The Reality of Publishing and Wildlife Work; No One Cares

There seems to be this odd belief that "You've written books you must be rich!" Those people have obviously never worked in publishing or been an author. The senior editors and the publishers are the ones making the money in the big companies. If you are an independent publisher like Black Tower Books... no one gets rich.                                                                                                                                          The whole reason I got into self publishing was because mainstream publishers were not interested in books that did not follow the accepted norm which is that every single government is covering something up and you need to put that into your books even if untrue. The ones after money tend to follow that advice.  I could not in all conscience tell a pack of lies just to make money and three previous books were "loved" by commissioning editors but all came back with the same thing "Controversy is needed. Government cover-ups!" I responded that there were none and was told "make it up!"  But if I made that up and anyone with a brain looked into it then everything I had written would be seen as potentially false.  The editors dropped the books!

One did have two people re-write what I had submitted and made it 'their original' work.

With the wildlife books I knew there would be problems. The late Sir David Bellamy described the original (2010) Red Paper: Canids as "explosive for British wildlife history" and some other lifelong naturalists were of a similar opinion. So why would no publisher handle the 2010 or the two 2022 volumes?

First there is the fact that a lot of publishing houses have directors that are in with the horsey countryside set and may even partake of a little fox hunting themselves. An editor commissions my book showing the history of hunting and what it has done is going to be terrified of losing his/her job. One even hinted at that as the reason why the manuscript he "loved; very detailed research" was rejected.

The other is quite obvious. Publishers have been churning out wildlife books that have been literally copying and pasting from others since the early 1900s (it was also going on in the late 19th century).  Most of the information on foxes, for instance, come from the very biased old naturalist/'sportsmen' and they would often argue about facts. You really got information from the ones who shouted loudest. 

For instance; the idea of a white fox was ridiculed by many fox hunters and some were shocked when they saw one and reported on it -then became ridiculed themselves.  The "average life span of a fox is five years at most" is a nonsense. That would be the average life span of a fox in hunting territory. 

Another instance; by the 1960s and after "naturalists" and zoologists were making fun of the mountain fox stories -they had never seen any other than the occasional large red fox. This showed how little research these people had carried out because they could not have seen a Mountain/Greyhound fox as they became extinct in the 1860s. There are, however, taxidermies of such Old foxes. The continued claim that the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the fox we have always had in the British isles again shows lack of even basic knowledge. We know that at least 2000 a year were imported into the UK for hunting and we know where they were imported to.

Is a publisher who has been churning out books with the same old dogma for decades going to turn around and accept a book (s) that show this? Experts will not come out and say it but strongly hint that today's Scottish wild cat is not a pure one. In fact, Scottish zoologists in 1898 held conference at which the top man who had studied wild cats for over 40 years (no, not me) declared -and it was a declaration officially accepted- that the Scottish wild cat had become extinct circa the 1860s for basically the same reason the Old foxes did. There is a lot of investment and money in wild cat "rewilding" and a lot of books on wild cats and those would face the same dismantling as the books on foxes.

The other bigger problem is that people do not care. Back in 2010 I offered free copies of The Red Paper to anti-hunt groups as it had every counter argument that could ever be needed. No takers. No interest.  I then let social media fox groups know about the book and its contents and...no takers. No interest.  Similar when the 2022 books came out. 

There is another problem and that is the dilettante 'wildlife expert'. These are all over social media and basically troll on any subject that is posted and I have often asked why they are on these groups as that is their only 'contribution'. One said that he had no intention of buying my book unless I explained what was in it and what my conclusions were for my "theory". First, if something is based on historical documentation and statements then it is not a "theory". Second; outline all I had found out and give my conclusions...the whole point of the book was so that those interested could peer review everything as it is thoroughly referenced and no one gives out that type of information. Someone says they will not buy my detective crime thriller unless I tell them the full plot and "who did it"?? These people I have come across so many times over the years and the fact is that they would not buy the book in any case. 

The idiot at the museum who would not cooperate because he had heard of no such thing as old foxes and he has researched red foxes for 30 years. I was not asking him for anything but to check the museum fox specimens (which apparently were stored "right behind me") for certain characteristics. In one fell swoop he became the poster child for stuffed shirt and non-inquiring 'expert'.  He wanted to know what my work had found, etc., etc. and I learnt a long time ago that academics whether at universities or museums will steal your work.

And the reading public? I doubt there are many left as all their 'facts' come from You Tube and other online sources including Tik-tok. People are just not interested in the fact that original foxes and wolves and wild cats and some deer, hares and a lot more species were wiped out and what we see today are not even the original wildlife but imports. They do not care that even wildlife bodies have called for red foxes to be Red Listed as endangered or that there are set plans by the UK government to make badgers extinct. Why would they go through the manual labour of holding a book and, heavens preserve them, reading all those words?!

So, no. Having a reputation as a "noted naturalist" does not sell books. The 2022 Red Papers have sold zero copies despite all the publicity I've pushed out. I think two of my papers have sold. That is the reality of publishing and wildlife work; no one cares.