[TR] Books

Tue Sep 2 07:21:08 MDT 2025

Bill,

The book side of things is in a doldrum. The truth is there are two books. The first has taken me well over forty years to research and write and addresses the amazing escape from Austria in 1939 of the Standard Motor Company’s (and Jaguar’s too) importer husband and wife team because they were Jews. Amazingly, they made it to England by separate routes and travelling alone, getting here just days before war broke out in September 1939. Storyline is set against the day to day activities at Standard as well, so it’s a story within another story. After endless rejection letters, I eventually found a publisher to take it on board, but last November I was informed they’d gone bust. Fortunately they didn’t take the manuscript with them. So I’m looking for another publisher.

The second book is more of the same stories of ‘Life at Triumph’ which sold incredibly well but the company who did that was sold to another business who then asset-stripped it. Since my stroke, I’m finding it fairly hard going to use a computer and it seems the only course open to me is to self-publish both books via Amazon and Kindle. Believe me, actually doing that isn’t nearly as easy as some would lead you to believe. The issues are further compounded that if you go down the Amazon route, you have to structure the whole book including the cover to meet the American requirement for the book sales for the US, while the rest of the world markets require you to still go via Amazon but to upload the files via Ingram Spark who have an entirely different set of requirements which means doing it all over again and also doing it twice for Kindle. Because my post-stroke brain is so ‘frazzled’ I simply can’t work out these differing ‘tech’ requirements and I really need someone to do it for me. Those I have uncovered who might be able to help are seeking payment up front and to a level I simply cannot afford or justify. Believe me, I’ve tried but so far failed.

So, until my brain can work as it used to do – improbable and unlikely, I’m rather stuck in low transfer, four wheel drive and both front and rear axles are buried in mud. The other side of the coin is that even if I managed to get the book printed here to mail out to wherever, many member states in the European Postal Union are now not accepting small parcels to the US and US overseas territories. My local post office tells me that since your President has imposed his tariffs on all goods from various countries, as things relate to shipments out of UK, small packets worth more than one dollar are tariff liable at 10% of the goods value and the organisations involved in handling that mail to the States are required to collect the tariff by the person sending the package and then pay the invoice submitted to them by US Customs when the package lands in the States. I can’t see that ever happening but the postal people won’t accept it – and it would be an administrative nightmare to control. It’s the same picture in France, Germany, Holland and Belgium. Post offices will not accept low value parcels for the States, so it’ll be interesting to see how the UK parts suppliers get round that one. Probably UPS or somesuch but it won’t be cheap. I’ve no idea how things are likely to be with high value items.

In conclusion, it seems to me the only possible route open to me is to turn both books into PDFs with a US paper size (8.5x11) - that’s your usual size n’est pas - and send out the book as an email attachment you can download and print yourself. That’s not an option I  find all that attractive because its wide open to copyright infringement.

Sorry – long post but that’s the situation here.

JM

From: Notakitcar <notakitcar at yahoo.com> 
Sent: 01 September 2025 23:37
To: 'John Macartney' <johnBMacartney at gmx.com>
Cc: 'MASSEY DAVID' <dave1massey at cs.com>; 'List Truimphs' <triumphs at autox.team.net>
Subject: RE: [TR] Happy Birthday, John MacCartney

John,

The pleasure has been mine, sometimes I can see myself at the assembly line or the sales floor through your comments and books.   It does seem the email traffic has quieted, but not gone as the various TR marques are well represented on Facebook these days.

I seem to recall you are working on another book, is this so?  Please keep me posted.

All the best,

Bill B

TS30766L

From: John Macartney <johnBMacartney at gmx.com <mailto:johnBMacartney at gmx.com> > 
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2025 5:16 AM
To: 'bill beecher' <notakitcar at yahoo.com <mailto:notakitcar at yahoo.com> >
Cc: 'MASSEY DAVID' <dave1massey at cs.com <mailto:dave1massey at cs.com> >; 'List Truimphs' <triumphs at autox.team.net <mailto:triumphs at autox.team.net> >
Subject: RE: [TR] Happy Birthday, John MacCartney

Thank you, Bill. It’s been a pleasure for me to read all the posts down the years, even though my contributions these days are few and probably not at all helpful. It seems ‘the list’ these days is a mere shadow of its former self but then so many contributors have died, sold their cars and/or migrated to other forums. I’m a member of two of those others which frankly I find rather boring and over-segmented into different model groups whose adherents/supporters don’t want to cross-polinate on model preferences.

Anyway, keep the posts coming please, everyone. They’re still a source of great pleasure to an ‘oldie’ and a very pleasant reminder of happier days in a less troubled world.

Jonmac

From: bill beecher <notakitcar at yahoo.com <mailto:notakitcar at yahoo.com> > 
Sent: 30 August 2025 03:22
To: Macartney John <johnbmacartney at gmx.com <mailto:johnbmacartney at gmx.com> >
Cc: MASSEY DAVID <dave1massey at cs.com <mailto:dave1massey at cs.com> >; List Truimphs <triumphs at autox.team.net <mailto:triumphs at autox.team.net> >
Subject: Re: [TR] Happy Birthday, John MacCartney

Happy Birthday John!  

Thank you for staying with all us kids that are still learning our TRs. 

Bill B

TS30766L

“Obstacles are all you see when you take your eyes off the goal”  H. Ford

On Aug 27, 2025, at 4:47 PM, John Macartney <johnbmacartney at gmx.com <mailto:johnbmacartney at gmx.com> > wrote:

Thank you, Dave - eighty one today but still feeding myself without issues :)

Jonmac

On 27 Aug 2025, at 12:24, DAVID MASSEY <dave1massey at cs.com <mailto:dave1massey at cs.com> > wrote:

Here's hoping you a good one.

Dave 

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