First time author question

[Abicht]

I finally am about done with my research and have begun putting the meat of my book together. The hard part seems to be which publishers I should push my book to.

How does one decide? Pick 3 and send it to them?

What are the major issues a first time author faces with publishers? I am under no illusion I will make more that gas money off the book, but I also dont want to be taken.

So any pointers from the experienced would be valuable.

Thanks-

[donwhite]

Abicht,

Any tantalising titbits about what is your book's topic/focus etc.

Cheers & best wishes with breaking into the published author ranks.

[Abicht]

Yes, working title is Stabia -German aerial intelligence on the eastern front. There are a great deal of books on the Luftwaffe, even down to unit levels of the recon units, but very little to nothing on how the Germans conducted aerial photographic intelligence, operated the organization, used the photos and photo derived intel from company level to the OKH/OKW and Hitlers level. I will cover everthing from mapping to use of photo intel in the partisan operations. I have hundreds of unpublished photos, charts, maps ect that I will need to par down. I also will cover data on how the photo interpreters were trained, tools they used ect, schools, specialties. I have data on battles/events that aerial photo intelligence played a key role in as well.

I have a great deal of data from many unitsthat used the data and war-time interrogations of the key folks involved.

I have begun putting data asside for a follow on book along the same lines but covering the Med Sea area. Of course a publisher would help!

[Tom Houlihan]

Matt, you'll have to look around to see who already does stuff like that. Make a priority list, and contact the one you seem to like best.

You will probably get a rejection slip or two. You can't take it to heart.

If you don't already have some ideas for publishers, look through the book review section here, and look to see who turns out quality material. Write a letter with a precis, and start sending off copies.

Best of luck. That sounds like a daunting project, but even for an old stubble-hopper, it looks kinda interesting!

[Richard Hargreaves]

Hi Matt,

Probably one of the specialist, high quality aviation publishers sounds like the best bet, someone like Hikoki/Crecy. They do some really, really nicely-produced books. If you do pick the right publisher first off, then there's no reason why any rejection slips should be popping through the door. That said, publishers at the moment are very cautious when it comes to committing to a lot of new projects. They almost sh*tcanned a book on Kursk, convinced there wasn't much interest in it.

I guarantee the title will go, though, and be replaced by something like "Eyes over the Eastern Front". Once a book's in the hand of the publisher, you lose pretty much all control over things like covers, titles, chapter headings.

I'm still trying to interpret those Breslau images you very kindly sent. I would have been a rubbish intelligence analyst...

Best of luck!

[Abicht]

Richard-

Thanks for the tips, I am old enough and young enough not to be phased by rejection, but I just didnt want to have to send proposals to a dozen publishers. Seems the hardest part of the process is telling a publisher who the book will appeal to and who will buy it, especially when you see some of the subjects out there that have been written on many times before. I hope some of the outstanding original and unpublished photos will help.

As for Breslau, one of these days I will get back to looking for more for you. There was a good deal of smoke on those photos which makes things hard. I seem to say yes to too many folks for help finding photos and have 5 requests right now I need to take care of!

Matt

[Alex Dekker]

I was a lucky guy, since a publisher called me about my book . We're 1,5 years further on and still the publisher hasn't started printing yet. These things take a lot of time. It was of the reasons for me to publish te book all by myself. It got me some money and it worked way faster. After I stopped writing, the book hit my doorstep within three months. The second edition took about four months, but now my litle kid has left me, off to a publisher... On the other hand, these guys have published a few classical Dutch books about the war, books I enjoyed years ago. They are rewritten and reprinted. And that's worth waiting.

Anyway, enjoy it when your book is there!