Your Thoughts?

**Richard Kimmel** · 12-05-2014, 05:28 PM

Some of you may recall when i wrote and self published this book back in 1997 - however it has long been out of print but i still see both new and used copies being offered on e-bay and amazon from various sellers. At the time i wrote this book to help collectors of militaria to better understand what was going on in this area of collecting. The book sold worldwide over 1,000 copies in 24 countries.

Unfortunately, the confusion in this collecting area is more prevalent now than ever, innodated with reproductions, conflicting opinions and misleading information; i am seriously giving thought to revising and updating this book.

Please don't misunderstand this posting as I am not offering copies of this book, but simply posted this as information only.

If you have any thoughts on this please do not hesitate to contact me.

**StefanM** · 12-05-2014, 06:03 PM

Richard, hi,

The problem with print books is that they are fixed in time at the time they are published and as you have identified quickly become outdated, in fact reference books are out of date immediately they appear in print. I have a vast collection of now collectible books that were once new editions when I first purchased them. This is why I like the "idea" of wikipedia and other crowd sourced content initiatives despite their all too apparent shortcomings. Digital content delivery offers rapid content updates without the constraints of print.

For me the issue with single author militaria reference books is that no one person can be ever be sole expert given the scope of such subjects. Which is why forums such as this one with members who share their knowledge and experience are IMO intrinsically more valuable and useful to the collector than a print book no matter how thoroughly researched.

But if this is a labour of love book project...go for it, the rewards will be in the creation rather than at the till.

**Richard Kimmel** · 12-05-2014, 07:01 PM

by StefanM

Richard, hi,

The problem with print books is that they are fixed in time at the time they are published and as you have identified quickly become outdated, in fact reference books are out of date immediately they appear in print. I have a vast collection of now collectible books that were once new editions when I first purchased them. This is why I like the "idea" of wikipedia and other crowd sourced content initiatives despite their all too apparent shortcomings. Digital content delivery offers rapid content updates without the constraints of print.

For me the issue with single author militaria reference books is that no one person can be ever be sole expert given the scope of such subjects. Which is why forums such as this one with members who share their knowledge and experience are IMO intrinsically more valuable and useful to the collector than a print book no matter how thoroughly researched.

But if this is a labour of love book project...go for it, the rewards will be in the creation rather than at the till.

That was exactly what transpired with this book when I self-published it back in 1997; I made very little monetary return on it, as I had to foot the entire expense. With a revision, updated, I was contemplating publishing it via one of the online sources where it is printed as ordered and there are no expense to the author except if you order copies yourself.

Thanks for your input.

**StefanM** · 12-05-2014, 07:44 PM

I would personally consider an ePub digital format that can be viewed through iBooks etc as this option is much more suited to illustrated content than the Kindle enhanced .mobi format.

There is a great piece of open source software called Calibre which can convert various digital files such as MS word and PDFs into other digital formats such as ePub and .mobi for Kindle and Kindle into ePub etc. I have also used another excellent ePub compiler called Sigil to produce ePub files but this requires some previous knowledge of CSS and html.

I would also recommend looking at Jutoh as a paid multi-platform ebook software solution and at around $50 it will not break the bank and is it easy to use.

You can update your books content at any time on Amazon's pubłishing platform and the purchaser will recieve a message on their viewing deivce that the content is updated and ready to download, which is a great feature. This means a users library can always be current with any new content or revisions.

I am a big fan of digtal books but still love the tactile feel of a well designed and printed hardback

Anyway, some content can only be fully appreciated on the printed page.