lybrary wrote: First, my comment was related to Erdnase not Gallaway as you injected above.
You've been making the argument for weeks that Gallaway was Erdnase. Are you backing off of that now? My work here is done . . .
I didn't mean to misrepresent your statement.
So let me restate my argument. Somebody who chooses to self-publish, finds a printer, pays for the print run, hires an illustrator, and is comfortable to then sell and market his book is certainly somebody who is comfortable with the book creation process and the book trade in general.
This isn't restating the old argument, it is making a new one. The old argument (the one you have been making, that I was responding to) was that Gallaway (when writing as Erdnase) was a book lover, therefore he would have been inclined to self-publish. (a conclusion that does not follow from the stated premise, BTW)
Yes, I do have a lot of experience dealing with authors and one of the primary reason they come to me is because many have little idea how to create, publish and market their book. They are perfectly qualified to write it and can do that easily, but stuff that comes after writing is unfamiliar to them.
The experience I was hoping you'd recall was that of a book dealer (see my post above, where I said "experience as a book dealer") selling to readers, not as a publisher. Just because a person has, or reads, a number of books on a subject does not mean that they could write on it. I think
Expert is such a good book because the author brought his experience to the text, not his research and regurgitation of other gambling (and magic) books. If you want to convince me that Gallaway is Erdnase, show me that he gambled, not that he read about gambling.
Bill Mullins wrote:lybrary wrote:Very well, then we are in basic agreement on this point. I would phrase it stronger, that he extensively read gambling literature, everything he could get his hands on.
Yes, you could do that. And you may well be right. But there is absolutely no evidence to support going that far.
Yes there is. Humans are creatures of habit. Since he describes his own extensive reading in magic it supports the fact that he most likely did the same in gambling, too.
Anytime you say something is "most likely", you are offering opinion, not citing evidence. Give me one line from
Expert that shows the author "pretty much read all the past literature . . . in gambling" and I'll back off from this.
His book is about half on gambling related stuff and half on magic related stuff. These two subjects seem to be of about equal interest to him.
If I were in a nit-picky mood, I'd point out that he wrote 40% more about gambling than he did about magic (116 pages vs 81), but I'm not . . .
And that is all I am arguing right now. I am arguing Gallaway had an interest in gambling. This fact makes him a better Erdnase candidate than without it. Can you show even that much with ES Andrews or WE Sanders? Can you demonstrate that they had an interest in gambling?
Marty's
Genii article on Sanders describes his gambling debts, the card games he played, and his trips to the Silver Bow, a gambling club.
Brad Jeffers wrote:Richard Kaufman wrote:And, Chris, please maintain some decorum--which precludes telling Bill that he can't read.
Leave them alone.
I am enjoying the exchanges between Chris and Bill.
It is reminiscent of the
Point/Counterpoint exchanges between Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtain.
A couple of folks have suggested that Chris is being rude to me -- so far, I have not been offended by anything he's written (and to the extent I may have offended him, it was not my intention, and I apologize). I've had much worse things said about me on the internet (and probably have said worse myself). I've been online for quite a while and have a reasonably thick skin about such things. Chris and I are discussing ideas and the evidence behind them -- it isn't personal. He is giving as good as he is getting.
I hope, when this is all said and done, if we were to meet at a convention we could shake hands and have a beer. We continue to have emails off line which are much more collegial than some of the exchanges here.
But if he says, "Bill, you ignorant slut" to me, all bets are off . . .