition budgets (engineering firms, consulting firms, libraries) or people who can put it on a company expense account. The real reason for offering the book for sale is to satisfy I.R.S. requirements that the project is not a hobby; if the books don't sell, I'll get my sponsor to contribute more funds and donate them to libraries. I could also cut the price to clear them eventually (in addition to more donations to libraries), but that is at least a year in the future.

But if you are interested in printed copies, books will be distributed to local libraries this week including Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Richardson, Mesquite, Southlake, Roanoke, Bedford and UT-Arlington. I'm hoping each library will have at least one circulating copy for check-out.

http://www.dfwfreeways.com/

[US81]

If we were to buy one, would it be possible to get autographs? If so, how would that work?

[Henry]

I'm reading the eBook version, and I'm liking what I see so far. Congratulations!

[Zeffy]

I'm reading the eBook version, and I'm liking what I see so far. Congratulations!

I don't know much about Texas roads, but this is a very well put together document that is definitely at the minimum worth a download.  Unfortunately, I'm dirt poor, so I can't provide any money for a hardcover.

[txstateends]

Hey Erik, so glad you decided on making a paper version of the DFW book.  I will definitely be interested, even though it will take me a bit to get the $$ together. 

Sad to report that after all you did to procure me a copy of the Houston book, it was part of an ugly burglary at my previous apartment a few years ago.  And of course, no renter's insurance at the time, either.

[MaxConcrete]

To anyone who is interested in the printed book, I'm expecting to cut the price in the future (maybe 6-12 months). I first want to sell a few with a profit margin for IRS purposes to show it is a "business" rather than a hobby. Then I expect reduce the price down to cost (printing plus Amazon commission) around $110, or maybe lower. So check the web site occasionally. And yes I can sign any purchases, you'll just need to email me to let me know. (Email on the site.)

My main intent is to make the historical content available to anyone who is interested, which is why the eBook is free and available in different formats. And there will soon be books in libraries, and you can probably get a copy via interlibrary loan if you don't live in a city which has the books in its library. (See previous post for libraries. Tomorrow I will start delivering the 60 sponsored copies to libraries.)

[dfwtbear]

Nice article from the Dallas Morning News on this.

http://transportationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/a-decade-spent-writing-a-book-about-how-dallas-built-its-freeways-and-how-its-freeways-built-dallas.html/