Field post - A book project

World War II - Multimedia WWII Books
#1

Hi all!

My name is Alex, I am from Germany and new in the forum. Five years ago, my aunt found about 300 field post letters written to my grandma from my grandpa and her two brothers. The letters range from 1937 through 1945 and cover the military service before the war, the war against France, the Operation Barbarossa and the withdrawal and final defeat. Together with a friend we wrote off all letters and did academic research on the letters and the circumstances.

Our book contains about 500 pages. Now we are searching for a publisher. We published some letters on the history portal One-Day-In (just enter “Meine liebe Anita” in the keyword search) and an extract from the master’s thesis on MeineLiebeAnita.

I guess and hope that some of you speak German. Otherwise, you can use GoogleTranslator.

All kind of feedback is appreciated!

Best regards,
Alex

#2

Welcome to the forums and thanks for posting. I don’t know anything about publishing books. Why not go to a bookstore and find out the names of the different WW2 book publishers? That would be where I would start.

#3

Hi Procyon,
Thanks for the advice, I’m doing this as well. However, I don’t want to disregard new media.
And I’m interested in hearing some feedback.
Best
Alex

#4

My uncle and his wife are both writers and, even though, they sold over 300k books they are not well off financially. No publisher wants to take the risk. If you are small you’ll either get a publisher with good distribution, but who will take a big cut or one that takes a smaller cut, but has smaller distribution.

#5

Easiest way is to publish it with the book-on-demand method, like BoD. This doesn’t pose a risk, neither for the publisher nor the author. The problem is just the missing marketing. What does it help if my book is published, and no one knows about it?

#6

Yes, distribution is the biggest issue and it’s gonna cost you, unless you have a proven track record in terms of sales.