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Old 30th May 2022, 13:16
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Re: Market research - 'Most Wanted' Luftwaffe books

Having made isolated ventures into book-writing, some comments on the suggestions so far:

Quote:
Ed: A book of unpublished photos. That's why I collect Luftwaffe im Focus.
Me too, but Lw. in Focus also does a brilliant job of explaining just what we're looking at and that's important to me as well (e.g. the Ta 152 article in issue No. 29). Realistically, the stock of unpublished photos must be decreasing, mustn't it? In that context, I think there's still scope for better interpretation (and computer-assisted enhancement) of the ones we already know. So, I'd favour really thorough captions wherever possible.

Quote:
Steve: Unit histories, as detailed as possible, especially for units for which there is no unit history.
Again I agree but sources are the problem, especially now that veterans are no longer here to be interviewed and for me the human aspect is very important. Some units' asignments prove quite repetitive so you do need to find unusual incidents to break the routime.

Quote:
Martin: My only bugbear - histories that take 450 pages to get to the end of 1942 and then 20 pages to complete the path to 1945.
That sounds like why I got into research in the first place! Pierre Clostermann's The Big Show planted the idea that there were months of very active fighting that no one seemed to write about beyond "and then the fuel ran out and Germany surrendered". I'm actually more interested in how the Germans lost than in the "years of triumph" angle.

Quote:
Martin: covering Lw units - how they were formed, where they were based, what types they operated and when, a brief potted history of the unit and then what units it morphed into when its role changed or it disbanded.
Into the labyrinth! Working out how to present this in a way that anyone without the brain of a particle physicist can understand is a bit of a problem as everything seems to have been in flux all the time. Animated graphics maybe?

Final point: how willing are people to buy a book that tells a new and interesting story for which few, if any, photos exist?
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