A new JG 26 Chronicle?

[Ruy Horta]

The trick to some extent must be to expand your market by (self)promotion. Look at Christer Bergstrom, he's relatively active in the combat flight sim community of "IL2 Sturmovik" and derivatives. By active promotion of his Eastern Front books he must have added to his sales. Many of these buyers are not from that hard core "Luftwaffe" buyer's group, but first time enthusiasts of the air war genre.

As the developer of this sim-line is gearing up to release refined and improved game engine starting with a Battle of Britain product, you'll probably notice a shift towards that subject.

For a flight sim game this series generated very good sales over an extended period of time.

It won't make you rich, but it will pay off if you tickle groups beyond the hard core historians, researchers and or collector. Next to the tradional model airplane builders, we now have computer game players to lure.

Kit builders like detailed plans, markings and schemes. Game players like first hand accounts and performance figures. The hard core are very interested in detailed performance figures, operational data and like the kit builder some of them are into markings and schemes. All to improve or add to the experience.

You may well see a move towards more cooperation between the historian and game developer, why not add books as well. Like any big movie, time book releases with big game releases.

IMHO it is just another sign of the time.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Neil, I wonder where does the "3000 Luftwaffe book buying enthusiasts" estimate come from as I have been told by reasonably reliable sources that in Finland (population 5.2 million) there are about 800 hardcore buyers that buy nearly every book dealing with Finnish air war in Finnish language. Now just multiply that figure to represent more populated countries. Or are we Finns just that much more interested in military history? Could be as the Finnish edition of the transcript of the Kreml sessions in April 1940 on the Winter War has sold more copies than the Russian edition...

These print on demand solutions are unacceptable as the quality is very poor, despite Franek´s claims. The same applies for any electronic format for which I´d pay nothing.

Jim P., you may have been happy with Valtonen´s books and his loss figures, but does it occur to you that some people might actually want to READ the book in entirety, not just pick up a figure here and there?


I am definitely for English editions of Erik´s books!

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Jukka,

I agree with you, that "3000" is a really pessimistic underestimated number. In Hungary (10 mio citizens) my Hungarian aces book was printed in 5000 copies, and it was pretty quickly sold out.

Since the JG 26 is a very popular and famous unit, in my opinion it do worth to translate that book (the German edition is OK to me regarding the other books but unfortunately, the French is not my next language to learn).

[FalkeEins]

Originally Posted by Csaba Becze

I agree with you, that "3000" is a really pessimistic underestimated number. In Hungary (10 mio citizens) my Hungarian aces book was printed in 5000 copies, and it was pretty quickly sold out.

..something tells me that a 'Hungarian Aces' book will do well in Hungary, ditto a book in Finland on the Finnish War - more to the point, how many did it/they sell abroad...
well the figure of '3000' was from the 'horse's mouth' - I guess we're referring to a 'hard-core' of hard-back buying enthusiasts - not Osprey fans. As Erik said previously even 500 copies of a 60€ Luftwaffe hard back would be doing well in the current climate.

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

These print on demand solutions are unacceptable as the quality is very poor, despite Franek´s claims. The same applies for any electronic format for which I´d pay nothing.

This is simply untrue statement. Digital printing reached the highest possible quality and having a such publication at hand, I can guarantee results. It seems the best option for limited edition runs.

[Christian Schulz]

What Ruy Horta said. I am essentially a flight-sim fan with a strong leaning towards historical research. I'm not a collector, I'm not someone who builds a database with myriads of detail information ... I just like to edjucate myself on topics I find interesting as are many other simmers I know. We may not be historians but a lot of us want to know more about the timeframe the game we play simulates.

[Erik Mombeeck]

Hello,

Many thanks for all these reactions. They give me good ideas where to prospect if I publish the books in English. As ex. : by the game players…
A special thank to Ruy who certainly spent a lot of time building this beautiful and well thought poll.

Thanks for all the private messages. I will write to you all personally and keep you informed.

Of course, electronic files would be a solution, but at that time, I still consider to do classic books, nevertheless, never say never.

Regarding the JG 5 vol. 3. I still want to publish it in German, I know that many JG 5 veterans look for it for many years now. But my position remains like it was during our last correspondence, Horst : before to start printing the final volume, I have to finance it with the sells of the volume 2. And I need to see several dozens copies more to be gone, also for the space necessary to store the new books. I can’t do anything else. Unfortunately. Nevertheless, the text is nearly translated, photos are chosen and scaned in. So, it could go quickly.

Best regards and don’t hesitate to vote, this will be much significant for me.

Erik

[Franek Grabowski]

Erik
With digiprint you do not need to have any stock, you just order the book printed depending on demand.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Franek, why are you so keen to advertize the digicrap? As I said, I have never seen a digiprint book whose quality merits more than 2 stars out of 5. Not even close to Erik´s JG 5 vol. 1, for example.

[Peter Kassak]

I think I want to say something in here...Aren't all books printed digitally these days? All comes to scan, all text layouted in digital format and final product is PDF that goes to printer. I think what we have to speak here about and differ is the quality of source data for printing and also print on demand publisher you chose...there are plenty of paper options, priceless or expencive printing techniques....so I would not call it digicrap