I’m writing this post on 5 May 2014. Liberation Day (also known as Freedom Day) for Holland. It was 5 May 1945 that Canadian forces along with other Allied forces were able to obtain the surrender of German forces in the small Dutch town of Wageningen. This led to the complete surrender and liberation of the country.
There is a cemetery near Maastricht. It is the final resting spot for 8,301 American soldiers who died in Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944). It was a failed Allied attempt to liberate Holland on their path to Berlin. There are other military cemeteries nearby for the British and Canadian men who did not survive the battle.
A Dutch family has adopted every man who perished in the battle. Each man’s grave is kept up and decorated. Even a portrait of their adopted soldier sits in their respective homes.
Alfred Hitchcock directing Family Plot (1975). Photo by Stan Osborne. Wikimedia Commons.
Once anyone decides to write a book, they are confronted with many decisions. Believe it or not, writing a book is easy (you can always get a ghost writer). However, everything else associated with it requires a lot of thought and planning. Why? Because the typical writer has limited resources and there are many ways he or she can spend their money (beyond the actual cost of publishing the book).
The big money its in publishing (and the most mysterious to self-publishing authors) are the distribution and marketing components (they go hand-in-hand). In other words, now that you have boxes of books in your garage (or even just an ePub version), how are you going to sell your book and make any money? Frankly, there are so many avenues an author can go down that it becomes overwhelming. It’s also one of those components of publishing a book where the author must push all their chips onto the table. So it becomes an exercise in determining where the greatest return-on-assets (ROI) will be achieved.
Out of the blue, I was asked by a local public television access channel to produce a 10-episode television series based on the first 4 walking tour books (French Revolution–two volumes, Medieval Paris, and the Nazi Occupation of Paris). At the same time, I’m confronted with doing ePub conversions of the books for Amazon Kindle, Apple’s iBooks, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Oh, and then there’s developing an app for the walking tours. What about hiring someone to get the books into the book catalogues that retailers use to purchase books for their shelves? What about the choice of different distribution channels such as big box retailers, small independent book stores, libraries, or even the bookstore at the airports that are gateways to Paris? So what does one choose to do when their stack of chips is only so high? I know what I’m going to do. Read More Producer Stew?
“Stew blends the dark history of buildings in Paris that are associated with the infamous deeds of the Gestapo with contrasting insights into the bravery of the French people, who, at great risk to themselves and their families, secretly resisted the German Occupation.”
Stanley Booker, MBE, RAF (Ret.), Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
Liberation Day
