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Harry (Harry)
Posted on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 5:13 am:   

Hello fellow Ibaneezers!

As you all may know I'm an addicted collector of the old Ibanez electrics for about 4 years now. Meanwhile I have such an enormous file of old catalogues pictures, info and pictures I've got from the net etc. that I might be able to put together (to be honest...I've already started) an Ibanez Identification Guide, ment to help everybody who's asking himself "what Ibanez do I have?" (a very often heard question on this board).
It's gonna cover the period 1970 - 1979, so the period of the old script logo. It will cover all models of this particular period in all variations (known to me so far) and at least 95% of the model-descriptions will be illustrated with pictures. I'm thinking of a layout that brings a left-and-right page per model number; the left page will give you a picture with a discription, typical features on which you should concentrate for proper identification, changes the particular model had over the years (headstock, inlays, pickups etc.), rarity rating etc. The right page would show some extra pictures and details. Also the models will be grouped: a "guitar"-section with all Les Paul copies together, all SG copies together, all Strats, the Tele-style guitars, Te ES 335's, etc. and a "bass"-section with all EB-style basses together, all Jazzbass copies together etc. so you won't have to go through the whole book when searching info on one typical model.
Would there be a need, a market, interest for such a guide? I personally think it would be convenient to be able to grab a book(let) off the shelf for a quick search apart from all the info you can find on various Ibanez-sites on the net.
How do I find a publisher/editor? Advise, anyone? I'm planning on contacting the publishers of "Vintage guitar" and "Guitar player" magazine, as well as a few Dutch publishers (although I would prefer to publish in the English language). I hope to finish the manuscript before end of this year.
Let me hear what you think, please !!!!!
Greetz,
Harry
Smooth (Smooth)
Posted on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 11:07 am:   

Harry,

You might want to consider contacting Ibanez, they should be willing to help you as such a book will give a big boost to their name.

The only advantage of a American/english publisher over a dutch one, that I see, will be that Americans have better marketing sources to distribute your book around the world or to reach possible buyers. But actually I think the world of Ibanez collectors is not a big one and you will find most of these guitar lovers also on the web (like on this site).
So, to keep the costs low, if you do your own marketing and even distributing through eg. a website and maybe by contacting the few Ibanez distributors, such as Serlui in the Netherlands, it must be possible to reach most of the vintage Ibanez addicts.

Enjoy writing the book and you have already sold one copy !

Mike
Johnm (Johnm)
Posted on Monday, May 27, 2002 - 5:49 pm:   

Make that 2 copies. ;-)

Great idea Harry, if you want we can brainstorm a bit about the marketing and sales part of this project. You know where to find me.

Good luck.

John

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