The Newbury & Port Talbot Blanker

Well done, sounds really interesting, a great project - also writing a book will stop you catching my roach!

..and your bleak! Thanks for your support, Peter. 

Wow, as I understand it it's just your second year back to angling and you're already in it right up to your neck!

As to who will buy the book, presumably you are hoping for a reasonable take up from NAA members. When I last heard there were about 2,000. So if 25% buy the book, that would mean sales of 500. Clearly that could be higher or lower, but I should have thought that more or less defines your likely market.  Who will bear the financial risk, you or NAA?

Would it be worth having a look at other angling club histories to see what they cover and where they got info from? I googled 'angling club history' and quite a few came up, but I didn't take it any further. It could give some indication of likely sales.

Hi FT

Thank you for your considered reply. The NAA membership currently stands at about 750, so that's a much lower hit-rate.  It would purely be a labour of love than a money-shaking exercise. I have self-published a book before, (Preposterous Tales From the Newbury Short Story Teller is still available on Amazon!), and appreciate it's a load of work for scant return. But self-publishing costs nothing financially; Amazon print each copy on demand, and take a cut of whatever the author sets the sale price at, so it doesn't 'matter' of it sells one copy or a million. Thus there is no financial risk.

I think there might be a slightly larger audience, as it will tie in much local and social history, such as the pubs and hotels mentioned for meetings that have gone or been renamed, and the stories of some of the local dignitaries that were on the early committee, the graves of some are still in Newtown Road Cemetery. There are more examples. but I won't pull all of the goodies out of the bag yet!

It's a good call to look at other club histories - thank you - I shall certainly add this to my to-do list. It will be a long-term process, I may even have caught a 2lb chub by the time I finish it - who knows, but one I'm looking forward to.

Good for you BTG. Another thought you have probably already had is whether it would be worth contacting a local historical society. I forget what the Newbury one is called, but they might know of sources of info in the early period. I have had almost no contact with such groups, but when I was Vicar of Greenham I discovered the Thatcham Historical Society had researched and catalogued all the inscriptions on the gravestones in the churchyard which was a great help to the church. I don't know the background to this, but it left me with the impression that these are helpful people!

You called it: I've already touched base with the Newbury Field Club, West Berks Heritage Forum and Angling Heritage, all of who have been incredibly willing to help, and I have been bothering the good folk of the West Berks Museum and Newbury library. I'm also a Friend of the Newtown Road Cemetery and have helped out a tiny bit with their own inscription cataloguing. 

I hadn't thought of the Thatcham Historical Society, but as much of the NAA water is on their patch, I will certainly drop them a line - thank you!