Following the two book-related posts here and there, let's discuss what books you would be interested in.
Tanks, warplanes, warships, particular models and weapons, history of combat and tactics, etc?
Digital copy, hardback, paperback?
English will do? Or other native languages preferred?
Acceptable price tag?
Amount of images?
Other ideas?
Tanks, warplanes, warships, particular models and weapons, history of combat and tactics, etc?
Digital copy, hardback, paperback?
English will do? Or other native languages preferred?
Acceptable price tag?
Amount of images?
Other ideas?
Jagdtiger book. There is not a single book that contains a lot of info. Some things to consider would be documents from Jagdtiger encounters, maintenance reports, development, construction process, firing results, personal stories, detailed photos from inside.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smb.nu/
ReplyDeleteFor the swedes who wants good books on military topics.
for those kind of books Hardcover is a must I geuss. Language, depends on the quality of the translation. For an european version is hard to geuss how many buyers you will have in the different countries and to know how good their english skills are. Pricing difficult to say without seeing the finished books. 10-30€
ReplyDeleteA book I'd love to see? The (detailed) story of captured equipment in World War 2 - for all the major nations, if possible: Panthers in British and US use, German tanks and conversions in Russian use, Australian use of the captured Italian tanks, German use of various French and Russian vehicles (not the LT-38, as those were "germanized" totally) etc.
ReplyDeleteLanguage: English - as much as I'd prefer to see it in my own native language, for the sake of speed and realistic timeframe (and as broad audience as possible), I believe English will do.
Pictures: Not too many, perhaps one in three/four pages tops? Text is much more important.
Quality and length: Paperback is fine for all I care, it's the text that's more important. However, from certain size the paperback doesn't really cut it anymore (too fragile), so hardback would be practical. Digital copy? No. Those would get pirated really quickly.
Author: This closely relates to the price tag. Certain fact books by very known authors are (sometimes by hundreds of percent) more expensive than if a relatively less known author wrote the text. Naturally that all depends on the knowledge base of that respective author, but I am not quite sure there is the need to involve people of Mr. Doyle's caliber in such a project. Then again, I don't know that much about the author world so... *shrugs*
Price tag: This should be secondary. Naturally a book that costs 200 Euro probably wouldn't be practical, but I believe that such a book would find its buyers even if it were more expensive than usual.
We havent got in touch with high profile international authors yet. Therefore current expertise ismostly Soviet and to some extent German tanks.
Delete+1 on the idea of books detailing the use of captured vehicles.
DeleteI'd love to see books on prototypes featuring artist renditions as well.
I'm really enjoying the real-life related direction lately Overlord. Shooting pixels is fun and all, but things that I can put on my shelf and maybe even share with non-gamer friends is a great way to grow more importance with the World of- series.
ReplyDeleteAll of what I offer will be my own personal preferences of course, and Not telling you guys how you should run things ;)
As far as photos: as many photos as possible!! I have been a metallurgist and machine worker, so I particularly love construction/fabrication/maintenance details, as those are also especially quite rare to see.
I prefer hardcover for single books or short run series, but will buy in softcover (due Only to affordability) if I know I will be buying many of a series, as in Osprey's great lines. I never buy digital books because there is something simply satisfying about taking it off a shelf and "flipping pages".
I suppose a Lot of it also depends on whether you guys are thinking of an on-going series or just a couple of special ones every once in awhile. But speaking of Osprey, I think they have a fairly decent price point for what they are offering = $15 - $20 USD for their softcovers. Something surpassing their level of detail and rarity/quality of photos would be at a $20 - $25, maybe even $30, level for me. I would certainly be willing to spend well over $30 for special one-offs, but approaching $100 and it would have to be Encyclopedic.
I'm much more interested in tanks nowadays (my airplane fetish is outgrown). WoT's theme: "Golden Age" especially. Behind-the-scenes details, and other things which the typical "Tank" books either ignore or glaze over will almost definitely make my wallet open. For example, most accounts give us the impression that fighting during the Great War was pretty much non-stop continuous, but my understanding is that is was more long periods of waiting and prep and then short bursts of action. A book that itemizes a particular tank's "life", maybe in terms of percentage of time in combat, travel, resupply, maintenance, rest, etc, etc, over it's term of use (early/mid/late breakdowns would be ideal since they changed so much), and then described what was happening during each of those functions. Not just the combat action, but more like if the tank wrote it's own diary, *That* book would be on my shelf!
Other must-have tank books for me are exactly the type of thing that WoT specializes in: prototypes, variants, one-offs, proof of concepts, and paper projects. In detail, of course ;)
I would also definitely be interested in ship books *IF* it highlighted construction and inner working aspects of the behemoths, you know *details of the ship itself*. I have absolutely no interest in a ship book which only adds to the gazillions of pictures of various ships sailing around looking pretty and sometimes occasionally shooting stuff.
Language for me is English only. (I will be starting an intro course in Russian, but sadly it won't help me soon enough)
Thanks again!
Paper tanks and rare designs are in our focus ofc. I believe not that many woyld love to get ye another book on Tiger.
DeleteEnglish and Russian in same book?
ReplyDeleteIt will mean 2.5x volume.
DeleteAnd another thought on info that is difficult to find: relative vehicle quantities! I build "Historical Battles for my Clan, and always try to use ratios of vehicles available in the given action, converted to the 15 person team. As example, most people's impression is that Tigers/Panters/Ferdinands were crawling all over the battlefields of Kursk, but in WOT a full German team has only 1 Ferd, 1 Tiger, and 1 or 2 Panthers (depending on other balance factors). A book that listed quantities of *each* tank during various periods of the war, and for a few of the most important actions, instead of just "Side A had 5,764 tanks" would be worth it's weight in WoT Gold to me!
ReplyDeleteI would like to see a book on the Yamato, maybe including its sistership Musashi in the same book.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer a hard copy written in English, with plenty of supplemental images, diagrams, and blueprints.
As for price, I would say it depends on how thick the book is; at most I would say $50, but only if the book is a few thousand pages long.
I would recommend taking a look at the two volumes of "Titanic: The Ship Magnificent" for an example of an excellently written set of books about a single steamship.
DeleteENGLISH language only . (No more Russian please , But anyway i speak also Russian like a native ..)
ReplyDeleteThe book will aim on the British development of the Cruiser tanks to the Centurion .
Images ? The more , the better it is .
100 pages+
Acceptable prices : $49.90 or €39.90 . (personally if i would see this price I will buy the book immediately . But if it is higher I will think twice) .
Ofc we are not going to sell Russian books internationally. )
DeleteOH and i forgot to say , Please include the SOURCES in the book , Any links \ books \ experts etc .
ReplyDeleteWe are already doing so.
DeleteTanks (T20 to T48 or even XM60, Crusader to Centurion, french funnies, soviet Kubinka's rarities etc - ofc each book should be about one tank), Warships (especially predreadnaught and dreadnaught era)
ReplyDeleteEnglish
Paperback or/and digital
15 euros (i just bought Game of Thrione for 4 pounds so I'm nasty customer now) to lets say 30 (monograph about West Somerset line costs 25 pounds in retail so this is an acceptable price cap)
Lots of photos some pictures (Hunnigton should be example)
Hungarian Tanks. Or Romanian TDs.
ReplyDeleteFor the subject, I would be interested mainly on tanks (not really big on warplanes, a bit "meh" on warships).
ReplyDeleteA good hardback would be lovely, and I would totaly pay around 30-40€ if the content is plentiful.
English is good, I prefer a good english translation than multiple "native languages" translations that are a bit dodgy.
For the content, I would love to have as many info as possible. I love construction and maintenance details. Would love to view some old paperwork on "how the tank is doing on the battlefield compared to tanks x & y" or even reports from field trials, etc ...
I would also love to have a bit of history, knowing how the tank in question was to be designed, what role engineers taught it would have, the improvements made to the design before entering service and while in service, what the crews discovered about it while fighting, ... I could go all day really.
As for images, having a lot of them will be great. Captioned diagrams and "cut views" would be lovely as well.
Thank you for that great project BTW.
the price depends on the information inside, size of book and topic. Would be very nice if they would form a series, not to much independend topics plz. native language is not needed, as my experience tells me it is oftem translated by someone who doesnt know about the topic. So english is good.
ReplyDeleteand if posible in digital version: could u plz add 3d models of the tanks themselves? i got a 3d printer and it would be great if i could print these models right from you guys. I do want to pay extra for this option.
for me, english language would be good enough, but you´ll reach larger audiences with native languages.
ReplyDeletei would buy the books if they offer me something, other books can´t. someone (i think it was you) mentioned blueprints/photos of maus from soviet archives, even doyle had no access yet.
basically stuff like that.
Personally, I would be very happy with any theme and format (warplanes, warships/hardback, paperback etc). :)
ReplyDeletePrice tag would not be an issue for me but the quality of the books is of the utmost importance. Poor paper quality is a big turn off for me.
The books I buy, I keep in a special glass bookcase so I can always refer to them needed.
Battleships with actual warstories and detailed descriptions of weapon mechanics and what they are capable of...
ReplyDeleteAlso tank stories with a mix of technical details on the tanks involved.
I'd prefer paperbag combined with digital version...
From my point of view it would be more interesting to have books about some series of tanks, like T-34 - T-54 family, IS family (from IS-1 till IS-10/T-10), Pz IV and vehicles using his chassis, British Cruiser tanks. So smth like Hunnicatt books. One book for one tank means that it will be hard to collect full history of tank development. And for me such books about only one tank are much less interesting, while Hunnicatt books show bigger picture, where are numerous interesting prototypes, strange projects and so on.
ReplyDeleteFor me I'd wish a book about the american T prototype tanks, that would be a real news as the Hunnicutt books are not widely available.
ReplyDeleteAlso I'd really wish for warship never-were books :), maybe I could help with that as well (KGB knows what I mean :).
Regards: csatahajos (Akos)
As much pics as possible, prolly not over 20 euros, German would be nice, im not really interested in planes, but id read it aswell, hardback
ReplyDeleteThis one is obvious. I sit all day at my desk. I call this the 10-finger workout, in that my 10 fingers are moving and typing,
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Cycling on the other hand burns upwards of 700+ calories, depending on your current weight, fitness and terrain.
Even better, cycling is a low impact sport, meaning if youbike disc wheelsare a little bit on the heavy side, your joints won’t suffer as they would if you were running.
They call it the fight or flight response. When stress levels are heightened,
our bodies produce over 30 hormones,
including adrenaline and cortisol that needalloy wheelto be cleared out of the body via some kind of “flight” response.
When we don’t do any physical activity to rid our bodies of the horemones,
the stress chemicals sit in our systems and cause damage both physically and psychologically.
Getting out on a nice ride with your buddies is one of the best ways of bonding.
Hey, I don’t play golf, so being ableTrack wheelsetsto do something ysbike01 outside of the office that doesn’t involve drinking is pretty damn cool.
Cycling is a gentleman’s’ sport and a hero’s sport, so you gain a lot of respect for the folks you ride with for various reasons
whether it be the first time you climb that big hill or that time you pull around and win the sprint for once.
Come now, have you seen the hipster kidscarbon wheelsriding fixies? Well road cycling is full of cool toys and gadgets.
Cool wheels, computers for keeping your mileage, etc.
You can buy cool bike stands for your house so you can tinker around
with the wheels, parts, keeping things clean and buffed and it’s way cheaper than fixing cars!