War Gratuity - should I put it in book form ?

[ss002d6252]

Having done so much work on the War Gratuity over the last 2 years or so I'm now at the stage where I'm considering putting together a book on the subject (I'm not sure if anyone else ever has ?).

The key question is whether it is a book that people would be interested in ? - it wouldn't be a massively long book, and probably published using Amazon's print on demand, but it would cover the history of the gratuity, how the gratuity worked and the method I have developed for estimating service from the Effects Records.
 

Craig

[keithmroberts]

I suspect that the demand would be very modest, but pulling all your work together would in itself be an achievement, and would be appreciated by enthusiasts. I think there was a topic about publishing posted by Martin recently. Found it - it might be of interest.

 

[ss002d6252]

2 minutes ago, keithmroberts said:

I suspect that the demand would be very modest, but pulling all your work together would in itself be an achievement, and would be appreciated by enthusiasts. I think there was a topic about publishing posted by Martin recently. Found it - it might be of interest.

 

Thanks Keith - I do suspect it would not top the best sellers list !

Craig

[clk]

Hi Craig,

 

I think that the answer to whether it would be worth your while compiling a book would depend on how you feel about it. From the onset of your research into the subject, I always thought that "cracking" the scheme would be a huge assist in helping people trying to recreate the story of soldiers where their service files no longer exist. I use your work on a regular basis (hopefully remembering to credit you) when trying to answer queries on the forum. If there were to be a demand for a book, I would have thought that it would appeal to people that have a specialist interest, such as regular contributors to the forum (and professional researchers). My observation would be that there only seems to be a very few members of the forum that are aware of your work, or at least use it in the spirit of how I think that you researched it in.  

 

In no way am I suggesting that you are, but for me life isn't all about money, and kudos. I think that adding to the "intellectual capital" (as QED put it) has personal rewards in its own right.

 

Whatever you decide, I wish you the very best.

 

Regards

Chris  

 

 

Edited 29 November , 2016 by clk

[Andy Wade]

I'd buy a copy Craig.

[ss002d6252]

41 minutes ago, Andy Wade said:

I'd buy a copy Craig.

Have as many as you can buy Andy !

 

Having thought about it more and considered the time I have free (a lot) I think I'm going to do it - it won't be a masterpiece but hopefully it'll work as a small reference book.

 

Craig

[Guest]

  Hi- Craig,

            I think a book solely on war gratuities would have such a limited audience that it would hardly repay even the cost of short-run publishing. Some of your material is already online and I think deserves a bigger audience but Im not sure how either hard copy or online publishing would achieve the main purpose- that is, to make research of enduring value to others - mostly one-off researchers of one or more ancestors,which is the main form of requests to this Forum.

    I speak as a bookseller of 30 years experience- no matter how bad I think the selection of stuff I have in stock actually is, it looks fantastic when set against the sheer volume of absolute crud published every year-and I am confining myself to hard print materials only. I speak also as a novice on this Forum, who undertook a Great War project locally and have been heartened by the goodwill, helpfulness and good companionship of others of much greater experience and ability- I thank you for  your help on the topic in hand often given with good cheer

     Might I make a suggestion???  I am acquainted with many sources of military history to do family history- I count Mark Herber, "Ancestral Trails" as an old and good-hearted friend. But the game has changed and Im not sure that the old (that is, pre- Ancestry/FMP) sources are now good enough or detailed enough to help the many who come onto this Forum in search of their ancestors of the Great War.

     I think what is needed is a guide to understanding the resources relating to individuals of the Great War BUT especially to interpret the materials now more easily available online-Older guides tend to concentrate on record series available at the National Archives. A guide might include ,say, the different terms of enlistment, what an Attestation Form might tell us what a service record may tell, army service numbers and how they changed or were allotted, your stuff on war gratuities- how calculated,when paid, where the records were kept,etc-entitlement to medals, war graves records and their strengths and shorcomings (eg concentration-where to get the map references from the concentration reports) or,for instance, a listing of when CWGC cemeteries were opened, so as to limit the wrong interpretation of memorial inscriptions.

      Craig-your material is very useful but it reflects but a part of the problem-how to get the greater depth of knowledge contained on this Forum, let alone among its members, to a wider local audience-Even with my limited experience, I am aware that I often help out others when bashing my local library resources.

    Time for a Haynes Manual especially for Internet resources particularly. Im prepared to put some effort into this if others wish to do the same. The niche market is there- but,as a bookseller, I caution- the spread of knowledge must be the reward.In financial terms, the project ought to cover its costs and have friendly co-operation from non-Forum sources-let alone the treasures that are buried away here!!

    If I can be of any assistance, then please shout out

        Mike

[MaureenE]

Craig, if you wanted other alternatives to self publishing, and were not seeking financial return, perhaps a Journal such as the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research might be interested in publishing an article with the results of your research 

http://www.sahr.co.uk/index.html

 

I have seen Journal articles uploaded to the Internet Archive (Archive.org) (These are Journal articles generally, not specifically JSAHR) Perhaps the Internet Archive would be an option , either if you are published in a Journal, or perhaps you could upload your own ebook.

 

 

If you do decide to self publish you have to factor in the cost of the free copies you may need to deposit  in terms of “legal deposit” requirements, which is a copy for the British Library and possibly five more.

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/legaldeposit/introduction/

Legal deposit also applies to electronic publications

 

If you do decide to self publish, you would probably want to set up a website  with details of the book.

 

Cheers

Maureen

Edited to change formatting which changed when posted.

 

Edited 30 November , 2016 by Maureene

[stiletto_33853]

Craig,

 

You could put me down for a copy also. It might be small but a very useful reference tool.

 

 

Andy

[keithmroberts]

The advantage of digital publishing is surely the limited financial outlay compared to print editions. I would probably buy a copy as well (barring an academic publisher),  and I do prefer "real" books to digital, but there are advantages to both routes.  I'm not sure about journals, as they tend to end up in specialised libraries only, and individual copies are not always that easy to come by.

Whatever route you choose, I'm sure that a core of GWF members will be interested.

 

Keith

[Guest]

Craig and Maureene-  An article in a not very accessible journal, followed by Internet Archive is going to be too obscure. The greatest choice is between electronic publishing or hard copy. If you wanted the optimum place for the right subject-specific audience, then it is right here on this Forum-so that those enquirers doing their own family members might go to it straightaway and quite easily as a first port of call on this Forum. This Forum contains the answers to most things but it can be intimidating for the first time/one-off/casual user.  The Forum is well laid out, so that idiots like me can use it but a little guide -as I say perhaps specifically for the main record series on Ancestry/FMP- would help a great deal of those asking for info- Look at what they want and it is clear that most already have access to Ancestry/FMP and have already done some looking.

    As to hard copy, the age of the PC and laptop means that self-publishing is now very easy- as long as it is camera ready.There are many companies out there who will do short-rum printing from camera-ready copy- eg Lightning Seed (who are used by LB Barking/Dagenham- an edition of an officers letters from the Ethiopian Campaign of 1868 in the offing).The 2 great problems are print-run and  publicity

1) Print run- too small and the item sinks without trace- Just look at some of the obscurer items published after the Great War- author has gone to a local publisher or printer, small number of copies, book is now almost impossible to find. But print-runs cost money and get it wrong an you are left with an overstock which is next to worthless. Also, the addition of other record series means the item dates.and becomes worthless.eg Mark Herber wrote "Ancestral Trails" and it is widely used by family historians. But the second edition required the addition of over 3000 footnotes to list new resources- which is the primary reason that Mark has not done it again-just too much stuff to keep up to date.

    Distribution has to be considered-Are you going to post out copies?   Trade discount- usually 30% or so,more for multiples (Try dealing with Waterstones and you will be on valium within weeks-and Amazon,etc would be the same-its not so much "trade terms" as chattel slavery). Copies for review??-You need the publicity.   Stocking at likely bookstores- the obvious ones are IWM (Too specialist-they just want populist junk nowadays), National Archives (quite friendly to small publishers), NAM (when open), Society of Genealogists  (bit fuddy-duddy). Self-publishing is hard work-you are your own editor to begin with but then you are a part-time warehouse clerk-packing,posting,invoicing is very,very time consuming.

    Copyright deposit is required- the number you lose is 6-5 under the Deposit Libraries Act 2003 (BL,Bodley,CUL,NLS, NLW) plus the separate arrangements for Ireland(TCD).

   Commercia publishing is a possibility- Pen and Sword-probably not, Naval and Military-would have to be comprehensive and a books worth.

    To me,the optimum is here-as a first port of call flagged up on the Forum-and if a hard copy is wanted,then that may be a possibility beyond that

 

[keithmroberts]

I am always nervous about turning the GWF into more than a forum.  Even the setting up of lists soon gets out of hand with repetition and misunderstandings. The only "list" that I htink worked was the one maintained on unit war diaries which was effectively managed off line by a member and kept up to date by him.  Once we move beyond lengthy posts - which could in some cases maybe work in the gallery as PDF's, anything else would be a different proposition.

I must admit that reading Guest's post again, I see great potential in either shared papers published as he suggests, or in more substantial, but uncommercial material being published via Kindle. The minimum price would not hurt many members, and the work would be available long term to newly interested people over the years, and reviews etc here and hopefully on sites such as LLT would be valid signposts.

 

Keith

[ss002d6252]

Thanks guys.

 

Any book I did publish would be via Kindle and CreateSpace Print on Demand through Amazon - it's not a difficult process to do (I've just put a local history book out on Amazon Kindle & need to check some proofs I have just received for the CreateSpace version (quite impressed with the print quality) ).

The effort of getting it in to print isn't a major problem for me as I have the time to do so - if it was to sell two copies then that's two copies more than if it didn't exist

Craig

Edited 30 November , 2016 by ss002d6252

[Guest]

20 hours ago, ss002d6252 said:

Having done so much work on the War Gratuity over the last 2 years or so I'm now at the stage where I'm considering putting together a book on the subject (I'm not sure if anyone else ever has ?).

The key question is whether it is a book that people would be interested in ? - it wouldn't be a massively long book, and probably published using Amazon's print on demand, but it would cover the history of the gratuity, how the gratuity worked and the method I have developed for estimating service from the Effects Records.
 

Craig

 

Craig

 

I would buy a copy for sure. 

 

If you publish via a journal it's distribution will be limited to the small readership. A surprising number of journals have no online version, so the portability of the article or articles can be extremely limited. I subscribe to the Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research (JSAHR) which is a high quality journal, however it is only available in hard copy. In this day and age it seems pointless limiting oneself to hard copy. By making the work available online it reaches anyone with internet access. In simple terms JSHAR readership is probably less than a few thousand, and the internet reaches about 3 billion people.

 

I went down the Kindle route, simply because it seemed to have the broadest reach. The small disadvantage is that most people mistakenly believe one needs to own a Kindle device to access kindle books. All one needs is to download the Free Kindle App for PCs (it takes less than a minutes) and I am sure as time goes by more and more people will access archive material this way.

 

Edit: For anyone interested in pursuing this line: Kindle sets a minimum and maximum price and charges a few pence  for distribution (based on the MB, so books with lots of images cost more to distribute). In simple terms the minimum prices is $2.99 and the maximum is $9.99 (roughly £2.41 to £8.06) to collect 70% Royalities. Any pricing above this the Royalties drop to 35%. The simple arithmetic means few authors price their Kindle books between in the low teens ($) as an e-book selling for $9.99 at 70% royalties makes as much as a book selling at $19.98 on 35% royalties. Their philosophy is to keep prices low.  If you are using public domain material (as I do) the royalties are just 35% throughout the pricing range. I sell my transcribed diaries at £2.99 (less than the cost of a TNA download of a single file at £3.45) and they make less than £1 each in revenue (not profit) which is simply ploughed back into paying for more transcribers. It is never going to make money (that was never the plan). On Kindle anyone with Kindle Unlimited can read them for Free, and share them, thereby making them more accessible. The key issue for me is making them accessible and searchable. Online publishing also has one huge advantage in that additional material can be added which updates any purchased e-book the next time the e-library is synchronised (it takes a few seconds). ...so, an author can add lots of related material as it becomes available. 

 

The latter cannot be done with hard copy of course.  I looked at a number of distribution channels and Amazon's Kindle seems to have the broadest reach. 

 

It is extremely easy to set up. Write your book, save it as a word or Pdf file. Upload it using Kindle's own free software which converts the file automatically. Add a few notes and details. It takes about 20 minutes per title and is published online within a few hours. I have done twelve so far with another 200 in the pipeline. The only limit factor is time the considerable spent editing as less than £1 per book doesn't produce enough revenue to pay anyone else to do it. 

 

MG

 

Edit. Proofreading by a third party is critical as authors and transcribers can become blind to errors in their own work. There is nothing quite so depressing as proof reading three times, publishing and then spotting an error, often on page one. 

 

The Peer Review is also critical, but I suspect in your case it will be quite difficult to find someone with the knowledge that could offer constructive criticism of your arcane subject matter. It will be a small challenge. I would ask William Spencer at TNA. 

 

Edit 2 . I think our posts crossed. I see you (Craig) have already gone down the Kindle route. 

 

Edited 30 November , 2016 by Guest

[ss002d6252]

23 minutes ago, QGE said:

 

Craig

 

I would buy a copy for sure. 

 

If you publish via a journal it's distribution will be limited to the small readership. A surprising number of journals have no online version, so the portability of the article or articles can be extremely limited. I subscribe to the Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research (JSAHR) which is a high quality journal, however it is only available in hard copy. In this day and age it seems pointless limiting oneself to hard copy. By making the work available online it reaches anyone with internet access. In simple terms JSHAR readership is probably less than a few thousand, and the internet reaches about 3 billion people.

 

I went down the Kindle route, simply because it seemed to have the broadest reach. The small disadvantage is that most people mistakenly believe one needs to own a Kindle device to access kindle books. All one needs is to download the Free Kindle App for PCs (it takes less than a minutes) and I am sure as time goes by more and more people will access archive material this way.

 

Edit: For anyone interested in pursuing this line: Kindle sets a minimum and maximum price and charges a few pence  for distribution (based on the MB, so books with lots of images cost more to distribute). In simple terms the minimum prices is $2.99 and the maximum is $9.99 (roughly £2.41 to £8.06) to collect 70% Royalities. Any pricing above this the Royalties drop to 35%. The simple arithmetic means few authors price their Kindle books between in the low teens ($) as an e-book selling for $9.99 at 70% royalties makes as much as a book selling at $19.98 on 35% royalties. Their philosophy is to keep prices low.  If you are using public domain material (as I do) the royalties are just 35% throughout the pricing range. I sell my transcribed diaries at £2.99 (less than the cost of a TNA download of a single file at £3.45) and they make less than £1 each in revenue (not profit) which is simply ploughed back into paying for more transcribers. It is never going to make money (that was never the plan). On Kindle anyone with Kindle Unlimited can read them for Free, and share them, thereby making them more accessible. The key issue for me is making them accessible and searchable. Online publishing also has one huge advantage in that additional material can be added which updates any purchased e-book the next time the e-library is synchronised (it takes a few seconds). ...so, an author can add lots of related material as it becomes available. 

 

The latter cannot be done with hard copy of course.  I looked at a number of distribution channels and Amazon's Kindle seems to have the broadest reach. 

 

It is extremely easy to set up. Write your book, save it as a word or Pdf file. Upload it using Kindle's own free software which converts the file automatically. Add a few notes and details. It takes about 20 minutes per title and is published online within a few hours. I have done twelve so far with another 200 in the pipeline. The only limit factor is time the considerable spent editing as less than £1 per book doesn't produce enough revenue to pay anyone else to do it. 

 

MG

 

Edit. Proofreading by a third party is critical as authors and transcribers can become blind to errors in their own work. There is nothing quite so depressing as proof reading three times, publishing and then spotting an error, often on page one. 

 

The Peer Review is also critical, but I suspect in your case it will be quite difficult to find someone with the knowledge that could offer constructive criticism of your arcane subject matter. It will be a small challenge. I would ask William Spencer at TNA. 

 

Edit 2 . I think our posts crossed. I see you (Craig) have already gone down the Kindle route. 

 

In respect of Kindle my current local history book has been making roughly £2.30 per sale - not a king's ransom and if I paid myself an hourly wage to write the book I'd be so far in the red it'd make my eye water.

 

I'd echo that about reading Kindle books - many people aren't aware that they can be read on many other devices. My kindle book worked as an additional way of finding any errors as I knew I could update it if needed and then remove the error from my master copy before I had it off to be proofed.

Craig
 

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

In respect of Kindle my current local history book has been making roughly £2.30 per sale - not a king's ransom and if I paid myself an hourly wage to write the book I'd be so far in the red it'd make my eye water.

 

I'd echo that about reading Kindle books - many people aren't aware that they can be read on many other devices. My kindle book worked as an additional way of finding any errors as I knew I could update it if needed and then remove the error from my master copy before I had it off to be proofed.

Craig
 

 I know you know this Craig, but for anyone else interested in this  it is worth noting that hard copy books have no VAT in the UK whereas e-books do. Amazon automatically deducts the VAT before generating any royalties.

 

One other advantage with Kindle is if one has multiple products, it is easy to track sales as the Kindle website back-end  generates rather useful reports. I have somehow managed to sell Gallipoli diaries via the German version of Amazon, something that would have been nigh impossible by any other means.

 

Craig - Have you considered speaking to others who have skills in researching archives. There are people on the GWF who have highly polished skill sets in a number of closely related research methods such as SWB or medal rolls, London Gazette etc. Having a book with separate chapters on how to research the various archives is something I think would be attractive to a much wider audience. The chapters would probably be complimentary and help researchers explore further. "I have seen further because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" etc... 

Edited 30 November , 2016 by Guest

[Alan24]

Craig,

 

I'd say go for it. I'd certainly be interested to read such a book.

 

Alan.

[Guest]

  Kindle is fine-but as a bookseller,I still have a preference for hard copy not electrical blips. Even if the hard copy is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper.. Oh, old romantic that I am.Given the current VAT registration threshold, I wouldnt worry too much. Unless you wish to be Jackie Collins.

[ss002d6252]

Kindle is fine-but as a bookseller,I still have a preference for hard copy not electrical blips. Even if the hard copy is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper.. Oh, old romantic that I am.Given the current VAT registration threshold, I wouldnt worry too much. Unless you wish to be Jackie Collins.

I do prefer 'real books' (as my book shelves well know) over Kindle but it's got to be done.

Buy a copy and I'll be anyone you want !

Craig

[Muerrisch]

There is in my opinion an even easier option using a local printer and ring-binding. My "Numbering" and "Great War 'Trade' Badges" were very controllable and the printer [copier really[ was happy to knock off copies in twenties. There was no big set-up cost, the pages were just good quality photo-copies.. 

 

Given that your subject does not lend itself readily to much in the way of illustrations, and is very much a niche market, it is worth considering.

 

My little efforts broke decently better than even, my stock eats no hay and is not large, and every now and then I sell a  couple to people who want to know more about very narrow subjects.

 

Regardless, please put me down for a physical copy!

 

Jackie Who?

Edited 30 November , 2016 by Muerrisch

[ss002d6252]

Just now, Muerrisch said:

There is in my opinion an even easier option using a local printer and ring-binding. My "Numbering" and "Great War 'Trade' Badges" were very controllable and the printer [copier really[ was happy to knock off copies in twenties. There was no big set-up cost, the pages were just good quality photo-copies.. 

 

Given that your subject does not lend itself readily to much in the way of illustrations, and is very much a niche market, it is worth considering.

 

My little efforts broke decently better than even, my stock eats no hay and is not large, and every now and then I sell a  couple to people who want to know more about very narrow subjects.

 

Regardless, please put me down for a copy!

I had briefly wondered to myself about that option David - certainly within the number of pages that could be bound (and I do have the machine somewhere)

Niche may however be overestimating the market somewhat.

Craig

[dink_and_pip]

On 30/11/2016 at 21:21, keithmroberts said:

I am always nervous about turning the GWF into more than a forum.  Even the setting up of lists soon gets out of hand with repetition and misunderstandings. The only "list" that I htink worked was the one maintained on unit war diaries which was effectively managed off line by a member and kept up to date by him.  Once we move beyond lengthy posts - which could in some cases maybe work in the gallery as PDF's, anything else would be a different proposition.

I must admit that reading Guest's post again, I see great potential in either shared papers published as he suggests, or in more substantial, but uncommercial material being published via Kindle. The minimum price would not hurt many members, and the work would be available long term to newly interested people over the years, and reviews etc here and hopefully on sites such as LLT would be valid signposts.

 

Keith

Why not create a GWF journal? IMO this is the first port of call for anyone interested in the Great War.  The quality of the posts is no less worthy than many published sources. 

Andy 

[Guest]

   Craig-  Jackie Collins?  Perhaps a double offer- Kindle War Gratuity book with DVD of "The Stud"?  Just a thought,what with Christmas coming up. Amazon will be in meltdown.

 

      On a serious note-there is presumably, some contemporary printed material for the War Office, Army Pay Corps about how to calculate war gratuity?????

     Still think a printed book guiding folk to the use of the current range of resources is called for. Naval and Military???

  Spent this afternoon helping someone else out- time well spent and given willingly, His expertise was in medals so I learned a lot-but he got some help on gratuities, Soldiers Effects,etc.  Im surprised that Ancestry/FMP have not promoted a good printed guide to the main resources online-It would save a lot of folk a lot of time on the Forum

[ss002d6252]

Quote

      On a serious note-there is presumably, some contemporary printed material for the War Office, Army Pay Corps about how to calculate war gratuity?????

Other than Army Order 17 of 1919 which lays out the framework I've never found anything that goes more in-depth - everything else is what I've reconstructed myself from various bits and pieces. I hold out hope that, somewhere, there's a clerks instruction manual waiting to be found but where ?.

Craig

[clk]

Hi Craig,

 

I know that you will already know, but as an observation, in response to several comments above, for the "average" person, the LLT already has a good guide on how to research a soldier - the main reference sources and how to interpret them (here). Indeed the Forum recommends new joiners consult the site prior to posting - advise often clearly ignored, or not read. That's not to say though that another reference source shouldn't be developed, which would have the additional benefit of the detailed war gratuity work. 

 

Regards

Chris