Civil War books and authors

As promised, today I will address the issue of illustrations.

I believe that illustrations are nearly as important as maps. While illustrations are less important to understanding how combat played out, they are nevertheless essential to the presentation of the tale, as they put a human face on what would otherwise be a pretty bland and impersonal story.

I have always found that seeing what these men looked like–putting a human face on it, if you will–adds so much to a book. It’s easier to relate to what these men went through if you can put a face with the name. It’s tougher to care about someone who is faceless, just a name on a printed page. But if there’s a photo, that makes that person real. I likewise think that illustrations of important landmarks also add a lot to the way that the tale is told. Imagine, for instance, a telling of the story of the Alamo that didn’t feature an illustration of the Alamo. To me, that would be almost inconceivable. Modern-day depictions of sites can also be very useful and very helpful to battlefield trampers, and I like to include those, too.

Contemporary illustrations, such as the woodcuts that appeared in Harper’s Weekly, are also invaluable additions to the story, as they make the events seem more real, more vivid. A good example is the depiction of John F. Reynolds reeling in the saddle after receiving his mortal wound on July 1, 1863. It was an eyewitness representation, and it really adds a lot to our understanding of what happened. The sketches of war correspondent James E. Taylor can be really useful additions to books. Taylor was a gifted artist, and he left some excellent depictions.

Finally, there are the works of modern artists such as Dale Gallon and Don Troiani. These can also be helpful, as they’re typically in color and really bring things to life in vivid color. Some–such as Gallon and Troiani–are meticulous about researching details (although that wasn’t always the case with Gallon). I worked with Troiani on a print called McPherson’s Ridge, of John Buford placing Calef’s battery in position on the morning of July 1, 1863. I suggested the scene, and provided Don with my research on the subject, which is why this painting is the only depiction of Buford ever done that got the color of his horse right. That’s the level of detail that Don prides himself in, and it shows.

At the same time, for every Don Troiani, there’s a Mort Kunstler, who is much more interested in the artistic side than in getting the details right. While his paintings are always aesthetically pleasing, there’s always something about them that’s just plain wrong. He did a depiction of a charge of the Citadel Cadet Rangers at the Battle of Trevilian Station led personally by Wade Hampton. Again, while it’s an aesthetically pleasing depiction, the terrain is just plain wrong. Consequently, I’ve always tended to avoid his work.

I particularly like these types of illustrations on dust jackets. I think that they add a lot to books.

Again, pictures are another place where some publishers skimp, which saddens me. In this day of high resolution scanners, it’s easy enough to insert images into books. However, I have had publishers–university presses in particular–severely restrict the number of illustrations that they would permit. To me, the cost savings in production pales by comparison to what the illustrations add to a book. That’s why I give our authors at Ironclad carte blanche on illustrations. I have never yet told someone, “nope, too many pictures, you need to pull some”, and I don’t expect to, either.

It’s all about producing the best book possible that makes the customer–who has forked over his or her hard-earned dollars–feel likey he or she has gotten his or her money’s worth when they buy that book.

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In my mind, maps and illustrations are important elements of every book that I buy. If, for instance, it’s not an action that I am familiar with, maps are absolutely indispensable to understanding the action. Here’s an example of what I mean here. Some months ago, I wrote a review of a recent book on the Battle of Bentonville. Bentonville, a favorite of mine, is a large and complex action. One of my favorite Civil War books of the past decade or so is Mark L. Bradley’s excellent Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville. One of the things that makes this book so good is the inclusion of a superb and extremely detailed map series by Mark Anderson Moore, who does some of the finest maps of anyone in the business. Some of Mark Moore’s maps can be found on the Bentonville Battleground’s web site. Mark Moore’s maps are so good, in fact, that the map series was published as a separate volume, which is indispensable to anyone wanting to stomp the battlefield. Not surprisingly, both of these books were published by Savas Publishing, Ted Savas’ prior publishing venture.

The same thing also holds true for Chris Fonvielle’s terrific study of the Wilmington Campaign, which also features a large and remarkable map series by Mark Moore. Again, Mark Moore’s maps were published in a separate volume this is similarly indispensable to touring the sites associated with the campaign.

By contrast, Broadwater’s book, which was published by the Mercer University Press, by comparison, does not contain a single map. If I did not (a) have Mark Moore’s maps available to me and (b) have some familiarity with it from touring the battlefield with Mark Bradley twice, there is absolutely no way that I could have made heads or tails out of Broadwater’s book. That this book was published by a respected university press makes it all the more stunning that there isn’t a single map in this book.

I tend to follow the philosophy of Ted Savas, of Savas-Beatie Publishing, which is that one can never have enough maps in a book. That’s the primary reason why I approached Ted to publish my forthcoming work on the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads–Ted was wiling to go with my entire map series, which is something like 25 maps. We do the same thing at Ironclad–within reason, I will let the authors have carte blanche on maps, even if it does add pages to the book. I would rather have more pages with lots of good, usable maps than a smaller, cheaper book that LOOKS cheaper because we scrimped on important things like maps.

I have always believed that good maps are absolutely essential to making a book usable to the user, and the more good maps, the better. Cutting back on maps to save pages is the sort of corner-cutting that makes me absolutely crazy. I tip my hat to Ted for doing things the right way.

Tomorrow, I will address the issue of illustrations.

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This review of Tom Carhart’s crappy book appears in the current issue of Civil War News:

“Several authors have recently ‘discovered’ the horse soldiers who clashed at Gettysburg’s East Cavalry Field. Most of them assert that J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry endeavored to strike the Union rear in conjunction with Pickett’s Charge on July 3, or at the very least cause havoc if the Confederate infantry assault was successful.

Dr. Tom Carhart vociferously argues the former case. Forty percent of the book is devoted to causes of the war, the formative years of Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart and George A. Custer, battles in history that inspired this trio of generals, and the Civil War in the Eastern Theater. The remainder is devoted to Gettysburg, with about 40 percent of the tale devoted to the final day.

The text is peppered with errors, ranging from the dates of the Louisiana Purchase, South Carolina’s secession and Custer’s birth, to the location of John Buford’s cavalry on July 3. Endnotes are meager, and serious omissions of sources include cavalry accounts by Eric Wittenberg and Pickett’s Charge narratives by Earl Hess and George Stewart.

Meade — erroneously cited as George ‘C.’ Meade — is lambasted for taking the defensive and using interior lines to his advantage. Contradictorily, Lee is praised for employing the same tactics at Antietam.

Readers are asked to believe that Lee, Stuart and Custer virtually conducted world history seminars prior to battles, reminiscing about wars studied in their West Point days. In the same spirit, there are battle maps of Cannae, Leuthen and Austerlitz, but only one concerning Gettysburg.

Even more perplexing are the conspiracy theories. David Gregg, believing he was in a hopeless situation against Stuart, delegated Custer (who was not in his division) to repel Stuart’s attacks, thereby sparing his own command the ignominy of defeat. Lee, meanwhile, shared his plan of a coordinated attack between Stuart and Pickett with almost no one, and was reticent afterward to protect Stuart’s sparkling reputation.

There’s inadequate space in a book review to cite each factual error, contradiction and unsupported theory. Suffice to say, this reads more like a novel than historical analysis.”

The author of this review is David F. Riggs, a National Park Service historian who is the curator of the museum at Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown. He has a BA in history from Lock Haven University and an MA in history from Penn State. His publications include Embattled Shrine: Jamestown in the Civil War and Vicksburg Battlefield Monuments.

David’s first book, which was actually his master’s thesis, was titled East of Gettysburg: Custer vs. Stuart, so he knows a bit about the fight on East Cavalry Field and is qualified to render an objective opinion of just how awful Carhart’s book is. I might also point out that David’s book was the first modern, book-length treatment of this action, and he led the way for those of us who have followed, me included.

It’s quite gratifying to know that I’m not the only one who sees this festering pile of garbage for what it really is.

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Dimitri Rotov had a fascinating round-up of the reviews of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book on his blog yesterday. One, in particular, jumped off the page at me.

“Goodwin and company have little new to tell us and stick to the standard fare. Most of the familiar Lincoln stories are here — from the suggestion from a young girl that he grow a beard to his attitude about Ulysses Grant’s drinking.” She does introduce this novelty, the reviewer says: “Goodwin describes the scene when an aide to Stanton visits Lincoln’s office to ask a question: Lincoln greeted him. ‘What’s up?’ Really? What’s up with that?” This review came from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is a pretty decent newspaper.

This brings me back full circle to an issue I have addressed at some length: the propensity for some historians to just make stuff up when it suits them to do so. Clearly Doris Kearns Goodwin, who used to have a great deal of credibility as an historian, has taken such liberties here. I can imagine a lot of things that Abe Lincoln might have said. “What’s up?” is definitely NOT one of them. I’ve already addressed the issue of Tom Carhart simply making up conversations in one of my very first posts on this blog and don’t see the need to beat that poor dead horse here again. I’ve also addressed the issue of intellectual dishonesty here as well, and won’t repeat that, eiher.

Suffice it to say that what Goodwin did here, while perhaps pleasant reading, is just as intellectually dishonest as plagiarism, which, by the way, she’s also been accused of. That matter was recently settled by her. Call me a purist, but I simply cannot fathom holding these sorts of authors in high esteem, but it happens. I just don’t get it.

For a really interesting perspective on these issues, I recommend Prof. Thomas Mallon’s excellent book Stolen Words, which is sort of a history of plagiarism from the perspective of a fiction writer who has obviously spent a lot of time considering this issue. Read that, and then consider the writings of Joseph Ellis, Stephen Ambrose, Tom Carhart, and Doris Kearns Goodwin and see what you think then.

I’ve always tended to lean in precisely the opposite direction. This is undoubtedly my legal training coming through, but I was taught to footnote anything that is not an original thought, and that’s precisely what I do. My book The Union Comes of Age has well over 1,000 endnotes in it. Why? Because I am fanatical about giving credit where it’s due. And, if I speculate about something–make something up, if you will–I always come right out and say that I am speculating.

Otherwise, I would be guilty of precisely the same intellectual dishonesty that I have lambasted so loudly here.

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I have incredibly mixed feelings about indexes. On one hand, they’re absolutely critical to making a Civil War book useful. As a general rule, I won’t buy a book if it doesn’t include an index. At the same time, indexes are the bane of my existence.

As a general rule of thumb, authors are required to provide their own indexes to books. All but one of the publishing contracts that I have ever signed have said that the index is the author’s responsibility. This creates real problems for me. As someone who admittedly has a short attention span and who also has too much on his plate, the thought of being forced to do my own index turns me into a quivering pile of jelly. I simply don’t have the time, attention span, or inclination to do indexes myself. I tried once, and I almost went insane within a matter of hours of beginning. It was hideous, and I had so much stress and so much anxiety over it that I vowed I would never, ever do one again.

I know, for instance, that Ed Longacre does his own indexes. I know this because he has told me so, and I’ve actually seen the enormous collection of index cards that he uses to do it. To Ed and any other author that has the wherewithal to do their own indexes, my hat’s off to you. You’re a better man than I am, because this is something that I just cannot bring myself to do.

I realize that this is a bit of an oxymoron. I’m a lawyer, and I spend my days either drafting contracts, or evaluating and presenting evidence. It’s all about attention to detail. I’ve never had a problem with that, provided that I have sufficient time to take breaks and refocus myself. I can spend hours and hours poring over boxes of documents produced in discovery, but I just can’t do an index. Perhaps it’s that I have to be so focused at work all day that I can’t force myself to do this. Perhaps it’s that I use up my quota of concentration on minute details at the office and simply don’t have enough left at the end of the day to come home and force myself to do an index. I honestly don’t know. I just know that I can’t do it.

Most of my publishers have offered me the opportunity of having them prepare the index at my expense–typically $600 or so, which is deducted from royalties. I have eagerly and joyously leaped at those opportunities and have gladly said yes every time that it’s been offered to me. My new book is in final preparation and not far from being ready to go to the printer, and Ted Savas, my publisher, informed me the other day that his preparing the index is not an option, that Savas Beatie does not get involved, and that it’s my responsibility. This quite literally sent shivers of fear up my spine. This was my worst nightmare about to come true.

Fortunately, Ted put me in touch with Lee Merideth, who does lots of indexes for lots of authors. I’ve gladly and enthusiastically turned the project over to Lee to prepare the index for me, and I will happily write that check to avoid having to do it myself. Lee, my hat’s off to you. You’re a better man than I am to want to spend your evenings voluntarily plowing through this level of minutae. 🙂

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Yesterday, I discussed the process by which I find the material that goes into my work. Today, I will discuss what happens to it once I’ve got it.

As a lawyer, I’ve been trained in evaluating evidence. Evaluating and presenting evidence is my job. With experience, you learn what’s credible and what’s not. You learn when something can be relied upon and when it can’t. A key, of course, is whether something can be corroborated. If it can be corroborated by an independent source, then it’s reliable. So, the key for me is to evaluate the sources and then to determine what’s reliable and what isn’t.

I always look for things to corroborate my sources, or, as an old friend likes to say, calibrate my sources. If there is a second account that says basically the same thing, then it’s a reliable source and I will use it. Conversely, if it can’t be corroborated, odds are that it won’t be used at all. If I do use it, it will be with a caveat, usually stated in a footnote, that the source cannot be corroborated and hence is not entirely reliable. That happens only rarely.

I also talked about the timing of the account yesterday. A good of rule of thumb is: the closer in time to the event that the account is written, the more reliable it’s likely to be. Consequently, things written right away get a lot of leeway with me, because they’re so fresh, while accounts written forty years after the fact typically don’t, simply because we have no idea what factored into the writing of that account. So, if someone writes within a couple of days of the event, it’s likely to be defendable because it’s fresh. So, I always look at the timing of the recording of the account.

Another factor to consider is where it came from. If it’s a letter, it’s probably more reliable than a memoir written years later, since memoirs typically have some agenda in mind when they’re being written (if you need an example of this, see James Longstreet’s memoirs, From Manassas to Appomattox, which were written as an opportunity for Pete Longstreet to defend himself from the Lost Causers who blamed him for the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg). Diaries tend to be very reliable, since they weren’t written for anyone to read but the diarist, meaning that there was no incentive to spin things. I tend to find that items from the Southern Historical Society Papers are not terribly reliable since they were written with a clear agenda, the Lost Cause. Consequently, I tend not to use them unless I’m addressing a controversy or I want spin.

Finally, there’s what one of my old law school professors used to describe as the judicious use of gastronomical jurisprudence. In other words, does this pass the smell test? Sometimes, you read something, and you just know it’s made up or badly puffed, and not reliable. You can just tell. You get a gut reaction that says “nope, this dog don’t hunt.” With a gut as ample as mine, it’s usually pretty reliable. I’ve discarded a lot of accounts because they don’t make sense or they are questionable on their face. As a result, I tend to ruminate a bit on each one before I decide to use it in a work.

Finally, it’s been my experience that no matter how hard I might try, I will never be able to tell these stories as well as the soldiers themselves. Consequently, whenever possible, I try to let the participants tell their own stories in their own words. That means being extremely careful in selecting the accounts and quotations to use. If it makes it into one of my works, you can pretty well conclude that it’s there because it passed the various tests set forth herein.

To conclude, it’s about experience, it’s about knowing when and how to sniff out BS, it’s about being able to evaluate and corroborate evidence, and it’s about being careful.

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I’m often asked about how I parse out sources for my writing projects, so I thought I would answer the question in a two-part series.

In this first part, I will address how I choose sources to use in my writing. Tomorrow, I will address what I do with those sources once they’ve been selected.

With that in mind there are a few general rules that apply to the selection of sources.

1. Primary sources are always preferable to secondary sources. I try to only use secondary sources for background material if I can help it. A good example is a biographical sketch of someone who plays a role in the story, such as those included in Ezra Warner’s Generals in Blue or Generals in Gray. I do this because I don’t want to be tainted by someone else’s interpretation of these events, and prefer to figure out what happened from the words of the participants.

2. The closer in time to the events described, the more dependable the source. Human memory is an imperfect thing, and the passage of time means that people’s perceptions and memories change, perhaps influenced by what others have written about the same events. Some of my very favorite sources are soldier letters published in hometown newspapers within a few days of the events described. These correspondents, usually writing under anonyms, knew that their friends and family would be reading their reports. Consequently, they tend to be very accurate accounts of things, written within a few days of the events described, while all is still fresh. The least reliable accounts are those written sixty and seventy years after the events and drawn entirely from memory.

3. I prefer letters and diaries to post-war memoirs. Again, letters and diaries are written closer in time to the events in question and tend to be more reliable. The leading repository for this type of material, which is unquestionably the starting point for this sort of research, is the United States Army Military History Institute at the Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, PA. USAMHI has an immense collection of manuscript material, and is the best place to begin. The Library of Congress and many universities also have large collections of this type of material, and local historical societies can also be good sources.

4. The Official Records of War of the Rebellion, commonly referred to as the “OR’s”, are a compilation of 128 volumes of the official records, including correspondence, of the Union and Confederate armies. Although actually published more than twenty years after the war, these books represent a transcription of the actual records, and is THE starting place for all Civil War research. Usually written by the participants within days or weeks of the events described, these reports are crucial to understanding what happened. In addition, Broadfoot Publishing has published a 100 volume Supplement to the OR’s that contains additional material that should have been included in the OR’s but wasn’t. The problem with this set is that it is astronomically expensive, and most can’t afford it. I bought the first twelve volumes and canceled my subscription. The rest is not useful enough to me to make it worth my while. The original OR’s are available on CD-ROM. Broadfoot offers a CD-ROM version for the outrageous price of $600. I don’t recommend it. Another company publishes a version for $69.95, which is perfectly good (I use it myself).

5. Contemporary newspaper accounts can be very good, but keep in mind that the correspondents who wrote those reports often had agendas of their own, and these accounts can be unreliable.

6. Official governmental records not included in the OR’s–such as the service and pension records of soldiers who served, or the regimental books and records of those units that made up the armies–can be real treasure troves. Often, Medal of Honor files contain tremendous amounts of useful material. I spent years researching a new regimental history of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, which is nearly done. I have found any number of really useful things in the pension and service files of these soldiers that simply is not available anywhere else.

7. Veterans’ group records can be good sources, too. As an example, there was a group called the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. In order to belong, a veteran had to have been a commissioned officer for the Union. When the comrades, as they were called, died, their local chapters (called commanderies) published detailed obituaries of them that often contain useful information that’s not available elsewhere.

8. One of my very favorite sources is a veterans’ newspaper called The National Tribune, which published from the 1880’s to the 1920’s, when the name was changed to Stars and Stripes. The Tribune published tons of veterans’ accounts and is an invaluable but often underutilized source. Some of the accounts are very reliable and some are very unreliable. It all depends on what you’re looking for, or what you intend to use them for. However, the Tribune is hard to find–I only know of a couple of complete sets of it on microfilm–and it’s not indexed, so it can be cumbersome and frustrating to use. Old friend Rick Sauers is wrapping up the compilation of an index to the Trib that will make it much easier to use. The Philadelphia Weekly Times also published similar articles, as did the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Charleston Mercury. These can be treasure troves, but be careful about their reliability.

This is how I find the material that makes up my work. Tomorrow, I will address the culling out process by which I determine what’s worth using and what isn’t.

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Copyediting is an integral part of the publishing process.

Let’s get this way out of the way first. EVERYONE needs the services of a good editor. I don’t care who you are, or how good a writer you may think you are….you’re not as good as you think you are. That includes me too, by the way. I am painfully aware of my own shortcomings as a writer. I have always had a tendency to overuse the passive voice, and it’s a constant, and never-ending battle for me to keep that particular problem under control. I also am occasionally prone to using unduly long and unnecessarily complex sentence structures when there are times that simpler is clearly better.

Let’s also be clear about this: a good copy editor can make or break a book. Poor copy editing and poor proof reading is embarrassing. It says that product quality is not important, just getting it out there (that, by the way, is my primary complaint with White Mane). Poor production values can trash the credibility of what otherwise might be a worthy and worthwhile project. It’s absolutely guaranteed to bring about terrible reviews, and hurt the sales of the book, and harm the credibility of the author.

The job of the copy editor is to work with the author and the author’s work product and make it better while maintaining the fundamental integrity of the work. In other words, the best editor is the one who has the ability to take the author’s existing product and make it the best it can possibly be. The best editor will clean things up, point out inconsistencies, ask pertinent questions to resolve inconsistencies or to clear up that which is unclear, and will definitely maintain the fundamental essence of what the author has written. For historical works like the ones I write, a good working knowledge of the subject is absolutely critical. Otherwise, how can the editor do an effective job of determining what the author was trying to say, or be able to tell whether the author’s got it right or wrong?

I had an editor on one of my projects–I won’t name the book or the publisher to protect the guilty–who was atrocious. This fellow didn’t know the first thing about the subject and also violated the cardinal rule–instead of working with my style, which is uniquely my own, he insisted in injecting himself into the book. Mix in the multitude of idiotic questions he asked, and by the time I got through the draft, I was ready to blow a gasket and was also ready to throttle the clown. I told the editor in chief of that particular press that if they ever let this guy near one of my manuscripts again, I would refuse to work with him, even if it meant that I terminated the contract with the publisher. He made it a thoroughly unpleasant experience, to the point that I was prepared to pull the plug with the publisher if that’s what it took. The compromise was that we would finish the project with the guy, as unpleasant of a prospect as that might have been, but that he would never come anywhere near another one of my projects again, no matter what.

I was extremely fortunate to have an excellent editor for my next book. He is actually a friend of mine and is familiar with my style. He has a good working knowledge of the events that are the subject of the book, and he knows better than to try to interject himself into my work. Instead, he works hard at making me the best I can be, and I am very grateful to him for that.

I’ve been an editor myself, and I know how difficult it can be not to interject yourself into the work. I respect anyone who can. And I definitely respect and appreciate those editors who have helped to make my work the best that it can be.

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I’ve already unleashed a fair number of rants about publishers on this blog. It turns out that I’m not finished.

I have some strong ideas about what I do and do not like about books. Here are a few general rules:

1. More pictures/illustrations are preferable to less.
2. There can NEVER be too many maps.
3. Footnotes are preferable to end notes.
4. If end notes are the only option, then do not use one for an entire paragraph and lump a bunch of different sources together.
5. Any book without a bibliography is not a book that I will buy.
6. The same holds true for an index.

Those are my general rules for what I look for in books. The obvious exception to this rule is if it’s something that I need for one of my research projects. Then, I will buy it even if it doesn’t meet my criteria. So, it’s not a hard and fast rule.

I have spent about ten years researching and writing a new regimental history of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, also known as Rush’s Lancers. In the course of gathering material for this book, I have accumulated about 75 photographs of members of the regiment, about half of which come from private collections and which have never before been published. There are other photos as well, such as the regimental monuments on the battlefield at Gettysburg that will need to be included, and several reunion photos. In short, there will be close to 100 illustrations when it’s all said and done. I also expect to have between 15 and 20 maps; this unit was involved in dozens of engagements over the course of the war. I’m also in the process of putting together a roster of the more than 1000 men who served in this unit that will be a cornerstone of the overall project. Using all of these items is important to me, so finding a publisher that shares my philosophy about them is critical.

The book was originally supposed to be a joint venture between Ed Longacre and me, but Ed withdrew from the project due to conflicts with his other book projects. We had originally signed a contract for the book with Combined Books, which has published a number of Ed’s books. Combined was a Philadelphia company, and the Lancers were a Philadelphia unit, so it was a logical connection. However, Combined was sold to Perseus Books and made a part of its DaCapo impression. Instead of a small Philadelphia-based publisher, suddenly, I was faced with the prospect of having a megapublisher do my book. I quickly decided that DaCapo was NOT the right place for my modest regimental history, even though they were prepared to honor the contract. If I got 20 of my illustrations included in the book, I would have considered myself lucky. The roster–forget it. It wasn’t going to happen. I terminated the contract, repaid the miniscule advance (a whopping $250), and got my freedom from DaCapo.

The problem, of course, is finding someone to publish it. I have a few ideas, and have had one conversation with a publisher that shares my philosophy. I’m going to submit the manuscript next week, and we will see where it leads. I hope that this particular publisher wants the book, as I really believe it’s the best possible opportunity for the book to be published in accordance with my vision for it. We shall see what happens.

I just wish that more publishers shared my philosophy about what makes up a good history book. However, in a shrinking industry where many publishers aren’t interested in including lots of illustrations and rosters, the range of candidates is slim and growing slimmer all the time. And therein lies the tragedy.

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Just to show that I’m an equal opportunity basher, I have plenty of gripes about some of the commercial presses operating out there.

There are some commercial houses out there that really have very little in the way of quality control. White Mane, as an example, is not much more than a vanity press. They have extremely indifferent editing, not much in the way of proofreading, they use really poor quality materials to manufacture their books, and they don’t seem to care about actually publishing books. What I mean when I say that is that my friend Ben F. Fordney, who has spent most of his retirement studying George Stoneman, has written a very good bio of Stoneman, the first full-length one written. White Mane had published Ben’s master’s thesis, and they had the right of first refusal for his manuscript. Ben signed a contract, and after nearly three years without them doing anything at all with it, he finally reached the limit of his patience and pulled the plug. When last I asked him, he was still looking for a publisher for it. I’ve often said that if I had to make a choice between having White Mane do one of my books or never publish another word the rest of my life, I would choose not publishing, and I mean it.

There’s another publisher in Virginia that had a great idea. This publisher would do regimental histories of every Virginia regiment, and also a series of books on the battles fought in Virginia. The regimental histories are, for the most part, useless. Why? NO detail. No endnotes or footnotes. Atrocious artwork. Indifferent editing. The average length is about 100 pages on the “history” portion of the book. The ONLY useful thing about these books is the rosters at the end. Other than that, they are, for the most part, useless. The battle histories are inconsistent. Some are quite good. Some are really bad. It all depends on the author, because the publisher exercises almost no quality control. If the author writes a good book, then a good book gets published. If the author writes a bad book–and there have been plenty of them in the series–then a bad book gets published. End of story.

Then, there are commercial presses that publish books without bothering to check whether the book has any value, or whether it is historically accurate. If you need an example of this, please see the comments on Amazon pertaining to Paul D. Walker’s book The Cavalry Battle That Saved the Union, which is just an atrocious book. With reviews like that, you would wonder what the publisher thinks.

Finally, there’s the marketing of some commercial houses. Just because they’re for-profit ventures doesn’t mean that they’re going to do a fabulous job of marketing. It’s a never-ending source of annoyance for me to visit the Barnes & Noble store less than five miles from my house and not see a single one of my titles on the shelf. Why? Because the publisher does a terrible job of marketing. I won’t name the publisher, but I have registered numerous complaints, so many, in fact, that I’ve simply given up.

Fortunately, Ted Savas seems to have a gift for marketing the books he publishes. I’m looking forward to seeing how well he does with my new book, which will be ready to go the printer shortly.

I like to think that I’m an equal opportunity ranter. 🙂

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