Earlier in the year I started to reveal what books we had taken from customer suggestions, plugged into our book vote and then gone on to commission. This was triggered by my reveal of 2015 titles which had highlighted the fact that this year has the best-ever customer suggestion to commissioned title ratio that we have seen (so far). My first two blogs took us through 2008-2011 book votes - and now I am able to reveal the 2012-2013 results. The only real proviso here is that as we move closer and closer to the present, the number of commissioned titles seems to drop off a bit - it isn't because we are not paying attention to the book votes - we simply haven't had enough time to unearth the right author and slip the books into our publishing schedule.
January 2012
Vote Winner: A landslide victory for a Warrior title on the Early Aegean Warriors (snatching over half of the vote). We didn't hang around with this one, Warrior 167 Early Aegean Warrior 5000-1450 BC arrived only a year and a half later.
Vote Runner Up: It may have come a distant second, but still picking up a significant number of votes allowed another Warrior title to feature in our thoughts, and by November 2013 Warrior 169 Italian solider in North Africa 1941-43 had arrived.
February 2012
Another year, another book vote and another victory for Dien Bien Phu... yes... we know... we're working on it!
March 2012
Vote Winner: An Elite book vote month saw a very strong performance for a suggested tactics title on Rhodesian Fireforce Tactics. Although we haven't yet commissioned a tactics title along these lines - the strong performance did result in Warrior 177 Rhodesian Light Infantryman 1961-80 which is out in November this year - and should that do well a tactics companion is likely to be on the way.
Vote Runner Up: Barbary Corsairs came second in the book vote. And let's just say that a proposal for a book on Barbary Pirates came to a recent publishing meeting...
Also Commissioned: This was a very strong month - coming in third place was a book on the NKVD, and again although that particular subject has not yet been covered it did pave the way for the publication of ELI 197 Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces and ELI 206 Spetsnaz. One final book that featured in the March 2012 book vote has also made it through to publication - despite only coming fourth overall - ELI 199 World War I Battlefield Artillery Tactics.
April 2012
Vote Winner: Roman Warships. The phenomenal win for Roman Warships really got us thinking about ancient naval subjects and led directly to the publication of Warships of the Ancient World 3000-500 BC and then also to the publication of a title that was spotted by none other than AdamC only a few days ago...
Vote Runner Up: French World War II tanks came in a close second in this month. And we didn't just do one book on the subject - instead we did two... NVG 209 French tanks of World War II (1) Infantry and Battle Tanks, followed by NVG 213 French Tanks of World War II (2) Cavalry Tanks and AFVs.
Also Commissioned: It may have come in last in the book vote... but the Valentine tank... is on the way.
May 2012
Vote Winner: Storming to victory was a suggested Men-at-Arms title on the War of the Triple Alliance. It just so happens that last month we published MAA 499 Armies of the War of the Triple Alliance 1864-70. And it is selling like hot cakes.
Vote Runner Up: The Russo-Polish War was pipped to the post by the eventual book vote winner, but would get its revenge by beating the vote winner by being published earlier. MAA 497 Armies of the Russo-Polish War 1919-21 came out in November last year.
June 2012
Vote Runner Up: In a month where we pitched some pretty exciting Warrior titles, the overall winner was a title on the Soldiers of the International Brigades - we haven't yet commissioned a book on the subject, but it did give added weight to our plans to publish a two book series on the Spanish Civil War in the Men-at-Arms series, MAA 495 The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 (1) Nationalist Forces and MAA 498 The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 (2) Republican Forces.
Also commissioned: Again, not quite a direct match, but a strong performance for the Selous Scouts gave our upcoming WAR 177 Rhodesian Light Infantryman 1961-80 a real boost. Should that perform as well as we hope I wouldn't rule out a Selous Scouts title...
July 2012
Commissioned: The suggestion for a book on the SM.79 may not have won the book vote back in July 29012, but it performed strongly enough that we were encouraged to commission COM 106 Savioa-Marchetti S.79 Sparveiro Torpedo-Bomber Units in October 2014. Another strong performance came from the suggestion to cover the DO 17. Now we haven't yet touched on that aircraft, but we have now covered another Dornier aircraft - COM 110 Dornier DO 24 Units - one of the first books in our aviation series to be treated to a stylistic / cover overhaul. It is out in a few months time.
August 2012
Vote Winner: by a country mile it was a call for what is now WPN 43 The Composite Bow - due out in November this year.
Vote Runner Up: Mauser Rifles came second in a very tough race this month. A subject which has been brought into the Weapon series and went up for sale last month in WPN 39 Mauser Military Rifles .
Commissioned: Also appearing in the book vote in August were suggestions for books on the Brown Bess (see this forum post from an eagle-eyed reader) and a book on the Roman Gladius. Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more.
September 2012
Vote Winner: A Duel title on Byzantine Dromon vs Arab Warship stormed to victory in the September 2012 book vote - a subject which we covered in Duel 64 Byzantine Warship vs Arab Warship
Also commissioned: Another suggested title in the month will soon be seing the light of day in the Duel series with the August 2015 publication of Duel 70 Panzer IV vs Sherman: France 1944 - the subject of our recent new artwork blog post. There was also a good performance from a title on the M2 Bradley taking on the BMP in Iraq... which is interesting considering this was recently <REDACTED - not yet approved for public information release>.
October 2012
Vote Runner Up: In a Campaign book vote month the title that came second in the overall vote was on The Winter War. We haven't commissioned a Campaign title on the subject (yet) but we did commission a book in the General Military line called Finland at War. In fact this was initially just one book, which was going to cover the Winter War and then the Continuation War, but we subsequently have decided to split this into two books - the first covering the Winter War, with the second covering the events following the Winter War - to allow the authors to really delve into the detail they uncovered. Finland at War: the Winter War is out in September 2015. The follow-up, Finland at War: the Continuation and Lapland Wars is out in Marcbh 2016.
Also commissioned: A Campaign on Malaya and Singapore during World War II also performed really well in the vote. Your wish. Our command. A bit of a wait still mind...
November 2012
This month saw us focus on the Raid series in the book vote - but we haven't quite had the chance to turn our eye to the titles that performed strongly - they remain firmly on our radar though.
December 2012
Vote Winner: A huge win for a suggested title on The Indo-Pakistan Wars 1947-71. As happens quite often with these book votes, this revealed a degree of interest that surprised us a little, and although we are yet to commission an Essential Histories on the subject, we do have the first book to focus exclusively on this coming out in the Duel series. Info uncovered by keen-eyed Osprey detectives here!
Also commissioned: We would be lying if we were to say that the performance of the Triple Alliance ESS suggestion didn't swing us towards the MAA 499 Armies of the Triple Alliance
January 2013
Vote Winner: An incredibly close and hard fought victory for a Men-at-Arms suggestion on the Graeco-Turkish War. And what is this available to pre-order right now? Is that... it can't be... Men-at-Arms 501 Armies of the Greek-Turkish War 1919-22
Vote Runner-up: The story of this book is pretty heart-warming and we hope it shows just how highly we value the book vote feedback. Having turned down a book on the Armies of Castille and Aragon a number of times, long-time super editor Martin Windrow convinced us to put it to the book vote. It didn't win, but came agonisingly close. We commissioned it. And when it came to choosing which book would get the honour of being MAA 500 we felt it was only right to award it to a book that owed its existence to the support of you - the customers. So here is to MAA 500 Armies of Castille and Aragon.
Also commissioned: The book that came third in the January 2013 book vote is also due to make it onto bookshelves this year. MAA 503 Hitler's Russian and Cossack Allies - which is out in October.
February 2013
In a very early vote for suggestions for the AVG series we had a rather muted voting month - perhaps it was just too soon for us to be thinking about plugging gaps in the series? None of the titles listed in the vote have yet to be given the Air Vanguard treatment.
March 2013
Vote Winner: Picking up nearly 39% of the popular vote in the March 2013 Aircraft of the Aces book vote was a suggest title on Chinese Aces. And this month you can pick up a copy of ACE 126 Aces of the Republic of China Air Force.
Also Commissioned: A very respectable performance for C.202 Folgore Aces hasn't yet resulted in an ACE title, but it did find itself the subject of a Duel title last year - Duel 60 Spitfire V vs C.202 Folgore: Malta 1942. And there was also a strong performance for a book on Ju 88 Aces. Keep your eyes peeled for that in the future too.
April 2013
Vote Winner: We asked you what subjects you wanted us to cover in the Osprey Wargames line. You answered 'Colonial Rules'. We obey. That is all we can say right now...
May 2013
Vote runner-up: An Elite book vote in May 2013 saw a sterling late effort from a title on the Sea Peoples desperately attempt to claw itself into first place. It eventually failed (not by much though) and now can be found as ELI 204 Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean c.1400 BC -1000 BC.
June 2013
Also commissioned: The CAM suggestions that won and came runner-up in the June book vote might not have yet had the chance to make it into the series, but two other titles have. And you can already pick up a copy of the first one - CAM 275 Ramillies 1706. I may have also revealed the other Campaign title that is coming out on the back of this book vote. But as it isn't arriving until 2016 I don't want to say too much. Let's just say that it starts with a "Z" and ends with an "a". Any guesses?
July 2013
Vote Winner: One of our first ever book votes for Osprey Adventures brought an absolute landslide victory for a book on Atlantis. And we listened - so you can pick up a copy of Dark Osprey: The Wars of Atlantis in July!
Vote runner-up: In second place was a suggested title on Headless Horsemen. Which will be landing on bookshelves around the world this September. Spooky!
August 2013
Vote Winner: It can be quite a challenge coming up with a selection of book vote titles for a brand spanking new series - but that is something that we did in August for the Combat series. The winner was a suggested title on Crusader Knight Vs Saracen Faris. We haven't commissioned that particular title, but did take a fair bit of inspiration from that performance and went out and commissioned another title. This wasn't on our list when we posted up our Coming in 2015 blog - but is due out this November!
Vote runner-up: Coming second in the overall vote was a title that has gone on to become CBT 13 US Marine vs NVA Soldier - Vietnam 1967-68.
September 2013 / October 2013
September is where the time constraints really start to emerge, with two back-to-back months where we simply haven't had the time to get round to any of the suggested titles. That of course doesn't mean we won't - with commissioning opening for 2017 titles shortly, there are still loads of places up for grabs!
November 2013
Vote Winner - a huge landslide victory for a book on Russian Infantry vs Japanese Infantry in 1904-05. We haven't commissioned it yet... it actually came to a publishing meeting last year, but we wanted to balance out the 2016 list a bit more, so decided to delay our decision. 2017 is not out of the question!
December 2013
Again no firm commissioning in this month... but there was a suggestion for a Men-at-Arms book on the Nigerian-Biafran War. And it just so happens that a fifth installment in the Modern African Wars series is coming to the publishing meeting this very afternoon. Care to guess what it is focusing on? We have done it before - can we get another Modern African Wars book into the MAA series?
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