Most publishers want a book that appeal to a wide audience and that also stands for the specalist houses.
By all means cover a subject that has not been dealt with before but unless it ticks several interest boxes then it will not be considered for release however well it is written. Single unit histories or individual biography usually falls into this category and self publishing needs to be considered.
To put things into perspective the current Volume of Coastal Command Losses has a print run of less that 4,000 as this is the expected number of worldwide sales by the mainstream publisher using all his marketing skills and tools.
An individual unit history could expect to sell much fewer units (I remember Don Caldwell saying that his two volume history for JG26 sold under 3,000 units).
Return on investment on a factual history is also very low as author royalty is 10 to 15% of RRP.
Cold facts are publishers decide on the audience and select books to suit. To become published authors need to tailor their book to meet the publishers target.
Alternative is to self publish but expect to break even at best on research costs.
Regards
Ross
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