I have been writing magazine articles on WW1 army trucks for the last six years and i now have an opportunity to do a book. The current plan is for it to be hardback, A4 size, 200 pages long, have about 20 pages of text,and 360 photographs of WW1 trucks in British army service.
My question to you (hopefully as a representative sample of potential buyers) is what would you like to see in it? I dont want to cover anything that anybody else has already done (so i dont plan on covering the history of the ASC) and i dont want to make it too technical, but it must be interesting and readable. Although i was planning on just 20 pages of text every photograph will have a long caption and all but a very few of the photographs will come from my own collection. I wasnt planning on covering staff cars and motorcycles as that is not really my area, just the trucks.
So, i am looking for some ideas for chapters. Any thoughts please gentlemen?
Another question is, how many photographs of the same type of truck are acceptable? For example i have over 100 photos of Peerless trucks, but how many of a GS Peerless could i use before you begin to fall sleep. Obviously i would want to use ones which were different in some way such as markings, battle damage, location or angle of shot but even you hardened enthusiasts may begin to lose some enthusiasm on looking at picture after picture of the same type of truck. I had about 4 or 5 in mind, but always open to suggestions.
I like it when a book on vehicles are both interesting to read, and useful as a guide and inspiration for modelling the subjects.
So a bit of technical details, preferably in some sort of context that gives you an idea of what technical solution X or capability Y meant for the use of the trucks.
A bit of history on the vehicles: When and where were they used? Did they have some noticeable impact on Operation X or did they make daily life on the roads easier, harder, a bit of both?
Finally I like some personal accounts and anecdotes from the people who used the vehicles themselves. What were they like to drive, repair and maintain? A funny anecdote related to the vehicle?
And last but not least, I like it when there's enough pictures of a vehicle so that you can pretty comfortably detail your own model to a decent standard, using the pictures for reference, but not enough to make it a Squadron/Signal walk-around type of book. So it's difficult to say just how many pictures one would need for each vehicle, based on that requirement. Sometimes two pictures are enough, sometimes you need 20. It all depends on how complex the vehicle is, and how good quality the photos are. A pic or two of the vehicle in an interesting/unusual situation can be inspiring as well.
A note on how the vehicles were painted/camouflaged would be nice as well.
All this is ofcourse the ideal vehicle book for me. There are a few like them out there (most of which have found their way into my book shelves), but most are not. Yet they can still be very good, and worth buying, without fulfilling all my wishes.
Kaiser sums it up for me - apart from books covering wide subjects ie the Vanderveen covering 1900-39 all nations an the similar Blandford Press one, has there been anything at all on British softskins?! A very much needed book and very excited about this
Sounds terrific! I hope that you would include 3-view drawings and dimensions. If available, representative WD registration numbers would nice nice for those who wish to model them. Oh yes . . . color guides and special insignia as well!
Your articles sound interesting . . . how may I access them on the web?
Tim, I liked the format of your magazine articles - at least, the ones I saw. If you just collected them all together I'd be happy.
But, to be more helpful, I agree mostly with what everybody has said here. I'd like to see the Ford Model T included, or just the "light truck" versions if you don't want to include cars. I'm not too fussed about scaled plans, but some dimensions such as length, width, track, and wheelbase alongside your photos would be good. Perhaps a "survivors" section giving details of vehicles we can see and visit, or a "this lorry can usually be found at the Great Wallop Steam Rally every April" sort of thing.
Hi Tim, How many articles, in total, have you written ? Can you break the Chapters into,say, Light ,Medium and Heavy. Then a chapter on Specialist Uses -ie- Breakdown,Ack Ack, Ambulance etc etc. Followed by one on colours and markings etc Then a Chapter on Technical information ! All broken down with pictures of the various types/manufacturers etc. I was looking at the current magazine article about the Macks and thought scale drawings would be nice but then its not a modelling magazine !!! Just my thoughts Paul
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Thanks for your input chaps. You have given me a new dose of motivation to get on with it.
The main problem I have is what to leave out. I dont have enough photographs of ambulances, or motorcycles to make it comprehensive so as a result I wont include them. I do have enough staff cars, but if I am leaving out ambulances and motorcycles then including staff cars would be a bit strange so they will be out as well making it just trucks.
You have all come up with some good ideas so I will respond to them one by one:
Personal accounts/anecdotes. Good idea, I will certainly do that. Also I have hands on experience and observations of our own trucks so I will certainly include those.
Technical details and history. I will include those within the captions and at the start of each chapter.
Paint, camouflage, markings. The paint is not too much of a problem, camouflage might be and markings will have a chapter on its own.
Exported vehicles in foreign service. I dont think I have enough photos of this to make it work, but I will give it some thought.
Drawings and plans. Sadly, I dont think I will be able to do this although I will try and include dimensions.
Survivors. I will think about this.
Steam Lorrys. Yes, definitely.
I am concerned about the chapters but I hope that will fall into place sooner or later. Something else that troubles me is that there will be omissions. Every now and again I come across another really obscure vehicle used by the WD of which original photos dont seem to survive. It may well be that there are omissions, but I certainly hope to cover 99% of all the trucks used by the WD. On the other side of the coin I do have some unusual truck photos which I have not been able to identify. Would photographs of trucks which are unidentified detract from the book as a whole?
Thanks for your ideas.
I have just done a quick check on articles published in Military Machines International and came up with 34 which is a lot more than I ever thought I had done.
Due to copyright issues these can not be published online. I am working for a business which sells magazines and they wont be impressed if I gave scanned copies away, so please dont ask me. You should be able to buy most of these from their website and they do turn up on E-bay or militaria shows for not much money. I have given the dates when I think they were published but you might want to double check.
Thanks again. I hope to finish the book by the end of this year (which does not actually seem very far away now). I have a publisher all lined up so if he is happy with it then it should be out in Spring 2014 (he says optimistically).
Tim . . . I have plan views and side elevations for the chassies (i.e., without cab or box) of many American trucks from the 1920 Power Wagon Reference Book downloaded from Google Books. Should you want any of them (either in the original blueprint format or changed to B&W and sharpened via PhotoShop) please let me know. Included are Peerless, Atterbury, Garford, Kelly Springfield, Nash, and Mack plus many other.
Have greatly enjoyed reading those articles of yours that I've been able to find. Is it possible that your publisher would let you put out-of-print articles in Landship as an advertising gimmick.
On another tack, I should think that photos of truck emblems and identifying features such as radiators and unique cabs would be most helpful.
I suppose that you have an Editor for that super work. Otherwise, I know one that can edit it for free : myself !. Gemsco , Chairman of the Belgian "Editions du Patrimoine militaire."
Thanks for your suggestions guys. The plan is for it to be almost entirely photographs with in depth captions, so although i like the idea of the drawings I just wont have room for them. I have got a publisher who is pushing me to write and it all looks to be very positive. if it does not work out then i will certainly consider any alternatives. I do need to pull my finger out though and get on with it as it is taking longer than i initially planned.
I will have a chat with the editor of the articles and will see what can be done with those. Thanks for your continued interest.
I have come home to find my copy waiting for me. Not had time to read it yet, but a quick look through the pages and I am very pleased with the end result. 200 pages and 396 photos most of which come from my own collection.
I would be very interested in hearing any opinions or views from other forum members.
Thanks
Tim