Dave Perewitz

Back in the days when I made a living of sorts as a free-lance journalist, I produced a book for Motorbooks titled, How To Chop Tops in 301 Photos. The book sold reasonably well and I received my 12% royalty checks twice-per-year for four or five years.

Fast-forward twelve years. I now make my living as a publisher, producing books that I may or may not write myself, with the help of four employees. The other day I’m trying to stretch my brain and find a relatively easy way to add more hot rod titles to our little catalog of mostly motorcycle and custom paint books. There in the bookshelf, in the little archive area with the other books I’ve written over the years is the Top Chopping book. As I looked over the book I started thinking, Motorbooks published the book and it’s now out of print. Once it’s out of print the publishing rights revert to the author.

ChopTop:
Good information is always good
information. We've decided to publish a new
version of this top chopping manual.
Look for finished books by late June.

To make a long story short, Motorbooks did give me back the rights and we are in the process of reproducing the book. Even though my desk looks like a disaster at any given time, I’ve been pretty good about saving and labeling the raw materials needed to produce any of our books. The little envelopes of black and white prints, organized by chapter, were all right there in the bottom of a large Rubbermaid container in the warehouse.