New Recruit Intro-Book About Grandpa

First, I am so grateful to have located such a wonderful community of WWII folks! I am Jamie Blasdell from Iowa. My grandfather was S.Sgt. William John Brinker, a Waistgunner in a B-17 bomber and was based in Italy in the 99th Bomb Group, 348th Squadron.
He was in active service from Jan., 1944 through Nov., 1945. During this time he wrote home often, much like all G.I.'s did. His wartime sweetheart wrote many letters home to the farm too. Before he passed away, he shared stories and anectdotes. I have (with my mom's help) put together over 225 letters, pictures, etc., into a book called "From Farm to Fort", From an Iowa Farm to a B-17 Flying Fortress. I have a website where it is offered for sale: worldwarIIletters.com
While I want to connect here with folks, I do not want to be rude and just sell a book. But my grandpas story, like so many others, is just too valuable to pack away in a box.
Thanks

 

Welcome to the Forum, Jamie. Your interest in ensuring that your grandfather's WWII story passed on and not forgotten is to be commended.

 

Welcome to the forum

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

Welcome Jamie.

 

Hi,

can you tell a little how you made this book ? On your own ?

 

It took a lot of time and effort sorting out the letters and pictures. Then after scanning them all into the computer we realized they were difficult to read because of handwriting, fading, etc. So all the letters had to be typed, edited, formatted, proofed, corrected, etc. Then after the pictures, documents and mementos were sorted and identified they had to be made into .jpg's to work with. Whew! Then finally the book was ready for a publisher/printer.

Yep, all the work was done by me (with my mom's guidance). The website, where the book "From Farm to Fort" is sold from, is also our own design - worldwarIIletters.com

 

Thanks - it is difficult to find a publisher ? Was the printer paid by publisher or by you ?

 

It's a POD or print on demand, as they are ordered. If you can do all the work yourself it saves a lot, but does require a bit of 'word crafting'.

Just go to worldwarIIletters.com and click on the 'buy now' button to go to the publisher/printer website for more info. You won't have to buy the book to navigate there (though you can if you want a good read, and a "go by" for your own book). It's a fulfilling project and I wish you luck.