Book Update

After the Pop Culture conference in ABQ in February, I decided to write an almanac after all. The summer season of travel is coming up. Basically I decided to take my BrBa pages and condense them into a book. At first, I intended on getting a publisher (McFarland Press seemed the best), but I’ve decided to self-publish. The reason is it will be easier to change and update the text provided I retain close control. The reason I was worried about that is discovering that some people might object to content. Ann Lerner at the ABQ Film Office warned me that I couldn’t use private residences unless I had permission. So I asked the owners of the White house, if I could publish their address and post a map regarding location. They said absolutely no way. So, I’ve decided to remove the addresses of all private residences. This degrades the function of the book somewhat, but who’s to say that’s enough? Hence, the need to self-publish. It will be the weirdest Breaking Bad guide – one that doesn’t mention the addresses of the Whites, the Schraders, or Jesse Pinkman. C’est la vie.

Work has been slow, so I’ve had the opportunity to write and edit. I nearly have the text ready. There is an issue regarding picture pixellation. Most of my pictures are 96 dpi, but they recommend 300 dpi. I’m thinking it won’t matter much, because I was going to go black-and-white rather than color, in order to keep cost low. On another edition, after rephotography, maybe I can create a color coffee-table version. I’m still not sure Amazon will accept the lower dpi, but I will find out. I also need to obtain permission to use a photograph by Garry Winogrand. I haven’t obtained that yet.

I’m going to call the proposed work “A Guidebook to Breaking Bad Filming Locations” by Marc P. Valdez (with contributions by Sven Joli). With luck, it will be ready for publishing next week. If luck fails, I might have to strip out a bunch of photos. But I intend to get something done here.