I've had this idea of making a book about the most famous and most respected rally stages. I think that would be nice to read and also nice to learn about. So - why not trying to make a community effort? We have now these photobook companies that print out books for reasonable prices. I've used
Blurbto make my books and I've been happy with their quality. Some 200-paged hardcover (25x20 cm) w/ dust jacket cost about €50 - and if you order it with some promotion code - they often have -25% codes - it's even better. And it would make an online shop once published.
Is this a silly idea? We have the knowledge. We'd take 30-35 stages, each presented over 4-8 pages or so with pictures, a stage map and the story, it would fill up the 200 pages. Stages could be from each round of WRC and IRC 2012 (stages not necessarily run in 2012) and then few from WRC rounds not included in 2012 (Safari, Australia, for example) and some national or ERC rounds.
This would be absolutely non profit, the book would cost the cheapest option where ever we would choose to print it (I would recommend a service like Blurb's, each book printed at time, no printruns, no financial risks). We would need free pictures from the stages (on and/or off rallies), stories written about the stages, their history and meaning and perhaps someone with good handling of some graphic program to provide simple stage maps. Plus someone natively English speaking to proofread it all. I'm willing to coordinate as long as there wouldn't be any tight schedules expected.
What do you think?