My new book Day Fighters in Defence of the Reich in the UK now

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

Unfortunately they got "too busy" to air mail me an author's copy…

-- Don

What a farsighted business approach — why would publishers need authors, after all?

Seriously Don, that's thoughtless of them.

[Tomas Brezina]

Hello Don,
Is possible attached some sample page here?

T.

[Don Caldwell]

Tomas --

Go to the Military Book Club site and click the "quick peek":

http://www.militarybookclub.com/page...uId=1073739285

Folks in the USA might want to throw an order their way to reward them for being able to get books so soon -- AFAIK, these are the first to cross the pond. (I've placed an order with them, but their tracking system says my shipment is held up in a Post Office warehouse 100km from here. So it goes...)

Nick --

This is typical of my treatment by Pen & Sword. My book is actually by an imprint, Frontline, but its "publisher" is on sabbatical, managing the London Gefiltefish Festival, among other things, and IMHO P&S is treating my Frontline title as an orphan. Publishers have historically disrespected authors -- their only reason for existence. P&S is the 7th publisher I've dealt with WRT my 7 books, and there will soon be an 8th, as the JG 26 War Diaries are being brought out in softback by someone other than Grub Street, their original publisher. I think I've discussed this here before, but authors need to form a cooperative to produce and market their own books. Self-published books have never been able to break into the conventional distribution system, but that system is permanently broken anyway. My problem is that my interest is in researching and writing, not all that other stuff necessary to get a finished book into a reader's hands.

-- Don

[Nick Beale]

Another possible model is this: http://unbound.co.uk/about

[Don Caldwell]

Nick --

An interesting concept. Do you know anyone who's tried them? Unbound is definitely a step up from what's called in the US a vanity press, but I see several weak points, especially for authors of specialty titles such as ourselves. First, potential readers must proactively seek out the site and make a contribution -- i.e., sponsor the book. How do we herd a global, thinly spread herd of buffs to the site? And the entire burden of marketing is left to the author, as tho he was self-published or has a garage full of books from a vanity press. It looks like Unbound is meant for unpublished authors with a large circle of friends. I've never had trouble finding legitimate publishers, who all do what they do very well -- they've always been my first choices, based on my evaluation of their product and the opinions of others. The problem has been their willingness to communicate with their authors once they have the signed contract and the MS. They don't respect their authors' opinions, and IMHO this is a universal problem.

--Don

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

Nick --

An interesting concept. Do you know anyone who's tried them?
--Don

I heard about it via the news that Terry Jones (of Monty Python) had published a book, "Evil Machines, via this method.