New Books

[Virdea]

What you describe would be the last chapter - the use of roll-your-own technology in battle is a major issue and represents the return full-circle when battle used hunting weapons.

 

We have to have clear copyright clearance on any document.  Official photographs released by the PH government are OK, but we cannot simply rip images off the web without the written permission of the person who took them.

[Virdea]

That said, a photo taken by you of twenty PH soldiers ready for battle looking on at an iPad, even if staged, would work.

[Zinegata]

What you describe would be the last chapter - the use of roll-your-own technology in battle is a major issue and represents the return full-circle when battle used hunting weapons.

 

We have to have clear copyright clearance on any document.  Official photographs released by the PH government are OK, but we cannot simply rip images off the web without the written permission of the person who took them.

 

Thought so. I can contact the owners of the images though and see if I can get the clearances. I will not use any pictures without clearances.

 

For the PH government they've actually released several official reports with a good number of pictures and maps describing the entire clash.

 

Do you have a target word count?

[Virdea]

We literally have the best of both worlds in word count.

 

The biggest I can make a book and keep it priced below 6 bucks, and break even on the affair is around 75,000 words and 200 images.  As I figure how many people want to play and what the book looks like, we can start to narrow down the size, but a book getting bigger than desire simply gets reset as two books.  

 

Normally editors hate this as editorial time is a big cost, but since I am an editor and can eat that cost myself - I literally only have to rent by own equipment from myself (don't ask) there is no limit on size if the writing is good.  We could end up with a 21st century book, a 20th century book and so one if we get crazy enough.

[Donward]

Man. I wish you had mentioned this earlier as I'll be going up to Alaska on June 9 and everything is fairly hectic until then. I've been a newspaper reporter off and on since 1999 and would like to get some more long form journalism under my belt. 

[Virdea]

You are still welcome, and this will not be the last book I write and edit, I will be moving a lot of my work from academic to popular press.  You could start by editing even and then picking up long form when you can.  

[xthetenth]

I think there might be a decent chapter to be had out of the Pacific Theater but the most promising candidates are things I really can't be confident that I can be dead on right about without a ton of work.

[Virdea]

Writing is a ton of work, so yeah - you are probably right,  I have a long "to do" list right now - funding a movie and getting that shot, four books each of which the research for already fills up three book shelves of binders, and I am building a television studio in Virginia, so my time is heavily called for.  But I know a lot of people who wish they could have something with their name on it that says "written by".  

[xthetenth]

Writing is a ton of work, so yeah - you are probably right,  I have a long "to do" list right now - funding a movie and getting that shot, four books each of which the research for already fills up three book shelves of binders, and I am building a television studio in Virginia, so my time is heavily called for.  But I know a lot of people who wish they could have something with their name on it that says "written by".  

 

It's just as much the level of research those subjects would require before I were willing to represent them as fact more than the musings of an internet dweller.

[Virdea]

No - I agree completely.  One of my articles on the development of great war infantry tactics required six books published 1914-1917, review about 700 letters, and read hundreds of what passed for AARs in that era.  The original scholarly article was nearly unreadable in its density.  The popular article was much simpler but was immensely dense in terms of how much was needed to make each statement of fact.  

 

In the discussion on American bayonets in my bayonets book - the simple section was itself an entire research paper.  It tracked the writings of the designer of the springfield spike bayonet, complaints about bayonet advocates who had never fought in the west, complaints by soldiers who were unhappy with the spike bayonet, articles in the New York Times and Herald about the issue, and NARA documents.  And although the anti-bayonet party won for many years - they were defeated under British influence in 1907, but enough old guard existed that getting bayonets accepted as superior to marksmanship was a difficult process.  Even after all that work the fact that advocates existed for bayonets being adopted even at the expense of machine guns could call my thesis into question.  It took a long time before I finally put the US in its own category vis a vis bayonet use.