Billy & Walter Go To The Library of Congress By Walter Day

I once calculated that I had spent more than 1,000 hours writing the 1st edition of the Twin Galaxies’ Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records. I started on Thanksgiving Day 1996 and worked diligently until the 984- page volume was finished in October, 1997. Five thousand copies of the volume were eventually printed at a cost of $28,500 and the book was released on February 8, 1998 with a big “launch party” in Fairfield, Iowa that attracted almost 200 friends and gamers from all over the USA and Canada. Unfortunately, my publisher had an ironclad contract with a distributing warehouse in Kansas City that gave them complete control over the storing and shipping of our books, and when that distributor went out of business, 1,500 copies of the book were sent to the paper recycler. So, only 3,500 copies of the reference book ever made it into circulation. (See card #576)

But, I had moved on to greater things: namely, publishing the 2nd edition of the book.  It wasn’t until 2004 that I finally created a page layout for the new book that satisfied me. It would have a gold cover (TG Book 2nd cover) and was not going to be just about tables of scores, but would have feature boxes that divulged the forgotten history of video game & pinball playing. – Read the rest of this article by clicking here!