Hi,
Thanks to everyone's very positive comments (there haven't been any negative ones just yet), and thanks to everyone who has helped me with corrections so far. And thanks to those flyers who proof-read and fed back on earlier drafts. - That is probably what helped this version be so accepted.
Here are some responses to issues raised.
misterbleepy wrote:...are you planning on maintaining/updating it on a regular basis?
- In short, yes.
Originally it started out as some notes - memory aids - just for myself and my partner. I think I started writing it in spring 2007. Somewhere in between then and now it became more formal. Now it includes some descriptions that others have suggested but that I wouldn't have added for my own benefit (e.g. the pictures naming parts of sports kites, and the safety warnings).
But I would still be updating it as I learned more, even if no-one else was reading it.
Zippy8 wrote:damp_weather wrote:Time to admit that I've been creating some notes around sport kite flying.
Can I just ask what your intention was with this project ? I see that a number of people have suggested self publishing but is that what you set out to do ?
I'd just like to know.
Mike.
I did not originally set out to publish a book. I did not originally even set out with the intention of widely distributing the notes. But somewhere along the line, - I think it was by 2008, I started realising that there wasn't anything else out there like what I was creating, and also that many other newbies would like a reference.
The other thing that really got to me was the lack of good tutorial information on tricks. - I am in full accord with what for example Craig recently wrote about learning faster when you are around other better flyers. The trouble is, most of us aren't regularly near other flyers. And despite all the good videos out there, we found it impossible to learn just by trying our very best to copy the videos. The more I looked at the videos, and when I finally started mastering a new trick, I realised just how much explanation was missing from any video. So I got to wanting to explain more about tricks so that others would not have to go through the same agony that we have been going through. - Well hopefully they will go through less of the agony.
Section 5.4 on backflips gives a feeling for the sort of explanations that I am intending to include for other tricks.
Now, I have still to learn many tricks, and I haven't even yet properly written up some of the tricks that I can do. Moreover, when I try to teach others tricks that I can do well, I often don't do so well at it because I don't yet understand all the ways that they can go wrong. So for those reasons I consider the notes no-where near complete, and aren't so keen on creating a lulu copy just yet.
But there is one thing that I learnt from my old job - and that is, even if a work isn't complete, it can be useful to others. Also early feedback helps to make work better. So distribution of incomplete works can be beneficial to all.
(The number of times we haven't published something because bosses worried it was not complete or checked sufficiently, only to loose market kudos because someone else published a less thorough work while we were prevaricating.) So Mike, regarding my intentions - in summary, no I didn't intend to self-publish, but that changed when I realised that there wasn't a similar book out there, and others did want such a thing.
And regarding self-publishing a printed copy - I don't think that the notes are in a full enough state yet. Will there be a printed version - I don't know - let's see how things go.
By the way, Mike, someone like you, with your long kiting history, large photo archive, and spectacular in-depth knowledge could probably do a quicker and much better job at this than me.
My one advantage - if you can call it that, is that my partner and I are newbies/intermediates, still learning, and so are directly experiencing what it is like to do a trick or ballet routine wrong, and learning why they go wrong. (The tricks where I am failing to understand others difficulties are the ones that I learnt before I started noting what happened when I didn't do the trick correctly. For example, axels was the first trick I learnt, and I find it very hard to know how to fail to do an axel.)
Photography permissions....
Thanks to those of you who have discussed this with me. I was getting quite worried about this. - So I am also talking to friends who are a professional cameraman/photographer and an intellectual property expert.
(And I will be asking for second opinions). In summary the subject is a minefield, and I don't think that any single one of us is likely to be completely right in our views.
It does seem that unless there is a specific ban in force (e.g. a railway station, certain parks or Trafalgar Square), and subject to not causing an obstruction or invading privacy (e.g. photographing someone stripping off) one can take commercial photographs in a public highway or other public place without seeking permission.
After my initial dismay, I realised that about 4 years ago I had encountered a similar situation professionally. We were contributing to a book, and my chapter included descriptions of products and their measured properties, for which we had taken all the photographs and created the text. The concern was, were we breaking the law in including data on and photographs of the products in the book without the manufacturers' permissions? - The answer from our intellectual property people was an emphatic "NO". However in the interests of continuing good relations between companies, we did approach the manufacturers of the products with a draft of what we intended to publish, giving them the opportunity to comment on the draft or object to its inclusion. - If they had objected, we would have taken out the information on their product, because we wanted to keep on good terms with everyone. In the end, every single manufacturer agreed with the bulk of what we had written (even when it wasn't fully complimentary). - One of the permissions came at the 11th hour, I had had to issue that manufacturer with an ultimatum to respond or else the publication schedule meant I had to take out the material on their product. I guess in the end, all the manufacturers said to themselves that some publicity was much better than none at all.
So I propose to do something similar for these notes - Over the coming months, for most of those pictures I am retaining or adding where I know the owners or can recognise the key figures in the picture, I'll try to contact the owners/people, and see if they object. If they don't object, they can choose to have an acknowledgement included (it isn't obligatory). If they do object I will remove or not include the picture as a gesture of goodwill.
After all, generally speaking the aim among kite flyers is not to upset each other.
By the way - looking through my old archives - less than one picture in 20 of public flying is good enough or interesting enough to include in the notes. For that reason I don't often want to formally ask people before I take the photograph. If I did ask them every time, I would be asking an awful lot for the sake of very few pictures.