# The family business: Market Distribution Specialists, Inc (1984-2012) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 18, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289 "2020-10-18T23:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/21 "2020-10-27T20:38:37Z")
Thanks for the details. I’d forgotten that STM grants a license back to the author. As a practical matter, it can be difficult to monetize works you’ve already exposed to the public even if they aren’t “in the public domain” in strict legal copyright terms. All the more so if those works continue to be exposed to the world essentially indefinitely via the internet. Big difference between that and a Saturday night poetry reading at the local indie bookstore. Do I want to read @JohnTs story? You bet I do. Read it here? Sure. But friends don’t let friends make big mistakes unwarned. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/22 "2020-10-28T20:36:36Z")
… [What is the worst or most condescending advice you have been given? - #93 by Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-or-most-condescending-advice-you-have-been-given/915781/93) … ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/23 "2020-10-28T20:40:21Z")
… I don’t understand the context, Melbourne, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/24 "2020-10-29T08:32:18Z")
Sorry John. It was a gentle dig at LSLGuy (and probably ruder than I wanted to be). I like to assume that people choose to do what they are doing, and know more about their situation than I do. That they have their own reasons, and that those reasons are valid. I have enough of my parents and siblings assuming the opposite in real life: I’m intolerant of it on the internet ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/25 "2020-10-29T15:47:02Z")
Shhh! Don’t interrupt the story! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/26 "2020-10-29T17:42:05Z")
No harm on this end. I come from an opposite tradition. In my job 2 professionals site side by side all day pointing out the (usually) obvious to each other. With the result that instead of 1 in 1000 oversights happening, it’s closer to 1 in 1,000,000. It does take practice to accept being told the obvious without triggering a resentful “Do you think I’m blind?!” reaction the 999 times out of 1000 you did already notice [whatever it is]. I hope @JohnT and everyone takes it in the spirit it was offered: helpful, not scornful. And yes, I certainly know people (not in my job) who’ve suffered harm or grievous abuse from family who assume they’re too stupid to pour milk on cereal. Day after day. That would get intolerable years before one got old enough to move out. Enough of this digression. Back to MDS. All MDS all the time! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/27 "2021-06-03T04:08:11Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > A serious thought here … > > By publishing your ongoing story here you are giving it away to the site’s owners. There might be other ways you could serialize this and generate some revenue, an online following, or ??? Well, let’s just say this caused me to re-think some things. I assume this means the other readers in this thread will plot your imminent demise, LSL. Prepare yourself. Y’all may have noticed in another thread that [I started a Substack](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-started-a-substack/943518) (SS), one about general interest stuff. Substack bills itself as a service for authors, allowing them to build an audience and monetize them via subscriptions, ala Patreon - your free subs get some stuff, your paying subs get more stuff, etc. And the copyright issues are easily resolved - the author retains all copyrights. But it’s more than that - I’m interviewing people, outlining the book (as I have been thinking of this since October), writing it (and writing separate documents almost as large as the first one with ideas, notes, interview questions, etc). So while the medium for telling this story _will_ change (sorry), I’m still not 100% sure what direction it will take… but I am leaning towards a serialized Substack, one where the first 5, 10 entries are free, and then $x to access the rest. Regardless, I’m practicing on the general interest newsletter so I can get enough experience with SS as to do a better job on the MDS story. And if you want to know my secret dream for this, I would love for it to keep getting optioned, but never made. Or, if made, a 10-part Netflix series would do the trick. TLDR: LSLGuy killed this thread. Stone him! ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/28 "2021-06-03T04:50:59Z")
I have a tiny bit of experience in this field I and my cousin was one of the guys that delivered the phone books …the problem that we had doing so other than my cousin in laws idiosyncrasies was by the time he decided to do it all that was left was rural desert routs that no one wanted… We got lost so many times on dirt roads that even calling them trails was an upgrade looking for places that weren’t even legal addresses it was a experience … after we returned the undelivered phone books and they counted the ones we did manage to deliver i made 35 bucks and he didn’t make anything because gas and things … funny thing is since we didn’t just dump the books and it was an admittedly shitty route he told him to come back in a week as he had another companies phone book and would give him a better route … on that one he worked a week (he took more than one route) and actually made money ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/29 "2021-06-03T05:45:13Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > TLDR: LSLGuy killed this thread. Stone him! LSL guy is not the guy I feel like stoning at this juncture. ---
**Author:** ![omenran](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omenran/32/3318_2.png) [@omenran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omenran)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/30 "2021-06-03T06:48:58Z")
I say we make **LSL** deliver phone books for eternity as penance. I can sympathize with monetizing the story though. As much as I enjoy the story, it seems like quite a task to organize and write all of the story (and sub-stories). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/31 "2021-06-03T20:21:42Z")
Sorry everyone! My bro delivered newspapers as a kid. Is that penance enough? I often deliver mail and packages, but by the jetload, not door to door. So not quite as awful as @nightshadea’s tale of woe. @JohnT. When you get the MDS story moving, let us know. I’ll happily be one of the Charter Members there too. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2021, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/32 "2021-06-06T01:52:05Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My bro delivered newspapers as a kid. Is that penance enough? Definitely not. I delivered newspapers as a kid. I learned a lot. That said, I think you did a good deed, helping a fellow Doper see the light on monetizing his experience, and teaching him at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2021, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/33 "2021-11-02T05:30:31Z")
Y’all have been patient enough, and with the project undergoing a hiatus until the beginning of the year (well, the interviews and such) because of the death of John Knapp, I went ahead and published a teaser: > [@The Campground (A MDS story)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-campground-a-mds-story/953669): > > Authors note: This is a companion piece to [this thread about my family business](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289). It can be read as a stand alone, or in conjunction with the original thread. I’m placing it as its own thread because, frankly, I want a wider audience than would be allowed if this were post 35 in a thread which hadn’t been bumped in 4 months. This is a story about my maternal grandparents, who feature very prominently throughout the first third of the MDS project, and whose spirit infuses the entire journey. Not … ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2023, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/34 "2023-12-08T20:35:32Z")
I just read this and The Campground thread, wow, great storytelling. In my head, The Campground story was narrated by Richard Dreyfuss like in Stand By Me. Josh Brolin could maybe play your father in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289/35 "2024-01-31T20:00:43Z")
Thanks! As he aged, my dad and Ed McMahan resembled each other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-family-business-market-distribution-specialists-inc-1984-2012/923289.md?page=1)