I have had an idea for a blog for a number of weeks and finally got around to setting it up:
If you could read just one book...
Reading is great but we all tend to read what we know and like. This group supports the OneBook blog which offers the best of books that we would never normally read.
To contribute couldn't be easier.
Step 1: Write a brief introduction about yourself, about 50 words is fine. Feel free to include links to any websites or blogs you would like to include.
Step 2: Write a short description of the book you want to include. Here we are looking at about 200-300 words. The book can be anything but try and include something that would not normally come onto the radar of people outside your area of interest.
Step 3: Go to the blog, fill in the submit form and I will do the rest.
You can visit the blog here or submit here or FaceBook group here.
When I turned up at my children's primary school this morning I was approached by a five year old carrying this:
(Click on the picture for a bigger version)
He wanted to know if it was a cannon ball. I had no idea but here's the facts:
Any ideas?
Yesterday I acquired a copy of Osprey's new wargame rules - Field of Glory. I read them late last night and early this morning and wanted to give my thoughts as a writer and historian.
I think I need to start by declaring I am not a gamer. Well this is not true, I have dabbled in the past but over the past years have not been involved in the hobby. This means I looked at the rules from two angles. The first was a writer, considering that this is a new product that the most important military history publisher in the UK and US is selling. The second is as a military historian interested in just how the subject is developing.
OK - to the book. Here's my thought based on the rules without actually playing a game (I would love to play but without an army it seems a bit hard).
Review aside here's some random thoughts:
1. Who thought that in these glories days of the Internet that a good old fashioned set of wargame rules could be printed in such quality and be sold for profit - all credit to Osprey.
2. Does Osprey's move into wargame rules mean that the hobby is set for a shift towards the mainstream? Games Workshop has been slowly geekyafing mass wargame rules over the past years and I now wonder if it's time for a change.
So over all I was really impressed. The main rules make a really nice book that will give pleasure to anyone interested in history, if only to see the pictures. Yet, I think the most important thing about Field of Glory is that Osprey, a major publisher, is prepared to put time and effort into a hobby that is at best, niche. I just hope that their enthusiasm and drive will bring more people to wargaming and ultimately military history.
So all that's missing now is an invite from Osprey for a group of us history bloggers to come and fight out are differences!
Oh yeah, came across this YouTube video of the creators of the rules in action - enjoy!
UPDATE
Received this link of a company providing 6mm wargame figures for the Field of Glory.
I am currently re-reading The Conquest of Gaul by Caesar. Well, I am actually listening to it on audio but lets not get pedantic.
I came across this section where Caesar is talking about driving Ariovistus from Gaul:
Our troops [the Romans] attacked with such vigour when the signal was given, and the enemy also dashed forward so suddenly and swiftly, that there was no time to throw spears at them. So the men dropped their spears and fought hand to hand with their swords. By quickly adopting their usual phalanx-formation the Germans were able to withstand the sword-thrusts, but many of our soldiers actually threw themselves on the wall of shields confronting them, wrenched the shields out of the enemy's hands, and stabbed them from above.
THE CONQUEST OF GAUL, II, 2.
This account is from a battle in 57 B.C. and clearly describes a shield wall formation and this got me thinking...
I have struggled long and hard for the last 12 months writing a book about the Battle of Hastings. One of the aspects of Hastings was the shield wall adopted by the 'English' army. Some historians would have us believe that it was a very basic formation adopted by Harold because he lacked either the vision or troops to do anything else. However, on reading this account I am now starting to wonder if the shield was in essence the only formation open to Harold.
Warfare in 1066 was very similar to that in 57 B.C., using similar weapons and to an extent similar tactics. I am now starting to believe that the shield wall (interlocked shields) was the 'default' formation for infantry troops. It seems that it may have been the natural formation, the formation most troops would have learned from boyhood. Think 4-4-2 for British footballers. Is it possible that a direct line can be drawn from the fighting in Gaul in 56 A.D. and the battlefield of 1066?
This wiki article offers a bit more of an insight.
Penguin this week announced that they would be making certain of their titles available in e-book form. You can read more here.
Basically Penguin are simultaneously releasing a couple of novels in traditional print format (you know bookshops and stuff) and also as e-books. They also have plans to make their back catalogue available for download.
However, I think Penguin have missed a trick here. They plan to sell the e-books and print books at the same price. Not only is this wrong because the reader will be reluctant to pay the same for an e-book as a 'normal' book, knowing their is no print cost. But Penguin could sell the e-book at a lower price and still make more profit and here's how.
I talked here about the idea of history publishers using e-books.
For me the perfect publisher would offer a combination of approaches:
1. Traditional books: 'Real' books sold either via bookshops, amazon or the publisher's website.
2. E-book versions: These are digital versions of the 'Traditional' book made available for download at a reduced cost.
The success of this approach hinges on cost.
I spoke to a good friend who runs an excellent small print publisher, producing high quality books for a limited market. It's not Penguin but it was as close as I could get! He suggested a print cost of about £1 for a 160 page book with B&W photographs. However, this price was based on a 3000 book print run and therefore needs an initial outlay of £3000. As for pre-production costs he was less able to give an exact figure suggesting each book is very different. However, having worked as an editor I know a price of £1000 per a novel sized book is not to far from the mark. Add to this design costs, copy editing and other smaller jobs and you are soon at a figure of £2000.
OK. This means for a 3000 book print run we could be looking at a total cost of £5000 pound. So about £1.65 per book.
Now, the price we sell to the shop will be about 60% of the cover price. So for a £7 book we will be selling for about £4 - giving us a figure of £12000 turnover per print run, but a profit of £7000. However, for a small press it could take up to three years to clear this stock.
So what if you were to produce an e-book version of this book? Well, the picture looks quite rosy. The chances are you have sent the file to the printers in a pdf format, so transforming this to download product is fairly easy. You may need to employ a web designer but this is a fixed cost and will be ignored for his argument.
The calculation comes down to download figures. The e-book would need to be cheaper but your costs would be based on the number of downloads. Let's say you sell a quarter of the books online that you do through traditional outlets. This would give you a sale of 250 books. Now the cost of these book is zero, since the hard copy version is paying for the pre-production, this means these sales are pure profit. So, if you sold them at half price - £3.50, it would produce an additional profit of £875. Not bad!
I think the main argument against his approach is that the 250 e-book sales would impact on the traditional books sales. Maybe. No one really knows for sure. The current thinking is that a person who downloads a book is probably a different person from that who would buy it in the shop. However, the profit on the sale of traditional book is £2.35, the profit on an e-book is £3.50!
So in my view Penguins approach is slightly wrong.
E-book versions of novels great!
E-books of back catalogue great!
Full price to download - boo!
