I know I asked...

..a while back, but has anyone spoken to
Pegasus?

I wonder what happened to him?



Seth

 

I'm posting this as a reminder to myself. I have his cell number somewhere.

Doug, do you have his number or any info on Tracy?

 

Rick, I had emailed him back in January, and he had said his plate was pretty full at the time, but was hoping things were going to settle down. I checked his powder coating website and it is still up and running. I pulled the phone number from his website it's 281-862-0478. I hope that helps, let us know how your follow up goes, I know I had been wondering about him myself, I even thought about firing off another email to him. Last time it took a few weeks before he replied, but he did email me back.

Later,

 

I just got off the phone with Tracy. He's been busy with his powder coating and technical writing.

I brow beat him into posting up to let everyone know how he's been doing.

 

Rick, thanks for the update, hopefully he jumps on here just to say 'howdy'.

 

I'm Bbbaaaacccckkkkk! (LONG!)

Hi everyone!

Got the call from Rick that there were a few people wondering where I am, well...

It's been VERY busy around here lately. As some of you remember, I lost my programming job about 2-1/2 years ago (outsourced to Asia!) and have been wondering in limbo trying to figure out what my next move is. Well, like they say: Sometimes you don't pick what you want to do in life, it picks YOU!

In August of last year I decided to write a book "for us little guys" on how to perform powder coating at home and in the small shop. Since most of the books on the subject were really for the industrial market, I figured I could sell a few on Ebay to keep my head above water and keep the creditor wolves away from my doorstep. Well, let's just say that the book took on a life of its own and dragged me along for the ride.

After getting a good response on Ebay, on a whim I decided to see if maybe Eastwood or Harbor Freight might be interested in selling it in thier catalogs. I didn't really expect them to, but just though I'd check it out (so I can tell myself later that AT LEAST I TRIED).

BOOM! Eastwood pops in and sends a purchase order for 250 copies and the very same week, Harbor Freight sends two separate purchase orders for 500 books each (1000 total!) :bananaman

Great, or maybe not!, here I am sitting on over $12,000 worth of purchase orders and no prayer in filling them in the two weeks allowed! With the Ebay books, I had been printing the pages on an old LaserJet IIID printer for the text and then feeding the paper into my (very slow) HP Deskjet 712C to insert the color photors. This combination would make up only about 12 books per day. Needless to say, there had to be another way!

Borrowing from friends and family, I bought a new Kyocera Mita FS-C5016N color laser printer with duplexer ($2,800) and a Secura Fastbind binding machine from Finland ($3,800). I figured that the intial orders would JUST pay for all this expensive equipment.

Anyways, to make a long story short, I managed to print and bind the derned things and get the orders out on time which was nice, because I had a few people I owed alot of money to! Paying them off for the equipment and supply loans netted me enough to pay my house note with about $1,000 left over to keep the electricity and water on for a little while.

Lo and behold, Harbor Freight and Eastwood sell thier stock in very short order and between them, send POs for over 1500 more books! In addition, Harbor Freight said that, because they sold so well, that they will be sending inventory to thier 170 retail stores nationwide! (very good indeed!) The books should arrive in the stores mid-may or so.

Thats where I'm at right now, almost debt-free but still broke from having paid all of my creditors and people who loaned me money to purchase the equipment. I'm waiting on the next round of purchase orders to come through so I can actually keep some of the money this time around! Well (I tell myself) at least I now OWN the equipment!

A few notes: Writing the book was the easy part, marketing it was tough, and the ISBN and Library of Congress card information process was a minor nightmare. I'm new to this author/publisher/printing role so I had to learn a lot in a very short amount of time.

A few of you may ask "why not just have a professional printer print the books?" Well, trust me, I got quotes from quite a few printers! Since all of the photos are in full color (28 in all), they wanted a very hefty price to print them! If I had gone this route, the profit per book would have been just $0.28 (thats 28 cents folks!). I figured I could print them myself, own the nice equipment and make a nice profit to boot!

* * * * *

Well, because I learned alot about powder coating from coating parts for members of the MCCI (and my own Maverick!), I put a very special "thanks" to the Maverick/Comet Club International members (to numerous to list) in the Acknowledgment section of the book. So there, free advertising to my favorite car club! The MCCI acknowledgement is in front of (to date) over 8,200 people! Maybe we can get a few new members? hehehehe

* * * * *

Goofy as it sounds (and even goofier for the people who've had the misfortune of actually meeting me in person!) I've actually had books purchased through Harbor Freight & Eastwood SENT BACK TO ME FOR AUTOGRAPHS!

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA! Talk about swelling a head! Seriously, I'm flattered and embarrased at the same time. I just wish they'd cut it out because my son says that it just makes my head bigger (and I'm goofy looking enough already!).

If anyone had told me 9 months ago that this is what I would be doing today, I'd have told them they were off thier rocker!

* * * * *

If anyone is curious about the marketing, here are some links:

www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=90821

Eastwood Version

* * * * *

My sincerest apologies for not having posted recently, but I've been rather busy lately (7am through 1am, 7 days a week). I'll try and get on more often and post some pics of my Mav. Now that I'm self-employed and (hopefully) making a few dollars, I'll actually be able to FINISH my Maverick!

Thanks again for all your help and support, I really do appreciate it!

Pegasus
a.k.a. Tracy Norris

 

WTG, Tracy.

'Glad things are turning around for you. Sounds like you're gonna do well.


Continued success,


Rick

 

WOW!!!! Awesome post!! I am sooooo glad that things are going well now. Very nice looking book! Glad to hear from you, and keep in touch (when you're not autographing... ) - we thought we lost you for a minute there..
-Corbin

 

Great! Its good to hear of a success in a new busness!

 

I too am very happy for you Tracy, hard work pays off in the strangest ways. Along with powdercoating we have an author!!!! Congradualations

 

Congrats

Its really great to hear of some suceeding after all the hard work. I'm really glad to hear of your good fortune. Just shows never give up I guess. Later Tim

 

Hey!

I'm thrilled to hear it is going so well for you!


So what is the next book?


Zinc or cad plating?



Seth

 

wow. that's great to hear. may have to help you (and me) out the next time i'm at harbor freight.

 

Good to here from you glad you are doing well yes it sounds like you are busy happy to hear all is going well have some of your coated parts on our cars holding up and looking great.