This week, to celebrate the publication of my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about various aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also about writing and researching “history”.
One post a day – so 7 posts in total – spread across a wide and diverse mix of history-related blogs.
Today, day 6, you can read me on Bishop’s Stortford’s Museums blog talking about Local history and Bishop’s Stortford. Please click on the link or picture below to read my post.
My blog tour You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”, along with explaining about my recent book, on the following dates and sites.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
This week, to celebrate the publication of my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about various aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also about writing and researching “history”.
One post a day – so 7 posts in total – spread across a wide and diverse mix of history-related blogs.
My blog tour You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”, along with explaining about my recent book, on the following dates and sites.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
This week, to celebrate the publication of my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about various aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also about writing and researching “history”.
One post a day – so 7 posts in total – spread across a wide and diverse mix of history-related blogs.
Today, day 4, you can read me on Pauleen Cass’s blog Family history across the seas talking about Correlation between local and family history. Please click on the link or picture below to read my post.
My blog tour You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”, along with explaining about my recent book, on the following dates and sites.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
This week, to celebrate the publication of my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about various aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also about writing and researching “history”.
One post a day – so 7 posts in total – spread across a wide and diverse mix of history-related blogs.
Today, day 3, you can read me on Ross Mountney’s Notebook talking about Home educating and history. Please click on the link or picture below to read my post.
My blog tour You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”, along with explaining about my recent book, on the following dates and sites.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
In September 2014, my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time was published by Amberley Publishing. This week, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also writing and researching my books.
In yesterday’s blog post The process of writing a local history book on Worldwide Genealogy, I answered Julie Goucher’s questions about writing my book. Today, day 2, it is my turn to ask the questions and for my publisher’s Amberley Publishing’s to answer.
My overriding question to Amberley is that thorny topic:
How to get a publisher interested in your book or history project?
Whilst writing my books, when I have been out and about researching or photographing, many people have asked me about how to go about getting a history book published. My book publishers are Amberley Publishing – very successful publishers who specialise in local history and general history books. I was extremely lucky in that one of their commissioning editors stumbled across this blog just under a year ago. The editor read some of my stories, and then she contacted me and there followed a couple of weeks’ negotiation. After which, Amberley commissioned me to write 3 books for them (this has recently been updated to 4 books).
I was lucky: Amberley approached me.
However, it made me ponder: how do you go about getting your local or specialist history book published? I came up with 9 questions, and posed my questions to my Commissioning Editor at Amberley Publishing. Here are my questions, and Amberley’s answers.
1. What makes a good history book? The local history team tends to publish within several predetermined series, and many of our titles are heavily image led. We place a real emphasis on our books looking really good, so great images are essential. We also look for books that are well structured, clearly written and contain interesting information. With more stand-alone titles, we are always attracted to new and exciting concepts, though it is vital that these are also commercially viable.
2. What makes a good author? Anyone who is passionate about their subject is a great potential author. It really comes across when people are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. As images are so important in Amberley’s books, it’s a real advantage for authors to have ready access to a good image source, whether this be your own collection or an archive. It’s also important for authors to have a clear writing style.
3. I don’t have any formal qualifications (degrees etc) in history or related subjects. Would you still be interested in a submission from me? Many of our authors have no formal qualifications, and this is certainly not a prerequisite. Amberley isn’t an academic publisher. Authors should certainly be knowledgeable about their subject, but there is no need for an academic degree!
4. If I am writing a history book, should I use an agent or approach a publisher direct? For any company with a submissions link on their website (or with details for a submissions editor) feel free to send your submission through directly to them. Amberley don’t tend to work with agents often – the vast majority of our submissions come through this channel [website]. However, larger trade publishers won’t generally accept direct submissions, so might be best using an agent.
5. The Essex Voices Past blog was read by one of Amberley’s Commissioning Editors. Do editors regularly go through the internet to discover new authors? On the local history team, we frequently use this method to find potential new authors. If someone has a real interest in a subject and is clearly knowledgeable, we will often get in touch to see whether the blog/website owner might be interested in writing a book.
6. I want to write a local history book about my town about its experiences during the First World War. What would be your appetite and criteria for publishing this? In general, this sounds good. Our first consideration would be the suitability of the book’s content for our target market. As the 100th anniversary of the First World War took place this year, general interest in the topic is high, so this would definitely be seen as positive. This type of book is also similar to previous successful titles, which is a real advantage. However, a key concern with any local book is the sales profile of the town in question, so we would seek advice on this from our sales department before moving ahead.
7. I want to write a very specialist history book, eg, about the Napoleonic Wars. What would you would expect to see in a submission for this? As with any submission, we’d be looking for general details about the book, for example a summary of its content, word count, details of any images you would be looking to include. In the case of a very specialist book, we’d be looking for evidence of in-depth knowledge of the subject and a clear awareness of what makes your book stand out from others on the market. Every publisher has their own specialist subjects for which they are known in the market, so it would be best to look at the output of each publishing house before you make your approach.
8. I have an idea for a history book: what do you want to see in a submission? Here at Amberley, we ask for potential authors to provide a single-page summary of their book. This should include a brief description of what the book is about, along with the book’s proposed word count and details of any images. There is no need to send in your entire manuscript at this point, as the commissioning editor will request this at a later stage if necessary. A sample chapter or chapter list can be very useful, though.
9. I have made a submission for a book: what happens next and how long until I hear back from you? The first person you will hear from is our submissions editor, who is the first port of call for all submissions. If the submissions editor can see potential in your proposal, this will be passed to the relevant commissioning editor (depending on subject area) for consideration, and we’ll let you know that this handover has taken place. The commissioning editor will be the next person you hear from, and if your book looks like a good potential title we’ll take it from there. Timescales can vary significantly, but we aim to get back to everybody who contacts us as soon as we can.
My grateful thanks to Amberley Publishing for answering these questions. I hope this helps any budding historians reading this blog. I have certainly found my contact with Amberley to be very positive and a life-changing experience.
My blog tour Tomorrow, I am delighted that my blog tour will continue on Ross Mountney’s Notebook where I will be talking about helping children, particularly home educated children and children with special educational needs, to become passionate about the art and discipline of history.
You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history” along with my recent book.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
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About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
This week, to celebrate the publication of my first local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, I am very excited to be doing tour around various blogs talking about various aspects of my book: not just the subject matter, but also about writing and researching “history”.
One post a day – so 7 posts in total – spread across a wide and diverse mix of history-related blogs.
Today, day 1, you can read me on the Worldwide Genealogy Blog talking about The process of writing a local history book. Please click on the link or picture below to read my post.
Sample page from my new book…
My blog tour You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”, along with explaining about my recent book, on the following dates and sites.
Friday 24 October – Essex Voices Past: Bishop’s Stortford’s postcards which got away.
About me
I have a MSt in Local and Regional History (Cantab); a BA History (Open University) and an Advanced Diploma in Local History (Oxon) – all gained as a mature student. Having been a business technologist in the City of London for the last 30 years, I am currently taking time away from my City career to write. My first history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time, was published by Amberley Publishing in September 2014. I have been commissioned to write a further three history books for them:-
Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time (due to be published summer 2015);
Saffron Walden Through Time (due to be published summer 2015); and
Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919 (due to be published summer 2016).
I live in Essex, England, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on my blog.
Please do click on the image below to buy my book.
I am very excited to be able to tell you that starting tomorrow (Saturday 18 October 2014), I will be celebrating the publication of my local history book Bishop’s Stortford Through Time by doing tour around various blogs all around the world talking about all aspects of “history”. I’ll be talking about not just about the subject matter of my book – but also writing and researching a local history book, along with posts about what it is to be a family and local historian.
You can catch me on the following dates and blogs discussing “all things history”:-
Today’s post is continuing on my posts about Edwardian postcards and Victorian photographs which didn’t make it into my new local history book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time. I have published this photograph before on my blog and on Twitter, but so far have had no success in identifying it. So I’m going to try once again to see if anyone can identify these young ladies. Someone has suggested to me that it is probably from the inter-war period – possibly the 1920s – because of the dropped waists on the girls’ dresses.
Do you have any idea who these young ladies of Bishop’s Stortford were? The photographers were H & A Gurton who were active in the town from the First World War and on into the 1920s.
My book
If you want to learn more about this historic East Hertfordshire town, please do click on the image below to buy my book.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
I am very pleased to say that my new book on the local history of the town of Bishop’s Stortford is now available in all good local bookshops. If you are not local to the town (and I think a great number of my blog’s readership has an ocean or two between you and Bishop’s Stortford’s local shops!), you’ll be pleased to know that Amazon now has their copies in stock.
I had immense fun researching and writing my book. “Having” to consult archives, consult Tudor churchwardens’ accounts (my favourite bed-time reading!), read Victorian newspaper articles and write my text was absolute bliss. Not to mention the countless nights I had to stay up late, so I could bid at the last minute on that well known internet auction site, thus securing that precious and highly important postcard of the town’s past. (Unfortunately for my pocket, there were many many postcards which I just “had to have” at any cost!) After years spent commuting and working in the City of London as a business technologist, being able to do my passion – researching and writing about history – was absolute bliss. Now, when people ask me what my profession is, I hover in deciding to tell them which of my two careers is my profession. That I am a freelance business technologist working for some of the world’s largest international law firms in the City of London. Or, a published local historian and author working from home. (I am immensely proud of both my careers.)
There were several postcards that “got away”. Postcards and images in my collection which I would have loved to have included in my book – but for one reason or another, I couldn’t. Some images were excluded because I simply didn’t know what the image was about – apart from it was “somewhere” in Bishop’s Stortford; and others where I had so many images of the same building/view/area that I had to choose one postcard over the many other images. With other views of Bishop’s Stortford, I had written their story but then had to cull that story and images from my book because there simply wasn’t room.
So, every week, starting this week, I’ve decided to blog some of the photos and stories that I couldn’t include in my book. These are the ones that got away!
St Michael’s Church, Windhill, Bishop’s Stortford
The image below is an intriguing one. It is a small Victorian carte de visite (or CDV) photograph of St Michael’s Church, in Windhill. The CDV has perfectly square corners, and a plain back but, unfortunately, there’s no photographer’s information. It is probably one of the earliest photographs of Bishop’s Stortford: according to my research, square cornered CDVs are normally pre 1870. I thought that the gas lamp might give me a clue as to the date of the photograph – but according to good ole wikipedia, many towns were lit by gas lamps as early as 1823. I think that this view might roughly date from before 1870.
St Michael’s Parish Church, Windhill, Bishop’s Stortford, sometime between 1850s and 1870s
The intriguing part of this photograph is the wooden structure at the front of the church. At first glance it looks like a small ticket booth. However, look closely… It is actually a very large structure. It is big enough to have what looks like 2 oval church windows at the front. Look again: there’s two tiny children climbing up a ladder – a ladder of about 7 steps. A very strange “ticket booth” if you have to climb up a ladder to get into it! The structure has a wooden board at the top with printed words on it (if only the Victorian photographer had got just a little bit nearer – and then we could have read it on our modern-day computers!).
There were building works which took place in St Michael’s church and were completed in November 1866. At this time, the east windows in the north and south aisles were replaced with new ones in the same style as the existing windows. Maybe the structure was the master craftsmen’s workshop to help them build new windows. Maybe the little girls have shimmed up the ladder to take a peak in the work rooms. Inquisitive Victorian children captured forever.
What’s going on! Can you help me and tell me what this structure was?
Was it the craftsmen’s workrooms for the work which took place in 1866??
My book
If you want to learn more about this historic East Hertfordshire town, please do click on the image below to buy my book.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
I am absolutely delighted to tell you that my first local history book is in the final stage of its publication. It’s due to be in all good book shops in the UK 15 September 2014 – but you can pre-order it at a very reasonable price from Amazon.co.uk. In the USA, it will be available on 28 September – Amazon.com
I hope that if you do decide to buy it, you will like it. Many readers of my blog and correspondents on Twitter have actively encouraged me to write my book, and many have helped with the identification of postcards and photographs of Bishop’s Stortford. A massive thank you to everyone who helped me.
If you wish to pre-order my book from Amazon, please do click on the picture below. I’d love you to tell me in the comments section below on this page if you do decide to buy it. If you’re out and about, and see my book in a bookshop, I would love it if you sneakily made it more prominent to potential browsers and purchasers.
From its earliest days, Bishop’s Stortford was a prosperous town, something that continues up to the present day. After the manor of Stortford was purchased by the Bishop of London in the eleventh century, Bishop’s Stortford developed into a thriving market town in the Middle Ages. The opening of the Stort Navigation in 1769, along with the introduction of the railway in the nineteenth century, further increased its prosperity. Today, with excellent transport links to London, and Stansted Airport providing access to the rest of the world, Bishop’s Stortford is a town on the rise. Featuring full-colour images and fantastic vintage postcards, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time takes the reader on a fascinating journey of the town’s history and how it became what it is today.
One of the pages from my book- my wonderful children and their husband/partner alongside an image from the early 1900s. Some parts of Bishop’s Stortford haven’t changed at all (apart from the cars!).
I am delighted to say that during my research into the town, one of my daughters and her partner fell in love with the town, and so have decided to make Bishop’s Stortford their home. They moved into the town in July – one of the many young couples who have found that Bishop’s Stortford certainly has a lot to offer them.
PS: You may wonder why the town is called “Bishop’s Stortford” (always always always with an apostrophe after “bishop”). It’s because at the time of William the Conqueror’s Doomsday survey (1086), the manor of Storteford was owned by the Bishop of London. Hence the town should really be called “The Bishop of London’s Stortford”. But I guess Bishop’s Stortford or, as it’s more commonly known to locals, simply “Stortford”, will do. If you want to find out more about this historic town, then please do buy my book Bishop’s Stortford Through Time
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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St Michael’s Parish Church, Windhill, Bishop’s Stortford, 
What’s going on! Can you help me and tell me what this structure was?
