John I am not sure I fully understand what you are saying but if you are saying that if I have never written a book and had it published I have no right to comment that seems a bit odd…I am the consumer after all? My points were brief and off the cuff but, Chris, they were directed at publishers not at writers. If you have good relationships with publishers I am pleased for you.
For the record I have had fairly substantial contacts/friendships with a number of published authors during the last 40+ years. I have been involved with/on behalf of research friends in discussions about trying to get a book published. In that time:
- I have been regaled with tales of publishers starting off discussions by deciding on the price for the book (before it is even written) and then working back from that…how many pages will that buy…how many photos etc.
- I have heard of long meetings or phone calls with page designers who have no awareness of the significance of or the relationships between important text and illustrations.
- I have been present at exhibitions, for example, when an author friend has been talking with a publisher who wanted him to write a book but showed no ability to take part in a discussion about the possible content…the book could just as easily have been about quilting or curry recipes.
I realise that there are important business decisions to be made in being a successful publisher but in my view MCP represented a particular commitment to enthusiast publishing which is now largely long gone. Yes there are still some specialist publishers around like Wing Leader (but I wish their books were not perfect bound). Yes some imprints are still around having been hoovered up by other companies. But if you take Hikoki for example none of the books published now under that imprint show a glimmer of the ambition shown by Barry Ketley…take “Eye of the Phoenix” for example.
One my first contacts with an admired author was a discussion with John Rawlings at the time he was bitterly disappointed with MacDonald/Janes over the decisions they had made on the layout of “Coastal, Support and Special Squadrons”. JDR had wanted the layout to be the same as “Fighter Squadrons” but MacDonald segregated all the photos into separate sections and they had only included less than half of the photos he had. I don't think we will ever see books with that kind of ambition again.
Why is Roger Lindsay publishing his Cold War Shield series himself…?