Featured: A beach landing diorama in the National Museum of the Marine Corps, near Quantico, VA. One of the Marines I've interviewed said that he liked to think of the Special Landing Force as "The Last of the Old Corps". "In Vietnam," he said, "I think we may have been the very last Marines to crawl down those nets into Mike Boats in order to make our beach landings." His terminology reminded me of the terminology that Eugene Sledge used in the title of his World War II memoir, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.  HBO used With the Old Breed, along with Robert Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow, as the basis for the miniseries The Pacific, the successor to Band of Brothers. I loved both and I wish that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks would do a miniseries on the Vietnam War. As it turns out, they are now working on another WWII miniseries with HBO. It currently has the working title, 'Masters of the Air', and it is about America's bomber boys who fought the air war against Nazi Germany.

The Cage - Project Update - Aug 15, 2019

Hi, <<First Name>>,
 
Aside from researching about topics such as the Special Landing Force (SLF) of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (9th MEB) in the Vietnam War, I’ve also been doing research about the craft of writing and the ins and outs of publishing. Since my goal is to share this journey with you, I thought it might be interesting to share some of the things I’ve been learning about that aspect too. And since this project is a team effort that has motion because of the help of several Marine veterans (I think of it as “our project”), I feel obliged to report on all aspects of the process.

Today, I want to talk briefly about traditional publishing versus self-publishing. It’s a big question new writers face. Should I try to get an agent and then go the route of traditional publishing or should I just “go it alone”, so to speak, and publish the work myself? There are pros and cons on both sides, but with respect to how the Internet and modern technology are changing the game, I am currently aiming for self-publishing. Here are some of the reasons why...

• Although there is added credibility when your book is published by a major press, it can be very hard to get accepted by one, especially if you're a first-time author like me.
• With traditional publishing your book may be more likely to appear on bookstore shelves. However, the majority of consumers are now buying books online anyway.
• With traditional publishing, you lose all creative control; publishers may push you to make changes that you really don't want to make. With self-publishing, you retain complete creative control.
• With traditional publishing you usually lose all your rights to the work.
• And here's the one that surprises me the most. It's a myth that traditional publishers will do your marketing for you! These days, they want you to bring your own "platform"; they want writers who bring a ready audience to the table, schedule their own road-shows, etc.
• With self-publishing, you keep 100% of profits and royalties. Although my mission with this project is not about financial profit, it would be helpful to recoup some small part of the investment.
• With self-publishing you retain the flexibility to change anything and revisions are at very little or no cost. E-books can be updated quickly and individual paper books can be printed on demand.

The two big drawbacks to self-publishing are that you have to pay for everything yourself (cover art, printing, professional editing, ISBN number, etc.) and also that you don't know your way around the system, which can leave you vulnerable to expensive mistakes. For that reason, I've employed the help of a self-publishing consultancy. As a former consultant myself, I know the value of having people on your team who have "been there, done that". They've already been very helpful in helping me to be aware of things I know I would otherwise miss.

Now, you might think that I'm putting the cart before the horse by thinking about this kind of stuff before having a first draft complete, but after spending 23 years in software, I can't help it. I am plagued by the disease of methodical planning. I begin with an inspirational end in mind and then work backwards. In my experience, proper planning leads to better execution.

So, in short, I am learning about the entire process while working on some small part of it. This is all based on a high-level project plan that I am continuously adjusting and refining as I go. In a subsequent update, I'll share that plan with you (and a disclaimer that I always reserve the right to change it; it's just a plan, not a promise).

One item on that plan occurs this weekend, for example. I am flying down to the southern tip of Texas near the border of Mexico to meet with Daniel Cavazos. Daniel is the brother of Martin Cavazos who was killed on May 4, 1967 during Operation Beaver Cage (casualty recorded as May 5th). I am hoping that Daniel can teach me more about his brother so that when I write about him and that fateful day, he will not just be a name in a passing paragraph. I first met Daniel in Lyford, Texas at a 50-year anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. Whether Daniel will have much to say about his brother or not, I'm looking forward to seeing him again either way; he's a cool cat.

Until next time, thanks for listening and for your support.