If I write this book would you be interersted ...

Hello folks:

I love to pick up dive travel books and read about worlds top diving destinations. It seems like world has developed a
consensus about where the best diving is. You read about exactly the same places over and over and over again with slightly
different rankings. My beef with these dive guides is that they are based on the assumnption that the worlds best diving
should be tropical diving. They also target the open water diver. I was looking to do cold water dives around the world
and there was not a single dive guide that would offer information on how to dive the Northern Atlantic or Alaska or Ice Land etc.

Now here is what I am thinking. The world is desperately in need of a new dive guide. The world is in need of an "Open Minded" Dive Guide.
The would be a dive guide that acknowledges that not all divers are vacation divers. Not all their readers are "Open Water." It is based on
the acknowledgement a lot of us are now seeking more challenging dives. We are seeking to explore ice bergs, altitude lakes, colder waters
etc etc. Even in USA there are a lot of places where such diving is possible. Yet they have been ignored because they are not "sexy" and "exotic."

If there are sufficient people interested, then I can get in touch with diving operators in lesser known areas and put together a travel guide
for the seasoned cold water explorer. Im just curious who would be interested?

Like this?

DIVE B.C. (Canadian Scuba Diving Guide Book for Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)

Apparently someone thinks there's enough interest to be worth the effort. Might be better, though, to consider either a series of localized guides, or perhaps a website that is organized by region ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Given how fantastic the diving up and down the Pacific Coast of North America is, I'd be very interested in learning about what's available in other cold water locations.

NWGratefulDiver:

Like this?

DIVE B.C. (Canadian Scuba Diving Guide Book for Victoria, British Columbia, Canada)

Apparently someone thinks there's enough interest to be worth the effort. Might be better, though, to consider either a series of localized guides, or perhaps a website that is organized by region ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Click to expand...

Which of the two would you prefer? Website or book?

A website would provide a larger coverage area. It would be good to have an index of "great" dive sites that may also be local, cold, etc., and not necessarily Roatan, Fiji, etc.

I was actually just thinking something very similar, recently. I can find all kinds of guides for warm places with pretty fish. I haven't seen (and maybe I'm just not looking in the right places) guides that include "unusual" dives or are oriented toward them. IE a guide to all the missile silos, sunken towns, and "sunken statues/pyramids/treasures" dives. Much less a guide to all the cool caves, caverns etc etc.

Hell, I haven't even seen a "best wrecks of the world" guide in my (admittedly limited) searches.

The best dive guide book I have ever read is sitting in my storage bin in Pennsylvania. I can't remember the title, but something like Dive Bali. I'm sorry I can't properly credit the author—I can't find it on Amazon. What made it such a good book is also the reason I can't find it on Amazon: it had such a narrow scope that its potential audience was small. Dive Indonesia probably sells a lot more, and Dive Southeast Asia even more. But the author of Dive Bali had lived and dived there for years, and he thoroughly knew the sites, the currents, the hazards, the seasons, the wildlife, etc. So I could read that book and wade in. That's what I want from a dive guide book (or a dive guide, for that matter). I say, limit the scope of your book to what you can cover in depth. You won't get rich, but authors generally don't. It'll be a book to be proud of, though.

vladimir:

The best dive guide book I have ever read is sitting in my storage bin in Pennsylvania. I can't remember the title, but something like Dive Bali. I'm sorry I can't properly credit the author—I can't find it on Amazon. What made it such a good book is also the reason I can't find it on Amazon: it had such a narrow scope that its potential audience was small. Dive Indonesia probably sells a lot more, and Dive Southeast Asia even more. But the author of Dive Bali had lived and dived there for years, and he thoroughly knew the sites, the currents, the hazards, the seasons, the wildlife, etc. So I could read that book and wade in. That's what I want from a dive guide book (or a dive guide, for that matter). I say, limit the scope of your book to what you can cover in depth. You won't get rich, but authors generally don't. It'll be a book to be proud of, though.

Click to expand...

Area guides are good but they only work for people who have already decided upon a diving destination. If it happens to be a well known destination then the potential market for the book would also be big. For the unknown, lesser dived places it may not sell that much. For such areas I was thinking more along the lines of "50 Places to Dive before you Die." Lets say that if I have 4000 bucks to blow on a dive trip then I would like to compare whether I should go to Alaska or the Canadian North Atlantic. That I think is the kind of book that would open a lot of new places to people who are seeking to invest in their next dive trip. Even dive magazines like Sport Diver have gotten so boring because they only talk about those Bonaire, Cozumel and places that every diver already knows about.

My previous book was not related to diving or travel. It sold a lot but like you said first time authors seldom become rich. But its sale gave me international recognition in Universities, colleges etc. The value of my resume as a journalist also went up so indirectly I benefitted a lot. It also resulted in certain academic and professional connections that later proved to be very helpful in my work. With this book I wont be looking to make big bucks. Instead it would be an opportunity to satisfy the urge to write because nowadays journalism is TV based. I am hoping to make friends and contacts in dive industry and dive places that are not well known. For dive operators it would be an opportunity to advertise their business and for the rest of the folks, if this book can make it on someones shelf and help him / her decide where to dive next I think that is enough for me.

vladimir:

The best dive guide book I have ever read is sitting in my storage bin in Pennsylvania. I can't remember the title, but something like Dive Bali. I'm sorry I can't properly credit the author—I can't find it on Amazon. What made it such a good book is also the reason I can't find it on Amazon: it had such a narrow scope that its potential audience was small. Dive Indonesia probably sells a lot more, and Dive Southeast Asia even more. But the author of Dive Bali had lived and dived there for years, and he thoroughly knew the sites, the currents, the hazards, the seasons, the wildlife, etc. So I could read that book and wade in. That's what I want from a dive guide book (or a dive guide, for that matter). I say, limit the scope of your book to what you can cover in depth. You won't get rich, but authors generally don't. It'll be a book to be proud of, though.

Click to expand...

We have one like that for local shore diving, called "Northwest Shore Dives" by Stephen Fischnaller. It's the gold standard for local diving, and almost everyone I know who dives here owns it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)