Gary Smailes

Contested Boundaries

Technorati Tags: Military History Carnival, Horrible history, Historian

Gavin Robinson is hosting the next Military History Carnival and has set the theme of contested boundaries. He has challenged the blogshere to post on the subject so here goes...

 

I am a historian.

I would consider myself a professional historian. I have a post graduate degree in Military History. I have carried out original research that has furthered an historical debate.

I have obtained research skills, sat in dusty libraries and read obscure books. I can spot a Marxist historian from twenty paces.

But I don't publish.

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But I do publish.

On the other hand I am a writer and researcher. I write children's history. It requires no original resource. I regurgitate other people's work. I devour the knowledge and then reform it in a way that the younger generation can read. I do this for money. Don't get me wrong I love the subject, but ultimately I do it for money.

But there's more...

For years I have worked as a researcher for Terry Deary. I have helped write the ultimate in popularist history - the Horrible Histories series.

Am I a historian?

Do I need a website?

I make my living as an author and freelance writer. A few years ago I set up my own website. At the time it was an essential tool for my business. I used it as a virtual business card. It gave me a web presence and showed people just what I did.

But then game the blog.

Today if you do a Google search on my name you find that my blog is the first hit! In fact my website is number four.

So do I need it?

Well I am not so sure...I am starting to question the benefit of the site and wonder just what it is adding. I suspect I could just delete the site and move all the relevant information to static pages on my blog.

RIP

www.garysmailes.com

Field of Glory

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).

• Field of Glory is for ancient and Medieval wargaming. Stating the obvious maybe, but its interesting to see that Osprey have had the confidence to NOT publish a set of rules for teh big two (American Civil War or World War Two).
• Though Osprey have gone out of their way to lead the novice by the hand into the book (and hobby)- these are not basic rules. My first thought was that they were a replacement for the popular DBA, not this is not the case. These a set of hardcore rules that could easily become the gamers standard.
• The pictures and illustrations are simply amazing! Osprey is known for it's illustrations and Field of Glory offer a collection of some of the best pictures from their books. It looks as though they have commissioned a set of fine photographs, but for me the pictures were the highlight. If you are a fan of illustrators like Angus McBride (and who isn't?), you will love seeing their work in a different context.
• I also got hold of a copy of the army lists for Rise of Rome. Now, you don't need army lists to play the game. Four sets are included in the main book, but a bit of research would allow any gamer worth their salt to set up an army. This said the army lists are great. In the Roman book they covered every army during the period you could possibly imagine. In addition, there is historical context, maps and even more pictures!

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.

Technorati Tags: Wargame, Field of Glory, Military History Carnival, Osprey publishing

Were shield walls the best option?

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.

Technorati Tags: Military History, Romans, Battle of Hastings

Digital Penguins and history e-books

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! 

Why visit a publisher's website?

Here’s an interesting question:

“Who published the Harry Potter series?”

Try asking five of your friends, I am betting you will be surprised by how many have no idea.

The point is that the average reader not only has no interest in who publishes a book, but more importantly has very little reason to visit the publisher’s website.

The challenge that history publishers face is to not only produce reasons for a customer to visit their site, but to also develop a brand that extends beyond their products.

So let’s take the example of a military history enthusiast who is interested in finding out more about the Battle of Hastings. A publishes website will not be his first port of call. This might be their first, followed by this but not a publisher’s website. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The key is not to see a person who buys a book about the Battle of Hastings as a one off customer but as a member of a community. They may be interested in the battle but they are also interested in what other enthusiasts are saying. They are interested in military history in general. They are probably interested in reading what authors have to say beyond their books. They will want to contribute to online forums. They will be willing to share their own research, post photographs of last summer’s battlefield tour and offer tips on the best books about, well just about anything.

So a publisher should be offering a platform for all this to happen. A place where enthusiasts can come every day, and you never know in the process they might buy a few more books.

Going Digital

My wife recently made available a novella she had written to support her first novel as a free download. The idea was to drum up support for In Search of Adam and raise some money for charity - which it did.

The idea of giving away free e-book versions of in-print books is not a new thing and a number of big publishers have recently been experimenting. The question is does a free e-book impact on the sales of the real book? Consensus is swinging in the direction that is doesn’t and that people will download the free e-book as a taster, but them go and buy the real book to read on the train/in bed etc.

So what about history books?

I think that e-books have a big future in the military history market.Niche market publishers (Osprey, Pen & Sword) have to be aware that any book they print will have very limited sales. This does two things. The first is to increase the cost of the book, the second is to limit the range. This also means that books can't be heavily discounted and made available for 3 for 2 etc but that is another blog post!

But this is old thinking - there is a third way. If a publisher was to embrace the e-technology and publish in just e-book format they would be able to produce books at a fraction of the cost. So for a niche military history book a publisher would only have to meet low pre-production costs (editing etc) to get the book ready for sale. However, since they would never have to pay for printing (which is expensive) they could quickly produce a large catalogue of internet only books at relatively little cost. The key is that those wanting to read a specialist book will be so grateful that the material in available they will forgive the publishing for the lack of physical book and pay for the download.