Hello Peter, Yea, I’m still working on my book. The volumes are done and have been for for sometime. The past three months have been on the Appendix items, and Indexing the first three volumes.

Now I am increasing the scope of Volume 10 to be more then just the Index and Appendix. Now it going to have to be a split volume with all of the corrections for all nine volumes being published in volume 10B. Goofy thing happen at times and some photos have the wrong caption or a Footnote has a wrong number, etc.

I have gotten frustrated over the problem with naval flags. So, I am going to fix the naval flags I need for my work, to be published as a Volume 11. International flag sites are a mess. Everybody leaves off some country or another. It is a real mess. I want to set things straight wich always upsets some one somewhere. Oh well, what the heck.
Take care, Joe

The book started out *ten years ago) to be an illustrated book of about twenty small boats from the earliest known torpedo o craft, the CSS David to the final designs of WW II. That was a German Super’ torpedo boat a hydrofoil and semi-submersible 70knot wonder boat.

I needed to write about 150 words per boat and thought it would take about three years to create the illustrations. That was in 1999. You can say I overdid the research bit. Instead of 3,000 words I generated 180,000. Then to make sure everyone took me seriously, I added in about a zillion footnotes And since I wanted to look even more like I knew what I was talking about I collected enough information the several APPENDIX (45,000 words) entry’s.

Later I got the bright idea of cross referencing this pile and came to my senses. So I went hunting for a publisher. The very first Proposal I sent out was snagged by a major publisher of military books and has been since the 1800’s- Casemate Publishing. They took a full year to say they did not think the book was for their market. The second publisher I immediately contacted also reacted favorably to my proposal on the first shot. They took nine months to say it did not fit their market. I friend of mine who is also a naval historian told me about a new publisher he was using. Fred answered my email the day I sent it. He said we would make it ten books and sell as a series or individual volumes.

The first three volumes are out the the balance will be out by September. I have one volume left to put together for Fred. This takes photo finding and caption writing. art pieces of mine and others, old war posters, maps, and small plans. As each book is published, I add that material to the index which is volume ten. along with the Appendix collection.

I am real sure I have lost the drive to write another book. Well, that could just be a rumor I heard. OK, Peter, you have the whole tale. Pretty tall. I can’t believe that I will ever be done with the book.
Talk to you later Petter

Joe, I’m still getting used to it too! Expanding horizons is a good thing.

Tell me more about your illustration work and book series. I have the lofty goal of writing a book…..someday.

Hello Peter, Hows the beach. I am a newbie at this blog thingamajig. Still, I need to expand my horizons.

I am 63, an illustrator and in the last few years, a writer.Now I am driving my self crazy putting together an index for my book series. I may be locked up some day for this. writing the book was great, the index part really sucks.

Well, Peter, take care and you can contact me at this site or:
joe.hinds@gmail.com