Scaramouche, aka Graham Hague, has self-published a couple of books. These are the details. The second one, "WIT's Memoirs", is really my great-grandfather's book, as it is a verbatim record of his hand-written memoirs penned in 1932/3 and which I didn't want to become lost.
I guess it is fair to say that I self-published because I couldn't find a literary agent or publisher who was interested in "The Hurricane Jumpers". This is apparently very common these days for new authors - publishers and the like just cannot afford to take a chance on a new author and get it wrong, and my book is very "niche", so I wasn't altogether surprised that no-one would take it on, no matter how good it might appear to be to me!
There is an individual page for each book, accessed by clicking the link in the navigation panel on the left, or the book image in the list panels below.
The link: "How Scaramouche Created His Book" will only be of marginal interest to someone who has authored a book, tried to find a traditional publisher or literary agent, failed to do so, and is now considering self-publishing. So if I were you, I would give it a miss unless you fit that description. I did get an offer from a publisher with a "contributory contract" which the general consensus on the web advises avoiding like the plague. The page talks about that, too, and includes a few things self-publishers ought to know or think about.
The Hurricane Jumpers
- Published using: Create Space, part of Amazon.com, now KDP
- Publisher & Author: Graham Hague
- Type: Paperback
- ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1533146571, ISBN-10: 1533146578
- Date of first UK Publication: May, 2016
- Pages: 365
This book can be bought as an e-book (Kindle Edition) at the two Amazon sites.
This is a book about the storm, my great-grandfather, the Germans and Americans present at Apia, Samoa in 1889, and HMS Calliope: the original "Hurricane Jumper". It details the people who were there, including some of the crews of the American warships: US Ships Vandalia, Trenton and Nipsic, and the German SM Schiffs Adler, Olga and Eber. It also gives a few details about people living in Apia, Upolu, Samoa at the time of the hurricane. Naturally, it goes into far more detail than does this website. I am very pleased with it. The images are ok, especially as the originals were 140 years old anyway. They would have been better printed traditionally on glossy paper rather than the same "text" paper CreateSpace use, but I hope no-one will mind.
Click the image of the book cover to see some more data about the book.
WIT's Memoirs
- Published using: Create Space, part of Amazon.com, now KDP
- Publisher: Graham Hague
- Type: Paperback
- ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1533285188; ISBN-10: 1533285187
- Date of first UK Publication: June, 2016
- Pages: 160
This book can be bought as an e-book (Kindle Edition) at the two Amazon sites.
In case they ever got lost, I have self-published "
William Isaac Thorndale's Memoirs" which contains these memories in his own words, spelling and grammar, and which carry a few of my research notes into what he talks about.
Since I used his memoirs as a strong central theme in my first book
The Hurricane Jumpers there is much repetition between them.
I will be honest and say this book will probably only be of real interest to my family members. That said, it is the memoirs of a humble sailorman in Queen Victoria's Royal Navy between the years 1875 and 1890, as boy, man, and petty officer, and might be of interest to someone researching that time and environment. I faithfully reproduced my ancestor's words and grammar to ensure I didn't introduce anything not directly recorded by himself.
