[Larry Hickey]

Crolick,

I have no idea about price, and I won't until we get this all laid out with a totally finished manuscript and all the artwork, maps and photos in place. I've invested a small fortune in this project, far more than at least the Polish Campaign volume(s) will ever return in sales under current market conditions. I've done this because of my dedication to air war history, and to set a new standard for the entire "Eagles over Europe" Project publication series. There may be several ways this material is published, hardbound (expensive) volumes, many soft cover smaller volumes and/or eBooks, or all of the above.

Here is an excerpt (slightly edited) that I wrote directly to someone else this morning that defines the problem and my current dilemma about the way forward. Keep in mind that I live in the USA, but the books could be printed anywhere in the world, even in Poland.

"Regarding the market for the books on the PC in Europe, one of the big problems is distribution. Individual books (that I already sell) now are all shipped by air (from the USA) by postal authorities, and the books I publish weigh a lot because they have high page-counts and use high-quality enamel-coated paper to hold the quality of the artwork, maps and illustrations. This adds US $45-65 in postage to books shipped from the USA to anywhere outside North America, which on top of a high cost for the books themselves, makes them prohibitive to anyone but the people with the most serious interest AND who have the money to buy them. Many Polish (and other) aviation enthusiasts can't afford them. I must figure out some way to warehouse an inventory in Europe (co-publication with a company that already has a well-established distribution and marketing effort??). This is something yet to be solved. In any event, I presently see it unlikely to work out a system that will begin to return a significant amount of the very large amount of money spent on that part (Polish Campaign) of the "Eagles Over Europe" project to date. Maybe the later books will be in high demand, but I'm not sure that the PC has sufficient market potential to be a financial success under any realistic scenario."

That pretty well defines the problem. I'm open to all possible solutions to get these books to the largest number of people of the interested reading public, but the huge and continuing decline in the financial health of the worldwide print media (books, magazines and newspapers) is making this problematic. My small publishing company has an ongoing experiment with eBooks. We've turned one of my expensive Southwest Pacific Air Campaigns books into an eBook, but sales have been very limited, and some people are having e-reader compatibility problems with the very complex text, photos and tables. There is no easy solution to the format, distribution and marketing problems that this project will experience as it moves to publicaion.

So Crolick, you see what anyone in quality aviation publishing is facing right now, and how it is impossible to answer your question at this point. I just don't know the answer, but I'm open to reasonable suggestions.