Re: Mike Wise writing a book?

["Phil Eaton" <peaton@hotmail.com>]

Mike,

I am definately on board for a Mike Wise authored "Apistogramma Species 
Identification Made Easy".  I am a relative beginner in the Apisto hobby (2 
years), and my beginners luck has taken me as far as it will.  I'm sure like 
any new Apisto enthusiast, I ran right down and bought a L&S "Dwarf American 
Chiclids" book to wow at all the pretty little fish I might someday hope to 
see, let alone ever try to keep.  I now find the pictures empty.  The data 
with it frustrating that tells me what the similar species are, but doesn't 
resolve the fine points of why this is a "Regani" versus "Borelli morph X".

I started my searching into the Apisto Realm at the David Soars web site.  
He had a nice start that began to help me identify what I was looking at, 
but when I finally found the Krib and subsequently this list, I find myself 
hanging on nearly every word that Mike throws out there when it comes to 
IDing apisto species.  I love to hear (read) the stories of other apisto 
keepers, and how they finally got this species to spawn, or that one to stop 
eating eggs.  This however would be as easy as taking excerps from the 
archive in The Krib, and not really needed for the "gist" of what I think we 
all would like to see in a book.  It would be a nice revised addition 
though!

The bottom line is, I would pay as much (in advance!) for a paperbacked, 
accurate, step by step, apisto ID book right now as I did for any of the 
other books I currently own.  For that I would expect to see a basic map, 
maybe a pullout, or even a laminated insert if you wanted to get fancy.  A 
basic drawing of the "Group" with each sub-specie having a revision and 
perhaps a comparison line drawing specifying the trait/marking differences, 
side by side with the main drawing of the group.  None of this requires 
photos, or photo quality printing. (Cheap) Gee, you could have 2 inserts for 
us Apistophiles to hank on our fish room walls.  One a map of the different 
areas collected from, and another with the basic line drawings in a group 
format.

We all know you're busy Mike, we are too!  But it's the busy guys like you 
that can do something like this in the shortest, most efficient amount of 
time.  If for no other reason than your sheer expertise, it will roll across 
the pages.  100 pages max, shoot, maybe even 50!  2 good quality inserts, 
and voila' a bunch of copies sold...at least to us here!... No- pressure of 
course! ;-)

Happy writing!

Phil Eaton
Dallas, TX
Starting to enjoy my "uglies" as much as any of the others, and still 
wondering exactly what they are!


----Original Message Follows----
From: "Mike Jacobs" <mjacobs2@tampabay.rr.com>

<---snip--->
1) ..Not so serious............ What is important to a beginner apisto freak
like myself is identification...............ALL of the present readily
availiable books show us pictures to id the fish with.  You are training us
to "...not use color as a determination" of species......that's
difficult............to me anyway.   A real full explaination of the system
and up to date examples is something I personally would really enjoy.  All
of my photos are free to you........for what little help that would be.  I
know we expect that writing a book is simply sitting down for 2-3 days and
it is done, we are all asking something that each of us would find
impossible..........but the demand just might overwhelm you with the right
approach.  Identification is key to us, and I think everyone..........

<---snip--->
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