Heinkel He 111: An Illustrated History. Design - Development - Variants - Operations - Equipment

[Dénes Bernád]

It might very well be, but it does not change the issues I described in my previous post.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Denes, not nationality per se. But, in case of German aircraft, the key archive is (afaik) the Deutsches Museum. It would be most interesting to know how much time did Forsyth spend there...

[Nick Beale]

I wouldn't disagree in the least about the choices an author makes in what he/she chooses to emphasise. I haven't seen the He 111 book, I was merely arguing that simple questions of profitability may well stand in the way of publishing something approaching an "ideal" book on a given subject, especially a multi-volume series. Readers do seem to prefer fighters to bombers or reconnaissance types, the first jets do exert a fascination and the result is that you get multi-volume studies of the Me 262 and Fw 190. I don't know whether or not Ian Allen would have made money by commissioning multiple volumes on the He 111 — and nor does anyone else here, we only have opinions — but how many of us would risk thousands of pounds of our own money trying to prove them wrong?

"Thus the book should have been 'He 111 - An Illustrated Study: Design and Development'." Unless you wanted to sell a copy to me, in which case it should have been "He 111 — An Operational History." Neither of us is "right" about this, we simply have different tastes in books. I've said this before but if Jukka or anyone else thinks there is a market for a deeply technical book on any aircraft, then waiting for someone else to write or publish it hasn't been particularly fruitful up until now.

As for Jukka's comment that "it would be quite perverse to have the best known Spitfire or Lancaster book to be written by German authors" — on the other hand it could be quite refreshing, couldn't it? It would depend entirely on what perspective such an author could bring to the subject.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Nick, the title "He 111 - Operational History" would be OK to me per se. I just wonder how detailed such a history would be for an aircraft so widely used...

Nick wrote:"...but how many of us would risk thousands of pounds of our own money trying to prove them wrong?" As you said, publishing is business. And what those thousands of pounds are is called the cost of doing business.

I do also think that it is quite incorrect to air that "do it yourself" phrase every now and then. We readers are the demand, and the publishers are the supply.

As for technical books, as I have tried to say, there is something peculiar with books on piston-engined aircraft from post-WW1 to 1945. There is simply no supply, therefore it is impossible to gauge the possible demand. And if that is compared to what is available to sailship, ship, tank and train enthusiasts, it is strange.

[Nick Beale]

"... what those thousands of pounds are is called the cost of doing business. I do also think that it is quite incorrect to air that "do it yourself" phrase every now and then. We readers are the demand, and the publishers are the supply."

Nevertheless. I see a moral difficulty in condemning others for failing to take a risk that I would not take myself. You might however be able to exercise some influence on a publisher if you were to start a crowdfunding/subscription initiative — if enough people to sign up you demonstrate that the demand is there. This has been done with music and films but I don't know if anyone's tried it with books.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

As recently noted, Ian Allan sold the Classic Publications imprint to Crecy. Add to that that much has been said about the declining state of affairs for book publishing and Robert and Eddie may have found themselves in a possible financial squeeze, accepting the page limitations dictated to them by the number of pages that could be published and still eek out a profit. The result may seem like an anemic book.

Had they narrowed the topic range to cover some aspect in more detail, the anticipated number of buyers might have made the book uneconomical to publish in the first place. At least here we are getting a 336-page book, not the 220-page book that Chevron was constrained to under Ian Allan.

Let's see how well this one sells as to whether there is a market for books on a very staid old warhorse such as the He 111.

As for switching publishers, John Vasco said it well under a different TOCH! topic:

"Because the volume of work that Crecy have taken on is so huge that it will take quite some time for everything to be assimilated into their system.

This will, as far as I am aware, include contact with all the various authors (myself included) who have had work published through the Ian Allan imprints now with Crecy, examination of contracts, possibly entering into fresh contracts for new/revised works, etc..

It is a massive change, and any benefits will necessarily take quite some time for the buying public to see how everything has shaken into place and is then taken forward."

So, be kind out there.

Regards,
Richard

[Bombphoon]

From some of the arrogant, big-headed clever-clever and down-right naive comments on this thread, I'm surprised that authors and publishers even bother to take on such huge costly projects, to be shot down by those who display little knowledge about the current publishing climate.

And best of all, people who openly admit they've not even seen the He111 book, yet are spouting off criticisms of its content!

The market since Classic first published their Me262 book in 1998, has taken a nose dive. Closure of chain and independent bookshops, the advent of information sharing online, Kindle and e-readers have massively made publishing and books on specialist niche subjects - which is what our interest is - highly unprofitable and in many cases unsustainable.

I'd love a set of books on my favourite subjects that are as thick as a set of telephone directories, but like telephone directories, they're rapidly a thing of the past and unsustainable.

Whilst I agree that many books are at eye-watering prices these days, the unchecked growth of web-based free content means books on niche subjects are increasingly unattractive to publishers and will only be so in the face of the internet/e-books ever rolling juggernaut.

Keep whinging if you must, but at least get your facts straight before you fire off flak at the hand that feeds our interest.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Bomphoon, if a niche subject book is excellent and properly marketed, it can be well profitable for the publisher. One good example is the Australian military author/publisher Jason Mark, whose books tend to sell their print runs quite quickly despite being very expensive (approx. £50 for a small format (A5) book). There are two publishers who publish mostly military aviation history books for the Finnish market of a tad over 5 million people. And their books tend to be more expensive than comparable books of British publishers.

To be frank, I suspect that the aviation history niche market would do significantly better if we readers committed ourselves to it a bit more. One often hears complaints about lack of funds to buy books, yet in the next sentence one hears that there is money a plenty for tourist travels, tobacco and especially booze (and often those travels' primary goal is to get drunk).

[Furyman]

While they may not be perfect,The Classic Series are beautiful books ! My He 111 copy was just under $50 Canadian delivered...good price in my eyes.I got hooked on Classic's with the soft cover Jagdwaffe series...first time I opened one I was stunned...what an improvement over the old "In Action" series and the poorly printed Schiffer soft covers ! The series is currently at number 25...I look forward to hopefully another 25 or so.Only one I'm missing is # 8...Me 163 Vol 1...hopefully it gets reprinted as copys are in the retarded price range right now,,$500 to $1000 a on E Gag.And of course # 21...Volume 4 of the Fw 190 which has still not been printed.Anyways-Cheers to the writers and the publishers !

[Jukka Juutinen]

I had a chance to examine a copy earlier this week. Based on the quick examination, the following observations were made.

As is typical of recent Classic releases, physical and design quality is excellent, though the brief time did not allow for thoroughly checking out for typos.

The subtitle of the book does not really apply to the book's contents as the coverage is totally devoted to operational aspects. In short, the title should indeed be "He 111 - An Operational History".

The technical coverage is primarily through manual illustrations that are interspersed with the text throughout; a bit strange decision giving impression of a thorough technical coverage when there is not.

Performance details and analysis are lacking. There is a specification appendix at the end of the book, but the figures are the standard figures from Heinkel documentation. There are no test reports, no payload/range curves etc. But there is for an nth time a reproduction of Eric Brown's text.

The bibliography reveals a decent number of archival references, but mostly related to operational service, not technical documents etc.

There was meagre coverage of the testing and production aspects of the story. And there was no comparative analysis of the He 111 to its contemporaries.

So, as currently titled, the book does not deliver it*. As an operational chronicle, seems to be quite ok.

*There is more space devoted to the Spanish Civil War than on handling and performance of the aircraft.