New blog

Those of you reading this on Apple machines (and those of you owning Apple stock) may be interested in my new blog.

See you next week.

Next week

This week, a reader was good enough to supply me with a great deal of fascinating context behind the Lincoln Museum and Library developments in Springfield. I hope to make use of that material in a special post next week after doing related research.

Also, next week we'll dive into the argument that there was no battle at Crampton's Gap in September, 1862.

Thanks for visiting. Have a happy and prosperous new year.

The Long Tail theory

Going through the Ingram (wholesaler) sales figures this week, I had to pause and scratch my head whenever I saw low numbers (under 200). Where is the profit in storing, shipping, and generally mediating the sale of 200 or fewer books?

Perhaps the Long Tail theory has something to do with this. The old efficiency was to transact vast numbers of sales in a few objects; Long Tail sees bigger money in doing small numbers of sales across a vast number of inventory items.

The corollary to Long Tail at the production end, seen from the viewpoint of the Civil War author who has been self-publishing, is Broad Base, i.e. to multiply channels, since each will sell only a few units. If Ingram or Baker and Taylor will take some copies, if some copies can be sold by Internet, at conventions or events, by mail order, etc., it may be possible to reproduce at least the level of results obtained by that author whose press is simply selling 200 copies of his book through wholesalers this year.

Broad Base should not be up to the author; we need a new kind of distribution specialist who can make microsales happen across many channels. And, of course, it has to pay.

Easy to say, hard to do.

NEWS No news today. Happy New Year!

AHA renegade Peter Charles Hoffer chastised

There's an interesting review of Hoffer's new book recycled from Slate in the current HNN. The reviewer is correct in pointing out that Hoffer miscasts his story as a struggle between pop and academic history. These are actually four stories of people with different kinds of ethical problems and differerent circumstances. Hoffer used elements of truth worked into an overcomressed metaphor to generate drama, a pop history trick. (See the sidebar way down the linked page.)

Anyway, the reviewer's contempt for Stephen Ambrose is breathtaking even by my standards:

In academia, Ambrose had become a joke for his mass production of feel-good war stories before the plagiarism, which only sealed his reputation; outside
academia, he remained beloved even after the imbroglio.

Not surprisingly, this old piece (which I missed during the uproar) points out that Amrose's citational transgressions started with his Civil War doctoral thesis and that he specifically victimized Bruce Catton and Russell Weigley.

It's been very quiet on the scandal front. "Too quiet" as they say in the Westerns.

Sept. 1862 newspapers posted

Some Hagerstown newspaper pages have been posted at this link; click on the top item under the heading "Featured Collections." Has this description of Bragg changed?

Half the men would desert to-day, if they thought they could get away in safety; but Bragg keeps a closer watch on them than he does on the enemy. He is a coarse and vulgar tyrant, and I should not be surprised to hear any time of his having been shot by his own men. He drinks to excess, as do all these officers. He quarrels with those around him.

It's a fun site, but the server crashed while I was trying to read the material. Good luck.

Amazon sales rankings explained

This is an interesting run down on Amazon sales rankings by a non-employee.

There are three distinct ranking schemes on Amazon: one for the top selling 10,000 books, another for the books between 10,000 and 100,000, and a third for ranks above 100,000.

Note this estimate:

Rank / Copies per day
1 / X
10 / 100
100 / 30
1000 / 10
10,000 / 2 (11 copies every 5 days)
100,000 / 1 copy a week
1,000,000 / around 15 total, depends on pub date
2,000,000 / around 2 total, depends on pub date

NEWS | Group hopes to restore house at Mill Springs * Georgian re-enactors don Union blue for Bush inaugural * Citizens seek removal of ACW colonel's name from Colo. street

Amazon top ACW sellers, 2004

How this list was made: Please see yesterday's B&N list. The methodology is the same.

Notes: Number 10 on this list is a juvenile nonfiction title. Number 6 looks like an Amazon glitch, given the low number of total (non-Amazon) sales estimated from Ingram figures. It may be ranked there by virtue of ordering rate.

For what it's worth:

(1) American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (1)
by Michael W. Kauffman (1) / Random House (Nov 2004)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #709
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 11,100

(2) Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (13)
by Ernest B. Furgurson / Knopf (Nov 2004)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #4,050
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 3,000

(3) Civil War, Volume 1-3 Box Set (15)
by Shelby Foote / Vintage (Nov 1986)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #3,457
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 3,100

(4) The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (19)
by Thomas Dilorenzo / Three Rivers (Dec 2003)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #5,562
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 6,800

(5) Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States) (23)
by James M. McPherson / Oxford (Oct 2003)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #5,299
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 10,800

(6) The Oxford Atlas of the Civil War (28)
by Steven E. Woodworth, et al / Oxford (Nov 2004)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #16,363
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 900

(7) Civil War Trivia And Fact Book: Unusual and Often Overlooked Facts About America's Civil War (34)
by Webb Garrison / Rutledge Hill (May 1992)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #78,441
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 2,400

(8) Stars in Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 (41)
by Shelby Foote / Modern Library (Jun 1994)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #25,741
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 2,800

(9) Atlas Of The Civil War, Month By Month: Major Battles And Troop Movements (47)
by Mark Swanson, Jacqueline D. Langley / University of Georgia (Dec 2004)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #31,600
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 6,700

(10) Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy (57)
by Seymour Reit / Gulliver (Aug 2001)
Amazon.com Sales Rank in Books: #60,939
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 14,000

NEWS | Vicksburg park to increase fees * Dixie flag displayer loses bid to reclaim job * Henrico County gets own ACW history study

Japanese names for ACW figures

Abraham Lincoln, Aburahamu Rinkorunu.
Jefferson Davis, Jifufuruson Debisu.
George McClellan, Jioruji Mukukureruranu.
Thomas Jackson, Fumasu Jakukusonu.
Ulysses Grant, Urisusesu Gurantsu.
Braxton Bragg, Burakuton Buragugu.

Try this out.

Better to say Anchietamu rather than Shirupusuburugu, I think.

Barnes & Noble top ACW sellers, 2004

How this list was made: I searched Barnes and Noble online for "Civil War." Sorted the list by "Bestselling." Removed the following items: novels and poems, books selling at deep discount (i.e., being liquidated), and topically irrelevant titles.

The place a book would have occupied if I had not made such list edits is shown in parenthesis after the title: "Title of Book (34)."

The overall "Barnes and Noble Sales Rank" is its ranking outside of the Civil War context. This is followed by my estimate of 2004 sales as per Ingram times six (as of 12/28/04).

The titles in the list link to Amazon, with which this site is affiliated. Amazon will not carry some books published by Barnes & Noble, so the first link in the list, which is a B&N title, should draw a blank. You might amuse yourself by clicking a link and comparing the B&N sales rank with the Amazon sales rank.

1. The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War (1)
by the U.S. War Department / Barnes & Noble, Nov 2003
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 1,171
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: Ingram data not available

2. American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (7)
by Michael W. Kauffman / Random House, Nov 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 1,405
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 11,100

3. Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief (25)
Geoffrey Perret / Random House, Apr 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 3,951
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 4,100

4. Ulysses S. Grant (American Presidents Series) (30)
by Josiah Bunting / Henry Holt, Aug 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 4,714
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 7,000

5. April 1865: The Month That Saved America (37)
by Jay Winik / Harper Collins, Mar 2002
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 5,516
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 8,700

6. Great Maps of the Civil War: Pivotal Battles and Campaigns Featuring 32 Removable Maps (39)
by William J. Miller / Rutledge Hill, Oct 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 6,541
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 5,600

7. Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America (41)
by Mark Perry / Random House, May 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 6,386
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 8,600

8. Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (43)
by Ernest B. Furgurson / Knopf, Nov 2004
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 6,599
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 3,000

9. Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford History of the United States Series): The Civil War Era (44)
by James M. McPherson / Oxford, Oct 2003
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 6,211
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 10,800

10. Soldier's Heart: Being the Story of the Enlistment and Due Service of the Boy Charley Goddard in the First Minnesota Volunteers (65)
by Gary Paulsen, Wendy Lamb (Editor) / Laurel Leaf, Sep 2000
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 9,591
Total 2004 sales estimate for this edition: 36,500

Notes: (1) This last title is a work for the children's market and may sell through schools. (2) Publication dates shown are those of most recent release. (3) Anomalies between B&N ranking and my total sales figures can be viewed as reflecting sales made through stores.

Andrew Johnson's notes are now a plot device

A missing scrapbook kept by Andrew Johnson is the plot device propelling the new comic novel, Frankland.

NEWS | Scientists near answers on Civil War mystery men * Crew starts clearing site of slavery museum in Fredericksburg * Class learns research studying ACW tombstones

Cristopher Guest and the Lincoln Library

I'm helping myself understand the black comedy coming out of the Lincoln Library and Museum by reading it as drafts of a Christopher Guest movie script.

We have the Richard Norton Smith character, a mercurial and vain pop historian who is running out of presidential libraries to preside over and has settled in for what is probably his last and biggest career shot. Played by Fred Willard?

We have the "power behind the throne," a brassy Illinois cultural operative, Susan Mogerman, who runs the show in Smith's name, reports to the governor, and who calls the shots. Catherine O'Hara?

We have a Mogerman staffer, one Richard S. Taylor, a public history intellectual who cooks up a tourism-generating idea called "interpretive theatre." Bob Balaban?

We have a former New York theatre guy returned to Springfield, Phil Funkenbusch, whose Illinois successes in making "interpretive theatre" work have resulted in his appointment as director of theatrical programs at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. Christopher Guest reprising his role as Corky St. Claire?

If you've seen Waiting for Guffman, you can't tell me this Funkenbusch project in Laramie is not a first cousin to "Red, White, and Blaine" ...

The play is also about a group of actors who interviewed and came to know those townspeople. So, not only do we meet and hear from the Laramie residents, we also hear from those actors and how the experience affected them. The fact that this is a community theatre production adds another level, because now Springfield actors are portraying the Tectonic Theatre actors portraying the people of Laramie, and we’ve all learned lessons about what it means to be human.

As you can see, the dialog can write itself. Mogerman: "We're competing with Disneyland, lakes in Wisconsin, casino boats and the like, so we have to have a program that's both entertaining and [ahem, cough] worthwhile."

Tom Vance, a manager at the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site: "People expect to be entertained. So if you can get history across in an entertaining and accurate way, you're going to be more effective."

More effective at attracting people who expect to be entertained, I think.

Funkenbusch has ...

... about 10 boxes of scripts and a long list of ideas for that stage, including some contemporary plays about Abraham Lincoln. "These are actually good plays," Funkenbusch said. "There are a lot of bad Lincoln plays."

This is going to be rich.

NEWS | ACW group hopes to restore old house * Assasination researcher publishes "definitive" history * Williamsburg redevelopment plan allots 15 acres for Civil war sites

Book sales and new thinking: in summary

[If you are joining us late, we have been tracing the decline of a school of thought that used mass market sales to leverage itself into a position of doctrinal dominance. This concludes the thread: previous postings are linked at the bottom of this entry.]

In surveying the commercial edifice of what might be called the Centennial-era interpretation of the ACW, there is both good and bad news.

The good

The late founders of consensus history are not getting sales; the bulk of their work is out of print with no prospect of returning to trade channels. The influence of Nevins, Catton, Williams, Williams, and their contemporary helpers is vast but now felt only indirectly.

Their leading, living champions are not getting new sales outside of the Civil War readership and their backlist tends to sell weakly. They cannot "move product" at the level of the late Stephen Ambrose or even David Hackett Fischer.

Their views share shelf space with increasingly eclectic ACW titles. Publishers cannot equate good sales with the monolithic Centennial interpretation of the Civil War.

Readers can now make observations hostile to Centennial views on Internet forums, including Usenet, chat groups, and online Amazon reviews. Adverse online reader reviews are taken very seriously by publishers.

Best-selling phenomena in Civil War publishing occur in novels, not in nonfiction. Novels, whatever the value of their historic content, offer content structurally outside of doctrine.

The most influential defender of the old thinking, that aggregator of Centennial content James M. McPherson, has given up the levers by which he could continue to influence the historiographical discourse, i.e. the presidency of the American Historical Association and his Princeton professorship.

The most bankable champion of the Centennial school of thought, Catton protege Stephen Sears, is a "must read" Civil War author but one with with little reach beyond the Civil War bookbuyers.

The bad

The story elements that defined Centennial ideology are now embedded in pop culture; in that sense, the ideology's work is done. For most readers, Lincoln found a general, Grant saved the Union, and the Republican newspapers of 1861-1865 had it exactly right ... there is very little perceived need for historical analysis.

There is a receptive market for creatively reworked Centennial doctrine. People know the story and expect new work to fill in the gaps and details.

Among the burgeoning ranks of editors of soldiers’ letters and papers, there is a tendency to tap the readymade historical context designed by Nevins, Catton, Williams, and Williams in which to set their protagonists.

Commercial Civil War publications (“glossies”) continue to use Centennial doctrine as their default editorial policy.

The inspiring

More than one reader contemporary with Centennial literature has recognized it for what it is: literature. One reader in particular was inspired by its low history content to begin his own personal, decades-long program of primary research. He was convinced, late in life, to share the results of this work as books, and the first volumes are beginning to appear.

Merry Christmas, Russel Beatie.

The primary material is more accessible than ever. We should all be Russel Beaties.

Postings in this series:

Thankful
Publishing - an overview
Book sales and new thinking: some context
Book sales and new thinking: more context
Ingram and the fudge factor
The matrix
The colossus
A stillness in Catton country
The fading Cry
Vestigial Cry
Sears
Davis and Gallagher

NEWS | Michigan town to restore ACW statue * Georgia Civil War re-enactors to march in inauguration parade * Grave marker error fixed in Missouri

Book sales and new thinking: in summary

We'll wrap this thread tomorrow. I had planned doing so this evening but the flood tides of Christmas are pushing me out to a sea of mindless relaxation. Thanks for visiting.

Lincoln's private life is back in the news

Believers in Lincoln-as-gay-man were heartened by the release of this new study.

Opponents of the view may appreciate this commentary.

Chris Cross was wondering what I would make of this new book. I was thinking about the matter pretty much at the time he was. I let it slide until now. Lincoln-the-gay-man is like Lincoln-the-conspiracy-victim, a deep topic filled with a rich mix of real and bogus information such that great numbers of books need to be studied in in order to make an informed comment. I don't have my heart in such an investigation.

I do know more than a little about that model of Victorian propriety, George B. McClellan. Late in his life, this receiver of all kinds of anti-Lincoln gossip felt free enough to write that he and Lincoln shared a bed on many occasions when they travelled to remote Illinois courts on railroad business (Lincoln was McClellan's lawyer, as your history books should have told you). This image conveys personal intimacy while at the same time indicating that their time in bed was spent sleeping. I draw an additional inference: that this is not something George B. McClellan would have dared written if there had been whispers of Lincoln misbehaving in bed with men. And as Lincoln's political nemesis in '64, he would have heard it all.

Lincoln was a strange man. The typical Lincoln bio glosses over the strangeness, leaving an open door for unbalanced studies of Lincoln-as-crazy and Lincoln-as-gay. One thing I can do in this case is to look at this author's evidence handling. If a writer is pushing a line, that should be fairly obvious.

Will write up my impressions soon.