_____
From: Burt Levy [mailto:thinkfast@mindspring.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 9:04 AM
To: tom hnatiw; Kovacs, Tom; Tom Strongman; Tom Yeager; tom.black;
topclass356; treacherous; tstrongman; TYLOTUS; Ursula Lampsa; VanderahKurt;
Verysensibly; WALTER PIETROWICZ; WERKDLEVER; wilkinson; wilsport;
Windtunnel; Wm. Severin Thompson; Wm. Thompson; womwwheels; Woody Morris;
Wwycoffbn7; Ziner Robert
Subject: 10th Anniversary!!!!
Burt Levy's cult classic motorsports novel
The Last Open Road
will be celebrating its
10th Anniversary
at the Brian Redman International Challenge
at Road America, July 16-18, 2004
It took author/racer Burt Levy eight years to finish his 1950's motorsports
novel The Last Open Road, but the manuscript was turned
down by mainstream fiction publishers who felt there was "no market for
'car' fiction" and told Burt "THOSE people don't read...."
So Burt and wife Carol took out a second mortgage, formed their own
publishing company, Think Fast Ink, and did it themselves.
The Last Open Road debuted at the big midsummer vintage meeting at Road
America in July of 1994 and, with all their
money tied up in books and no promotional budget available, advertising was
limited to Xeroxed "potty posters" Carol and
son Adam put up over every urinal and inside every porta-john on the
premises!
Thanks to tremendous word-of-mouth support from the racing and collector car
communities, wonderful reviews in the mainstream and motoring
press on both sides of the Atlantic and enthusiastic endorsements from
motorsports luminaries such as Phil Hill, John Fitch, Dan Gurney and Denise
McCluggage, The Last Open Road sold out two printings and was picked up by a
major mainstream publisher, St. Martin's Press, and re-released in May of
1998.
In a publishing world where the average shelf life of a new novel is six
months, The Last Open Road continues to find new fans and readers a full
decade
after its original release. Now in its fifth hardcover printing with over
30,000 copies sold, it has become the most celebrated and successful
motorsports
novel ever written. It has also grown into a trilogy with the publication of
direct sequels Montezuma's Ferrari and The Fabulous Trashwagon.
To commemorate this tenth anniversary, Think Fast Ink will be unveiling 100
special, numbered, leather bound limited editions of The Last Open Road
at Road America this year, and the purchase price will include a signed,
full color Art Eastman art print of Finzio's Garage, the fictitious Sinclair
station in Passaic, New Jersey where all of Burt's novels begin.
As usual, Burt will be selling, signing and otherwise defacing copies of
all of his books--including the new limited edition--during lunchtime
Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Classic Impressions tent in the
automotive art area at the top of the hill in the paddock.
For more information call (708) 383-7203 or e-mail thinkfast@mindspring.com
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