Ediciones Platea Presentation at Club Dragón

Ediciones Platea made a presentation of their recent editorial production at the Club Dragón premises this morning. The three cofounders together with the secretary of the club can be seen in the photo heading this post. The people behind this new venture are a group of long-standing military historian aficionados (very active in other forums and associations) who saw the opportunity to cover a a market gap in Spain: good high quality military history works not available in Spanish.

Their emphasis was  in the quality of the translation, a careful editing and a reasonable price/quality offer as key to success. As mentioned in a recent post here,  the three initial selected titles are now classical II World War titles, and two of them (It Never Snows in September and Tank Men) by Robert Kershaw, a British author never translated in Spanish until now.

This is in our country a small niche market, and Platea said to expect selling around 1500 books per title. The future editorial plan includes by Christmas a new IIWW (unveiled) title but a IWW work in early 2013 too; this is a clear gamble in Spain, as the Great War is unknown territory for most Spaniards. 

There was also some disucssion about publishing in electronic format. Two of the founders are quite concerned about piracy and for the time being only hardbacks will be available. This doesn't mean that Ebooks will be out of the catalogue, but will focused on either very specific works (for example, the memoirs of a Spanish soldier in the 30 Years War) and the production of battlefield maps books as companion to the main editorial production.

This second idea is really great. Many of us have suffered frustrating experiences when reading a book and getting lost about the direction or poisition of the units after reading the first dozen pages. A few days ago a set of Operation Market Garden maps were released and at €5 they are a no brainer. I bought the book and have to say that I'm quite pleased with it: great to have in my iPad  maps covering the evolution of the battlefiled situation in three hours segments and at a surprisingly granular level of detail!

Today was also an opportunity for me to see the new layout of our club premises, following important works undertaken thuis summer. And I have to say that the result is great. Many walls have been removed creating a veeery large open space accomodating tenths of tables, new floor has been put in place and  a very powerful lightning system has been installed (sorry for the bad quality of some photos).

  

I will start next week my autumn gaming season. I have decided to concetrate this time my efoorts in Vietnam (with Charlie Don't Surf) and Dark Ages (Dux Britanniarium and Dux Bellorum will be extensively tested). On Sunday I will be umpiring a first simple Vietnam scenario with 5 players already enrolled, to warm up and refrseh the rules; and the week after I will repeat the exercise with another 4-5 players. Looking eagerly to return to the gaming table!!