Tell us about yourself and Diplomats & Admirals.

I was a Navy veteran and student of naval battles. I realized that the Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942, the first victory in WWII by any Allied force, had been largely overlooked by the general American public for its significance to our entire war effort. I show in my book, Diplomats & Admirals, that the war with Japan could have been prevented. It never had to happen. I did not expect to be an author, but now that I have become one I find it an exhilarating experience.

What was your editing process like?

I did not want to spend a year finding an agent, who would then try to find a publisher, so I decided to self-publish. I never had an editor, and what appears in Diplomats & Admirals is entirely my own work except for very minor inputs from a proofreader. It was all done on a single Word document with a word count of 107,465 words. I have had 190 reviews on Amazon to date; 63% have been five-star and 26% are four-star.

How did you develop the subject?

I proceeded in reverse chronological order from Midway back to Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and the failed diplomacy in the closing months of 1941 before Pearl Harbor. This occurred because I started with a subject, Battle of Midway, and questions kept coming up about the causes, the preceding events, that led into my original subject.  

How did you research the book?

Initially, I read other books on the same subject. I looked at footnotes in those books, and this led to an expanding universe of information, often conflicting. It was apparent that original documents had to be accessed, and this led to visits to several libraries, the National Archives, and the online documents available at the Office of the U.S. Historian. I read the official after-action report of the Battle of Midway dated June 15, 1942, and ran my finger over the actual ink signature of Admiral Nimitz. There are thrills in this work.

Do you have any advice for others starting the process of independent publishing?

The market is unforgiving. You may think you have a brilliant piece of literature that the world will greet with rousing cheers and your book will be flying off the bookstore shelves. The actuality is that the world must be convinced. Traditional publicity firms that use press releases are obsolete. You need social media exposure.

How has reader response influenced how you think about your work?

As a writer with a first book, I am gratified by my reader response. I read the reviews on Amazon, many of them lengthy and with serious depth, and they give me confidence that I can produce a work of significance and worth.

Portions of this Q&A were edited for clarity.