Guinea Pig Book

Status
Not open for further replies.
Piggly said:
Thanks for info :) yes I see that now having done a quick bit of research. Likely to cost ten times that to stock them, but possibility of crowdfunding for majority of this.
Click to expand...

No problem, I'm happy I helped. I hope we can write and publish it.
 
I think it is a great idea! If only we had those kind of books here in America... There are so many uneducated piggy owners out there! One time I was in the Pet Store, in the guinea pig section, and I turned around all of the boxes with the "Guinea Pig" cages in them around so that the back was showing! Because, you know, I'm just a kid and all, that's the best I can do! I would love to print out flyers and give them out, but I might get arrested! :lol:

Digital could be a last resort. If I could, I would be happy to donate for the printing costs. If we got some rescues or possibly the RSPCA, you may be able to charge a bit for advertisement. I agree that nowhere have I read a book that says anything about C&C cages, or not breeding, unless you count that one magazine.
I would be really happy to help with the writing part, I have read lots of books of all genres, and am currently working on a book myself.

Also, and idea for pictures. To promote rescues, we could put rescue piggies on a few pages, and let the owners put their success stories! Just an idea. There may be problems, but with the right support, I think we could pull it off. If this book does end up being printed, that would be amazing!

Wherever this goes, I am at your service.
 
I love the idea too! I'll have an eye in this thread :nod:
 
I am available as well. So I you need me just give me a shout.
 
Thankyou all! I think I may begin a kickstarter project once as many of the mods and experts as possible have had a say in their expertise from this forum being used. Profits from any sales would be to go to TEAS, it being a TGPF project :)
 
1GuineaPig1 said:
I think it is a great idea! If only we had those kind of books here in America... There are so many uneducated piggy owners out there! One time I was in the Pet Store, in the guinea pig section, and I turned around all of the boxes with the "Guinea Pig" cages in them around so that the back was showing! Because, you know, I'm just a kid and all, that's the best I can do! I would love to print out flyers and give them out, but I might get arrested! :lol:

Digital could be a last resort. If I could, I would be happy to donate for the printing costs. If we got some rescues or possibly the RSPCA, you may be able to charge a bit for advertisement. I agree that nowhere have I read a book that says anything about C&C cages, or not breeding, unless you count that one magazine.
I would be really happy to help with the writing part, I have read lots of books of all genres, and am currently working on a book myself.

Also, and idea for pictures. To promote rescues, we could put rescue piggies on a few pages, and let the owners put their success stories! Just an idea. There may be problems, but with the right support, I think we could pull it off. If this book does end up being printed, that would be amazing!

Wherever this goes, I am at your service.
Click to expand...

100% rescue piggies ;)
 
I did suggest this a year or so back but it was too much work for us to do and then everything went crazy busy :)

Best bet is publishing it through Amazon as an ePub file, using the non restrictive license with the higher royalties going to them, then print to order if people want hard copies. Traditional publishing is going the way of the do-do and they'll only take up mass market big name stuff, you can pay to have it printed of course but that would probably eliminate any profit several times over. Printing to order from the client side can be ever so slightly excruciatingly expensive for them but if they want a hard copy they have to pay for the overheads :)

Most people have a device that's capable of displaying ebooks now, and they're more likely to find them useful, the advantage in them being simple HTML is that they can be re-rolled into other formats trivially. If you could show it was successful in online sales and generate enough attention then the traditional publishers may take it up.
 
Falken said:
I did suggest this a year or so back but it was too much work for us to do and then everything went crazy busy :)

Best bet is publishing it through Amazon as an ePub file, using the non restrictive license with the higher royalties going to them, then print to order if people want hard copies. Traditional publishing is going the way of the do-do and they'll only take up mass market big name stuff, you can pay to have it printed of course but that would probably eliminate any profit several times over. Printing to order from the client side can be ever so slightly excruciatingly expensive for them but if they want a hard copy they have to pay for the overheads :)

Most people have a device that's capable of displaying ebooks now, and they're more likely to find them useful, the advantage in them being simple HTML is that they can be re-rolled into other formats trivially. If you could show it was successful in online sales and generate enough attention then the traditional publishers may take it up.
Click to expand...

This might be a way of doing it too. Does amazon charge for publishing this way? Ideally we would want this in stores though. We want the advice there available to people buying the piggies. But doing electronic copies first could be a way.
 
Thanks for all these ideas. A great idea in principle, it is something we would need to think seriously about and staff would need to discuss. The forum has cost approx £500 this year to run with hosting, software renewals and various services needed. We had to upgrade our hosting as we were too large for our old hosting for the first time as we were overdoing the CPU :))

The main issue would be that we unfortunately we do not have spare funds to plough into a book project -The forum makes no money whatsoever and is a labor of love :)

I always try to be open and honest with everyone on the forum as it is everyone's forum not the just the people who are privileged to help run it.
This is the first year we have paid a much increased cost for moving hosting to a reliable UK host to improve the browsing experience, have less downtime and make sure the forum has a secure future. Many of you will not know the rocky year we had in 12/13 we are fortunate to still have the forum going after that.
When we ask for donations again next year, I have to make sure that the forum is sustainable at £500 a year, because it is such a large amount of money. That is my focus otherwise i will have to send the pigs out to work to fund the forum or sell my body - neither will raise much :))

The forum is owned for all intents and purposes by Debbie @furryfriends Excellent Adventure Sanctuary her Daughter is actually the owner and founded it in 2006 - she would have the final say on any project where it to be considered to go ahead.
I am not saying no but we would really have to think about the viability of the project. It would be lovely to provide such a resource to the Guinea Pig Community. Once again it shows what a great user base we have here, TGPF people are the best. x
 
Last edited:
This is a great idea in theory, but it would be a mammoth task. I have proof-read and co-edited journal articles for an academic e-journal, and the time that goes into each article in order to ready it for publication can be huge. Obviously, this would be written for the public, rather than an academic audience, so the criteria is very different, but to do this on the scale that you are envisaging would be incredibly time-consuming. As the body of information on this forum has been written by several people, it would be the task of the editor(s) to make it all read coherently, as if it had been written by one person. Given the time this would involve, you would likely need several co-editors (which in itself can be problematic as each person has their own style).

I really don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. Our resource here is fantastic! Personally, I think the way forward is to advertise this forum as widely as possible. Share us with your friends on social media, and tell anyone who will listen about us! If you happen to hear someone mention buying piggies, then suggest rescues as an alternative. If you see someone at a pet store who has just purchased guinea pigs, then give them a friendly nod in our direction so that we can help educate from an early stage. Our info docs can also be printed and put up in veterinary surgeries and pet stores.
 
I haven't finished reading all the replies yet but had a thought.. Why not make it and publish it as a guinea pig care etc book and state how it was all put together by everyone in the guinea pig forum. Not experts as such but all of us who really love our piggies and all OUR knowledge. I know what I mean but i cant quite get it out properly.
Make it written and produced by true guinea pig lovers not just the people with some knowledge! Even if you put it's the veiws and opinions of people who really love their piggies and had them for however many years.
And also about costs- what about those of us who have some spare time etc do little events in our area (let local rescues, pet shops etc know about it) and raise the money for it, yeh it might take time but good things come to those who wait :-)
 
OR...
Make up some posters advertising our forum and saying to please have a browse before purchasing a guinea pig etc etc etc, ask all your local vets and rescues, shops and with the big companies write to the top manager (you're promoting the welfare of piggies and being a pet shop so should they) and ask if they could distribute them out to all their branches.. That way it's not such a huge cost, most people use the web these days so more likely to take a quick peek, and also the places that might worry about losing profit etc won't no any difference as you'd have to browse the net first.. Are you with me?
 
Galaxy&nibbles said:
OR...
Make up some posters advertising our forum and saying to please have a browse before purchasing a guinea pig etc etc etc, ask all your local vets and rescues, shops and with the big companies write to the top manager (you're promoting the welfare of piggies and being a pet shop so should they) and ask if they could distribute them out to all their branches.. That way it's not such a huge cost, most people use the web these days so more likely to take a quick peek, and also the places that might worry about losing profit etc won't no any difference as you'd have to browse the net first.. Are you with me?
Click to expand...

The poster thing was on my to do list last year to put up in vets etc..., Was going to run a design competition but it got forgot about like many of my good intentions :)) It is something we will definitely re-visit :)
 
And not just distribute the posters, vets could talk about the forum if new guinea pig parents go to them. If they are good vets (which I think they are, if not I'm sure you will not go with your piggies there) they won't have problems advertising the forum because like Galaxy&nibbles said, its for the welfare of piggies.
 
The forum isn't expected to pay for anything. This is where crowdfunding could work. As falken has said we could also start off online with books printed to order, which is far cheaper. In my opinion theres no substitute for a use reference book in your house you can pick up anytime but e-copies can also work this way. As for editing works to be published, I have researched, written and edited my own paper for publication (taken 3 years) so I know how lengthy this kind of process is!
 
Galaxy&nibbles said:
What about to start it all of a poster like this? Just an idea while sorting my daughters lunch lol. Could have a competition for 3 piggy pictures :-) sorry getting carried awayView attachment 21450
Click to expand...

Thanks :)

the idea is we will come up with some official blurb it has to say etc... then throw it over as a design competition :)) best design wins. Would you like me to tag you into the thread when we launch it so you don't miss it?
 
I think it's a brilliant idea. When i first got piggies i had a book but it never gave me enough info as the cage they recommended was too small and plenty things missing that i just picked up on this forum. Although it was better i got a book because it at least told me more than the pet shop who told me nothing!
 
I think the poster looks great! The design competition sounds like a great idea!

Being a kid, I am not on many social websites. But I will do as much respectful advertising as I can. This sounds like it will be great, hopefully we end up printing the book! If this goes far, we could really use some books like that in America. All guinea pig books I have read never go into detail about cage space, pellets, hay, ect.
 
Jerrybelly said:
This is a great idea in theory, but it would be a mammoth task. I have proof-read and co-edited journal articles for an academic e-journal, and the time that goes into each article in order to ready it for publication can be huge. Obviously, this would be written for the public, rather than an academic audience, so the criteria is very different, but to do this on the scale that you are envisaging would be incredibly time-consuming. As the body of information on this forum has been written by several people, it would be the task of the editor(s) to make it all read coherently, as if it had been written by one person. Given the time this would involve, you would likely need several co-editors (which in itself can be problematic as each person has their own style).

I really don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm. Our resource here is fantastic! Personally, I think the way forward is to advertise this forum as widely as possible. Share us with your friends on social media, and tell anyone who will listen about us! If you happen to hear someone mention buying piggies, then suggest rescues as an alternative. If you see someone at a pet store who has just purchased guinea pigs, then give them a friendly nod in our direction so that we can help educate from an early stage. Our info docs can also be printed and put up in veterinary surgeries and pet stores.
Click to expand...

I agree with @Jerrybelly, and think we should be channelling our energies into publicising the forum, which enables different ideas to be shared. The huge amount of knowledge that is available on this forum couldn't possibly be transferred into a book, without losing a lot of the content. Whilst initially the idea seems good, it really isn't the way forward. A forum is totally different to a book, as new ideas can immediately be shared and knowledge updated. Let's stick to what we are good at!
 
furryfriends Excellent Adventure Sanctuary said:
I agree with @Jerrybelly, and think we should be channelling our energies into publicising the forum, which enables different ideas to be shared. The huge amount of knowledge that is available on this forum couldn't possibly be transferred into a book, without losing a lot of the content. Whilst initially the idea seems good, it really isn't the way forward. A forum is totally different to a book, as new ideas can immediately be shared and knowledge updated. Let's stick to what we are good at!
Click to expand...

I understand your point, and a publication is certainly never intended to replace tthe forum as its by far the best place to come. The idea is more to use our knowledge to provide a better general pet guide, with guidance not mentioned in other less up to date publications, i.e. minimum cage guidelines.
 
Piggly said:
I understand your point, and a publication is certainly never intended to replace tthe forum as its by far the best place to come. The idea is more to use our knowledge to provide a better general pet guide, with guidance not mentioned in other less up to date publications, i.e. minimum cage guidelines.
Click to expand...
If anyone wants to write a book about guinea pig care that is fine, but I am not willing to have a book written in the name of The Guinea Pig Forum. It would be outdated within months of being published and who decides what is included and what isn't. Just two years ago I would've said dental disease could be managed but not cured. Nowadays we are curing more and more. That is just one example. A forum can't be transferred into a book!
 
furryfriends Excellent Adventure Sanctuary said:
If anyone wants to write a book about guinea pig care that is fine, but I am not willing to have a book written in the name of The Guinea Pig Forum. It would be outdated within months of being published and who decides what is included and what isn't. Just two years ago I would've said dental disease could be managed but not cured. Nowadays we are curing more and more. That is just one example. A forum can't be transferred into a book!
Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks for the response! Unfortunately I can't do it without using the sticky threads here and members knowledge as I don't have the knowledge myself.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top