New Publishing Company
 

CHANDOS PUBLICATIONS LIMITED

Our focus will initially be on Luftwaffe subjects, although we do plan to eventually expand. Our first book will be a greatly revised and expanded edition of Martin Pegg's long out of print and highly sought after book on the Hs129 Panzerjager, originally published by Classic Publications in 1997.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Will the books be available through Amazon?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I sincerely hope not!

no, my own website, plus possibly one more distributer in the UK and one in the USA

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Yes, this are very nice news. I will order this books for sure!

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Rich - will you release an electronic version of the book?
Peter

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I hope not. E-format is an anathema.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I disagree entirely Jukka. They are much less expensive than paper, and are the way of the future. Protected, they are much better than paper. When you buy them, you get them virtually instantly. No postage cost.
Nearly all books I have bought in the last 2 years are eBooks, and at least 1/2 to 1/4 of the cost of the same in paper. The books you see on this forum are simply out of my price range. At a lower price, you would expect many more sales, and isn't that what an author wants - more people with their book?
Don't go on about copying and piracy - you can scan and distribute a paper book just as easily.
Peter

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Well, one thing is that electronic formats change continually meaning that something that is viable today is totally invalid 10 years from now. Physical books have been around for hundreds of years. Second point is that how are you going to present e.g. A4-sized illustrations in e-book readers? The supposed "handiness" loses its meaning if you need A4-sized screens as would be authentic.

And electronic formats encourage a "throwaway" culture. When something is cheap and disposable, it loses its worth. Anf it something is worthless, do you ecpect it to encourage its makers to aim for quality?

As for piracy, are you really sure that it is as easy to produce a pirated copy of equal quality of a physical high-quality book than what is essentially a digital file?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I wish you well with your new publishing project. Due to the internet, hard copy books and magazines are tragically in decline. The e-reader is destroying publishing further, not saving it.

One question: The design of the two covers on your website look like Classic Publications books - are they?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

The e-reader is destroying publishing further, not saving it.

But apparently not in the UK. Physical book sales rose last year and e-reader sales have stalled.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I disagree. EBooks are not the wave of the future. I work in the book business and eBooks are only a part of total book sales. They did not replace traditional printed books. As far as prices, everyone can only buy what they can afford. The losses caused by piracy that affects my, and other book publishers, for each book is not a small amount.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I would absolutely disagree, sales of physical books have never been better. As for Classic, the info is on the website

Hi - absolutely not..

Re: New Publishing Company
 

release electronic version-- if the publisher do that,there is possibility some people will upload the pirate version on the internet within couple of days.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Agree with the sentiments here...no use what so ever for electronic versions of books.

Mark Proulx

Re: New Publishing Company
 

And, just to add a bit to the debate (at the risk of thread drift), no use for colorized photos.

Mark Proulx

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Clearly, that is absolutely not true and a bit head in the sand.


There are far fewer military book shops, the military book sections in Waterstones etc are smaller, and Pen & Sword, for example, have diversified into other subjects such as general and local history, trains, buses, crime histories etc etc.


I know authors and have had experience myself in the last 10 years of once enthusiastic publishers refusing to publish books on WW2 subjects as they are 'too niche' and 'do not sell well enough'.


Each work published in ebook form and bought as such clearly is one less physical book not created/sold.


Paperback novels may be making a bit of a comeback but I would welcome a return of a widespread choice of WW2 subjects once again like there was 10-20 years ago.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Bomphoon, there are indications that paperback novels are the ones most impacted by e-formats. Hardcore readers buy novels in hardback format.

As for diversification, I believe great many classic milutary/aviation publishers have also had strong transport catalogue. And reduction in the number of physical bookshops might well simply be an indication of changed purchasing habits, i.e. online ordering is so easy today.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I read the book trade press, and paper books are doing so well that some in the trade are now saying that they misjudged the impact of the eBook and that their predictions of the future of eBooks, namely that they would become the largest part of the book market, were premature.

2007 The "...US Postal Service discontinued its outbound international surface mail ("sea mail") service," which meant my company lost most of its foreign customers.

2008 The planned global economic crisis. In the book trade, the category most hardest hit was Historical Non-Fiction.

Now new books, in all categories, are printed in the 3,000 to 5,000 copy range as opposed to the just previous 5,000 to 10,000 copy range.

Long before the internet, over 95% of the manuscripts I saw were bad [which is still true today]. It was like panning for gold. Then came cheap, 1 to 6 copy self-publishing. Again, a lot of bad books just because amateurs could pay a little and only store a little. Should they suddenly need 10 more copies, the print on demand order could be filled. Ebooks. According to a recent trade report, about 49% of self-published authors are making $500 or less a year on their eBook or paper format book. And it's very hard to know which are good or bad, much less how to find them. And when I look for highly specialized titles, the title had better reflect the contents. I am glad I stumbled across "Sonic Wind" but the hyperbole on the cover was a waste of ink.

Recently, the head of a videogame company said, "Kids don't read anymore. They play our games." That was not a fact, just twisting things around to suit the speaker/owner.

So, as can can be seen here, new publishing companies, just as in my niche, continue to appear. However, the other problem for historical non-fiction is an aging market and a lower replacement pool to draw from. Starting in the late 1960s, in the West, contraception was taking off. Fewer kids now means the hobby/research community is not as big as it was. Business-wise, a way must be found to bring more young people into the hobby.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

And that's exactly my point. How many young people do you see nowadays with a real book? Virtually none. They're all glued to smartphones and tablets.
My local hobby store (the one which specialises in WW2 and modern aircraft) has many books on its shelves, and sells virtually none. As for customers, the owner says virtually none under 40. And from what I see whenever I am in the shop, most over 60.
Another hobby shop which sells second-hand models and books similarly has many books on its shelves, but in all the years I've been going there, I've never seen anyone buy one.
Even the general second-hand book shops carry hardly any military books any more.
I agree wholeheartedly with Bombphoon.
The baby-boomers - ie those who may have an interest in WW2 in particular and still regard a paper book as gold - will not be visiting bookshops for much longer.
Peter

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Peter, do you really believe that those people glued to their phones have the attention span to read any longer texts, no matter what the format? Those folks are seeking instant gratification, something that our hobby does not and will not deliver.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Well, my sons are quite intelligent enough, and they fit the description, but the desire is simply lacking. (have I left myself open here?:)) In subjects of interest, they are quite persistent.
I'm just saying that if you want to get them interested, you must at least present the information in a medium they will embrace. Otherwise, the information will simply die. And by that, I mean if nobody reads it ........
Peter

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I made this point on 12/1/2018. I think it still stands:


'1) The main reason why books and magazines 'ain't what they used to be' is mainly due to the internet - and, dare I say it, forums such as these! In the pre-digital age, forum posts and information would be submitted to magazines as either letters or articles. This has dropped off dramatically.

2) The lack of this revenue means publishers' budgets are far smaller, so they can afford fewer staff, new articles and photos - and they pay the freelance journalists/writers far less, meaning there is less incentive to put pen to paper.

3) Perhaps most concerning - and it's something few people seem to have noticed or mentioned - the public interest in WW2 has dwindled massively in the last 10 years or so.

This, I think, is due to several reasons, from veterans and the immediate post-war generation of readers dying out, to younger generations having no connection to WW2 and so are just not interested in it - or, more worryingly, history itself. The digital age encourages the younger generation to look forward, not back into history.

If you doubt what I say, look at how few WW2 documentaries there are on TV nowadays compared to a decade ago: it even used to be staple diet for the cable history channels - it isn't now.

Also, look at the UK's main military history publisher: they used to publish overwhelmingly WW1 and WW2: look at their website now and many of their books are now about buses, murders, trains, politics and local history.

Perhaps our subject has been 'done to death'?'

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I must disagree. People below the age of 40 are not a homogeneous lot. I mean, I kept on reading comic books long past when I was "supposed to" stop.

My company has survived for decades and we are now using the internet to bring in new readers. In order to keep going, we had to learn how to use this new medium to reach potential buyers/readers. Sales do go up once I post to the relevant web sites. Sites, like this one, that allow for free promotion.

The US has at least three Civil War magazines. Books are still being produced about World War I. New information continues to be published. New material continues to be declassified. A report that was produced about the German Signals Intelligence Service was not declassified until 2009.

Opportunity must be found but one must look with an eye toward the future. I am still waiting for a book that explains why France fell so quickly, among other things.


And new publishers continue to appear, and that includes in the niche my company occupies.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Throwing in my two cents at the risk of heating up the debate again: why would it be an "either ... or ..."? If I look at my last book project on Kommando Welter, it was very quickly clear that it will be a paper book. The layout of the text, the working with marginalia, formatting and placing of images... it all called for a fixed layout the eBook readers can't deliver. At a cost though: you have to lift 2.5kg and you have no way to electronically search it...

My small JG3 article, however, I pushed out as an eBook - in this case, "reach" was the goal and making it quickly and easily accessible. In my ideal world, every paper book to read has a PDF copy to search through - but I know that this will not happen as long as piracy is around (and that means: never).

I just don't think there is a reason to use one and condemn the other - every author (together with his publisher, if it is not self-published) needs to make a call for the best medium... and it might be this one for this project and another one for that project...

Andreas

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Text and image layout is a skill. Speaking generally, the new ocean created by eBooks contains far too little worth reading. It does not go through a proper editorial process, and if images are involved, poor quality is preferred to better in the case of line art because better artists are paid more.


People can use either but paper books, even among college students in the US, are catching on over their electronic versions. Why? More retention of the subject matter.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

thanks for the comments. I agree and disagree with a lot of what's been said.

some negative points:

true, many of the older authors have retired, disappeared, are ill or have actually died.

the days of 10,000 print runs are over

positive points:

this will be a limited print run so more likely to sell out.

the Luftwaffe is an endlessly popular subject.

in my capacity as a book dealer I regularly, and without exception, sell the old edition of Hs 129 for well over £100. This has been consistent for the seven years I've been doing it.

we hope to use a U.S. distributor like RZM so American customers will have a chance to circumvent the high postage costs of sending from the U.K.

the next book, 'Blitz Bombers' will quite literally rewrite history. I'm very confident about both it and the Hs 129 book doing well.

During setting up my company I have come across many younger up and coming authors. I hope to diversify and publish books on other areas of military history - armour, naval etc.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

You sir, are taking the right approach. I was a business consultant for a time and did a bit of my own publishing. I have it in my blood so to speak. I learned by the seat of my pants and by asking questions. Finding out how to find out. Having even a small, enthusiastic group around you is also a tremendous help. I've seen how this all actually works.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Rich, I wish you all the best with your company, and I will for sure order both the announced books as I know the complete Classic team for a while and they do a great job. I also had the chance to work with them not just once.

As you wrote, the days with print runs 10,000+ are over. Have a talk with some authors next to Eddie and Robert. The print runs of books are sometimes quite small and the books cost a lot of money.
It's not possible to compare your second hand books business with new book business. How many Hs 129 books have you sold in the past years? 20 or more? They gold sold, as they were well made and out of print. They got bought by folks that missed the books in the past. Nowadays more and more of the books get availible. Hard to say but most of the preowners die away. The number of interested person is getting less. Most of the aviation friends are in older age. I'm 39, but do not know many in the same age that are interested in WW2 avaition are scale modelling.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

What about high postage costs of sending from the U.K. to Central Europe?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

How much is it to send a 1 kg. package?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Judging by the pricing in auctions of similar size books listed by Chandos on Evilbay, the shipping cost of the Hs 129 book would probably be around £16-18.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

that's just something we all have to live with I'm afraid. If collectors can afford £50+ for a book, generally they are fine with the shipping costs. Obviously I won't know the final shipping costs until the book is finished, but if the old edition is anything to go by it'll be 2kg+

As mentioned, with luck we'll also have a U.S. distributor - I think that'll be essential.

Any copy of the book can be sent with purchases from my monthly eBay auctions and I am considering whether or not to offer copies through eBay.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Royal Mail offers quite fair airmail shipping rates with "printed papers" rate.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

I have been told by Royal Mail that printed papers rate has been discontinued

Re: New Publishing Company
 

There’s one rate for everything. Depending on weight. Anything under 2kg goes by Royal Mail

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Re: New Publishing Company
 

For what it's worth - perhaps consider Lela Press as another distributor. The French post still keeps the low rates for printed papers, which is one of the reasons I frequently buy from them.
Otherwise, Amazon and their marketplace sellers ship similar books for about £8 (+£4 for each another book) - are they doing this below the real cost?

Re: New Publishing Company
 

thanks, we are considering all options...

Amazon can undercut other companies because their profit for the last three months of 2017 was $1.9 billion, their 11th straight quarterly profit

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Amazon created a huge presence in the book market by undercutting bookstores. And people want to save money. Amazon's strategy was simple: buy books in bulk at 50% off and sell them from 20 to 30% off. The consumer saves money and amazon pockets the difference. Then it diversified into other things. Amazon is on its way to becoming a trillion dollar company. Apple just hit the trillion mark.

Re: New Publishing Company
 

Lela Presse sells books from Erik Mombeeck, Axel Urbanke, Red Kite, MMP, Kagero, Japo, Eagle Editions and of course many French books. I think that tell they are good distributor if all these people/company work with them, but see yourself with them in time.