Meet the Author: Jim Limbrick

The reason I wrote the book was because of a genuine belief that those men who died deserve some kind of recognition for what they did. Their part was absolutely essential, and they could fade away into history without anyone knowing of them. Once the book is published it will always be there for reference, and I hope that with the help of their families, friends and colleagues I can ultimately re-write the definitive version. Another reason is that I knew and worked with some of them.

Though a lot of women work offshore, and there are certainly female professional divers, I have never known or heard of any of the latter offshore, though it would certainly have made life a lot more bearable.

I have had absolutely hundreds of interesting dives in my 23 years of diving, and I am not ashamed to say that these were mostly work related. My greatest feelings of achievement were being personally involved in the completion of three of the then world's largest oil field installations. I cannot say that I had any really bad experiences, but the recovery of bodies was probably something that you would rather not be doing. All this was a long time ago and I have been away from the business for many years, hence the wish for feedback so that I can get more up to date perhaps.

Publishing in e-format with my chosen publisher Authorsonline was compulsory before you could go on to publish in book form. Because a person has to download using his/her own paper and ink, I personally believe that the method will not reach a large public, even though it's cheap. It is, however, a way forward at relatively low cost to go this route because the system is PRINT ON DEMAND. You may be familiar with the technology, but using the system, one book at a time can be produced as ordered so you do not therefore have to have hundreds or thousands lying about waiting to be sold. You do, however, have to work harder to get sales as they are not sitting in the shops for people to see. I have put mine on my own web-sites www.northseadivers.co.uk (and .com) and will utilise other methods to sell copies, especially using the advice of the publisher in how to achieve results.

I am confident the system will work if the subject matter is interesting enough, though I realise that in my case the interest will be limited mainly to those with an interest in diving, though there are over a million SCUBA divers worldwide for a start, some of whom may have an interest in going professional, or just interested in the subject overall. Though it may seem a little naive, I have never considered it as a way to make money.