Carolyn's Book

[lakelady]

I got Carolyn's book from Heirloom Seeds with a bunch of other stuff and more seeds (like I really need more seeds right now) ... They were really wonderful and I got my order in about a week, even though they are having some challenges. Very nice company to deal with, wonderful products, and I love Carolyn's Book!

My only critique is that I need MORE PICS of MORE Tomatoes. Maybe there is a new one in the future? I particularly love the personal commentary as someone who has actually grown the varieties she wrote about . Great stuff!

[Too Tall Toms]

I got an email from Amazon tonight and I'm supposedly getting this book next week.

[chiefbeaz]

I ordered Carolyn's book from Heirloom Seeds along with some seeds. The price was $18.95. The order was placed on 11 Dec and I received them yesterday 19 December. They are the only company on the internet that I could find that had the book for the original price. Some site's have it listed for over $100. Whats the deal on the inflated prices? Is this book out of print?

[tam91]

Yes, it is out of print.

[ceresone]

I should have known it would be, before I can afford it--I thought I'd getr it as a Christmas gift to myself--guess not

[kevinrs]

Well, as chiefbeaz said, you should still be able to get it from http://www.heirloomseeds.com/ though they have closed until december 27. When they are out, you may truely be out of luck. All the sources that come up on searches were high a while back, and that is the last of the sites that have been mentioned here that still shows having it.

[GreenGardener]

I got my book from heirloomseeds.com today! I ordered it on 12/14 and got it today 12/21, along with 4 packs of seeds, and one free comp pack.

In a sense it took two years to get here because, two years ago my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday, (Nov. 10th), and I said what I usually say, "no need to get anything, I've got all I need right here" and she usually sighs disappointingly.

So a couple days go by and I remembered I wanted to get this book I heard so much about on a few different forums, "100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden" by Carolyn J Male. I told her about it and figured she would google it and order it from Amazon.com (which at that time it was going for $13.97 new). But my plan was foiled.... my wife went to Barnes & Noble and Borders books and said she couldn't find it. So I didn't get it for my birthday.

Then the next two years there was a lot of people laid off from work, so buying this book was put on the bottom of the list of things to buy. The company found out they laid off a lot more people then they should have, and now I'm working so much over time, I finally was able to splurge and get Carolyn's book. It's my Christmas gift to myself!

After quickly thumbing through it, I love the pictures! Not because they are beautiful, (which they are!), but because they are realistic. These are the tomatoes most of us really get. Some are blemished, cracked, slightly more or less misshapen, and I even saw a tomato that was obviously growing against a branch which caused an elongated dent. Like I said, this is what most of us see from our gardens, although we all really love those times when mother nature gives us one or two perfect tomatoes, and we feel really blessed when we get a whole plant full of them! That's what I liked about SSE pictures. A lot of their pictures are of tomatoes we see in our garden, not always absolutely perfect like the ones in most catalogs.

Anyway, I can't wait to start reading your book Carolyn!

Sorry about me rambling on, I guess that's what happens when I have too much Christmas eggnog! lol

[ScottinAtlanta]

If you open Carolyn's book to the pictures, and sit it beside the tomatoes, does it speed up pollination?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ScottinAtlanta

If you open Carolyn's book to the pictures, and sit it beside the tomatoes, does it speed up pollination?

Post for both Greengardener and Scott

Scott, NO, it does not.

It usually means that cutworms, Colorado Potato Beetles and heave rains are imminent, and you should never take the book into the garden and let it make contact with the soil, b/c well, you never know what you might be then bringing back into your home.

Greengardener,first, welcome, and I'm so glad you finally scored in finding a copy of my book that was still reasonably priced, I really am. I hope you enjoy reading it and looking at the pictures.

Of course I had to make the decisions as to which varieties to put in the book in 1998 when I'd grown out about 1500 varieties and now I'm up to close to 3,000 and still growing tomatoes. But please don't ask me, as many have, what I'd put in a book with a second hundred, etc.,for I'm not going to go there. Quite a few folks have suggested that I write a book about some tomato histories, and I think about it, but that's about all that I do.

[ScottinAtlanta]

Well, Carolyn, in your bio, you should note that you are the first major author of tomato porn.

[chiefbeaz]

Carolyn,

As popular as your book seems to be in Tomatoville, I am having a hard time understanding why a publisher would take it out of print as it appears they have done. I received my copy a few days ago from Heirloom seeds and I have enjoyed reading it. You did an outstanding job on the book. Thanks for helping keep Heirloom tomato's in the limelight.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by chiefbeaz

Carolyn,

As popular as your book seems to be in Tomatoville, I am having a hard time understanding why a publisher would take it out of print as it appears they have done. I received my copy a few days ago from Heirloom seeds and I have enjoyed reading it. You did an outstanding job on the book. Thanks for helping keep Heirloom tomato's in the limelight.

Since Workman Press never even told me it was going out of print it's hard for me to answer your question. I can say that maybe 4-5 years ago it was about to go out of print and they then did a reprinting of it. So perhaps recent sales were not what they expected, hard to say.

But I'd be glad to share with you the royalties I got from the book, which were Zero.

I wrote the book b'c I was asked to, not b'c I wanted to write one and then run out and find an agent and all that, and I wrote it b'c I wanted to share what I knew at the time and money to me was not a consideration. Although I did receive a non-returnable advance, that is true.

The last time, just two months ago, my statement said I still owed them 22K in book sales, well, not really, I mean that means they lost 22K on me, so there you are. The major cost involved was the photography, which was huge. How well I remember that summer with Frank having his photography equipment set up on the LR of the old farmhouse, my mother had had to move to an adult home, and me out in the field with a hacksaw cutting off plants at the base, racing to the house to put them in buckets of water, and all photos were shot within about 30 min of my bringing them in.

[kevinrs]

That's the way accounting works with things like books and CDs etc. The author or artist gets a percentage, after "costs" are paid off. They never pay the author much at all, because any and every cost the publisher can come up with is counted against sales, and the author never sees detailed accounting. The publisher didn't go into making the book to have a loss, all those "costs" paid toward a lot of people's salaries. To hit that 22k, doesn't mean sell another $22000 worth of books, $22000 in sales, minus costs for distribution, promotion, retail markup, printing of the full color book, etc isn't going to leave much. As far as reprinting it goes, being a full color book, there is a real cost per book in printing them, especially on a small run, and they would want to see a demand for a printing run large enough to make it worth their while. I think it may be unlikely until people's interest in heirloom tomatoes goes up again.

[Mandy97]

I received my copy from Heirloom Seeds too, and have already spent a long time looking through the pictures and info - its a great resource! The photography is great - and I already have a few more tomatoes in mind now to find for another growing season. Thank you!

[norbert 54]

le livre existe-t-il en français? merci!