Hi!
Forgive me if I try and find a short response to all the recent postings -- there are so many of them and it's hard to answer in one post! It's really remarkable to think of the level of interest shown in the book. Amazon's messages do seem to have been haphazard, and indeed the announcements (such as those Mark Baber has quoted) with a date of November 29th 2004 for both books never had any basis in reality. If memory serves, the Olympic class book was released in October and then the Olympic book on November 26th 2004. In other words, one was six months late and one was six months early!
I am very grateful for the kind words -- the biggest fear with something like this is that people are not going to like the end result. While nothing is perfect, I am very pleased that nobody seems to be disapointed with the book.
There are one or two points which will be changed when the book is reprinted -- although there are still copies left, a reprint is in the offing quite soon because the initial print run is pretty much exhausted, less than two months after the release date. The reprint will differ in two ways: the early copies did not have the dedication to my parents included, so that will be added; and secondly, the caption for Jim Kalafus' rare Olympic/Britannic photos contained an error with his name and that will be corrected. The caption itself is also being altered to more properly reflect Jim's generosity in sharing these rare images.
In terms of some of the questions you raised, Miles, I've sent you a private e-mail. It's my belief that the photo that was in the McCutcheon collection and used in the book, was later acquired by you -- maybe at a maritime sale, or ebay? Certainly the image was in the collection in summer 2004. I am a little confused as to why you are confused about the photo acknowledgement, since I have never 'met' you online or corresponded at all, nor asked for photos. I'm pleased you like the book, and thanks for buying it!
I'd like to thank Michael Tennaro for his review -- which was better than I had dared to hope for. I must confess that I don't read the book myself, because I hate reading myself!
I'm pleased that you liked the book, Jesse, and thanks to you and Nigel for your kind words.
Looking back at the thread, I see it has the working title as the heading. Could one of the moderators 'work your magic' (wink!) and update it to reflect the final title?
'The Olympic Class Ships -- Olympic, Titanic & Britannic'. I'd appreciate it, thanks.
I am planning to sell another 'trilogy' on ebay if anyone is interested -- do let me know. Essentially, it's all three of my books, published this year between June and November, signed and personalised to your choice.
I have a feeling that this Christmas is going to be even busier than usual, so once again I must apologise if my attendence here at ET is 'patchy.' As some of you know, the start of 2004 was one of the worst times in my life in some respects -- the loss of one of my grandparents hit me hard. In recent times I have also had quite a few negative personal comments/attacks directed at me privately (none that I am aware of from ET users), which I felt were best remedied by scaling down my participation in online debates. Aside from that, my workload both in terms of my research and my degree work seems to rise inexorably. For those reasons, I have been absent for much of 2004. Hopefully that will change in 2005.
Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has bought the book and shown interest in the book. It's appreciated.
Best wishes,
Mark.