Frustration

I had previously announced here that my book on the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads would be out by the end of January. That will, sadly, be impossible.

At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to give a new cartographer his shot at the big time by having him do the maps series for this book (there are close to 30 of them). He got the maps done, but neither Ted Savas nor I had examined them in detail to determine their suitability for publication. I was focused on the accuracy of the maps, not on their format. Ted simply hadn’t looked at them. When he finally got the book completely laid out and went to put the maps in, he noticed that they had a lot of problems: wrong file format, erratic sizes, too busy, and many of them too small to show detail.

We went back to the cartographer to re-do them, and it’s now been about 75 days. We have about 2/3 of them from him re-done–and the new maps are fabulous, really first rate–but we’re still missing a bunch of them. The book obviously cannot go to the printer until we have them all. The book was supposed to be out at the end of October. Then at the end of January. Now, it’s likely to be the end of February, meaning that my co-authored work with J. D. Petruzzi on Stuart’s ride during the Gettysburg Campaign, which will be out at the end of June, in time for the anniversary of the events chronicled in the book, will be out a scant four months after Monroe’s Crossroads, instead of more than six months later, like we had planned. Interestingly, Ted’s already got a big chunk of the Stuart book laid out and it’s only the middle of January.

Aside from the embarrassment of having announced a release date that is no longer possible, I am extremely worried that the very close publication dates of the two books will somehow hurt the sales of one or both. I also fear that I will be criticized for releasing two books SO quickly. Of course, the Monroe’s Crossroads book has been in the works since the fall of 2001, and the Stuart’s Ride book represents about a decade of research. Never mind those things. Instead, it will be “that Wittenberg guy pumps this stuff out–like some other prominent cavalry historian we don’t respect,” and I fear that I will be guilty by association. It’s a no-win situation.

Needless to say, I am frustrated almost beyond words’ ability to describe. When I spoke to the cartographer today, it took all of my will power not to go ballistic on him. I know he’s doing the best he can, and the guy’s had some health problems, so I know it’s my fault for not being more understanding of his situation. That, unfortunately, doesn’t do much to limit my frustration and impatience with something that should have been completed months ago.

I will keep everyone posted as to the progress of things once I have more to report on this situation.