Just found this article on Hicham El Guerrouj. link inside

I will write this book. I am serious. I will just need some investors willing to put in the capital for me to purchase licensing rights for race photos and his life story, I will also need funds to travel to Ifrane and Rabbat to take pictures and experience what it was like, I will also need funds to travel to Portland to meet with him personally (I have some friends of friends that could set it up). Let me know if you are willing to pitch in some capital for some points on the book.

deraylicious wrote:

I will write this book. I am serious. I will just need some investors willing to put in the capital for me to purchase licensing rights for race photos and his life story, I will also need funds to travel to Ifrane and Rabbat to take pictures and experience what it was like, I will also need funds to travel to Portland to meet with him personally (I have some friends of friends that could set it up). Let me know if you are willing to pitch in some capital for some points on the book.

I am but a poor graduate student. However, if you really are set on this i would advise two things:

1. Start contacting people. Publishers, editors, people who knew El G: Competitors, room mates, people who worked at his training camp, Adil Kaouch (pace maker), Alan Webb, reporters, his coach, did i mention publishers? If you're really keen on this than a publisher will make it work if they think it will sell.

2. Make your plan. Start off preliminary writing. Draw up a rough draft. Work, work, work. Put in at leat an hour a day for research and possibly another hour a day writing. Treat this like training. If you haave a plan and some sort of rough draft I promise that publishers/editors/executives will be 100% more likely to take your idea seriously. If you could do almost a coffee table book (not quite though, more than just pictures. A book that has lots of pictures and inserts, and anecdotes while being pleasing to the eye would do quite well. Maybe even have a DVD insert with key race footage and video interviews?).

However i guess if this is a project you want to do, then you should do it how you see fit. Maybe you do want to keep it simple and stay away from black ties.

Bump. Does anyone have experience in publishing a book?

Seems like neither of us have written a book before, but you seem to know more than I do. All I know, is that I can write, and if I spent all the time I spend on LRC on researching El G (which I would do happily) we could have this motherf*cker turned out in a few months.

But, how does it work with publishers, will they front the cash? I would obviously need to meet him and would need to go to Ifrane and Rabbat. Other than that I am confident I could rely on my own personal connections to get it done.

I have a feeling that to write a successful book you would need more than just the LRC. I'm talking interviewing competitors (notably Kenny B, Kipchoge, Lagat, Noah Ngeny, and Morcelli), training partners (Adil Kaouch his pacemaker, Kada his coach), family and friends (preferably childhood so we could see the makings of a giant. See what made him tick from an early age), and people's views of him. This is a LOT of people to interview, and to get a hold of people/fly to where you need to go is going to take money.

That's where the publisher comes along, you go to them with a manuscript. A rough draft so they can get an idea of what they would publish. The hard part is actually getting them to publish your book. Most will say no, and rightly so. Running is pretty niche as far as books go, but as long as they think the book will make them money they will give you money to fly places/buy the rights to use the images+videos/get life rights.

So i hope you realize the mountain of work you have ahead to do this. However, if you anted you could just write a draft yourself after doing some research and pretty much publish it yourself on lulu.com.

bumppoty

This is where I am having problems understanding. Without a doubt interviewing and traveling will make a great book. You say you get the cash by having a good manuscript. How can you have a good manuscript without already having spent the case to go places and see people?