Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 06:51:49 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710201151.GAA23592@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: lojban book at www.amazon.com X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 4584 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Oct 20 06:51:52 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Belknap: >I just looked for the lojban book at www.amazon.com Its there! Of course, >lojban central may make a little more money per copy if bought direct from >them, so do that if that is an option. We will make more money from a direct order, because in all fairness we have to give Amazon some discount or it would not pay them to handle our book. To my surprise they don't actually require us to do so, but I have to be ethical. >Still, I suspect that over the next year many more copies will be purchased >through www.amazon.com than through lojban central, especially if our >library seeding program is effective. This would be nice, but I wil have to see to believe. Amazon may be bigm but there are a zillion books out there, and if someone doesn't know of us , I remain unconvinced that they will find us browsing the Amazon lists. >Any possibility that Cowan could do a >book tour? :) I'll leave him to decide, but I am not assuming so %^). >2. Donate the book only on condition that the library doesn't already have >a copy and that it will either be shelved or returned to you. (Sometimes >libraries raise cash by selling off donated books instead of shelving them.) Although I will note that such a sold off donated book, will presumably be bought by someone who plans to read it, and the book then reaches new audience, thouigh not as good an audience as it might get on the shelves. >5. Some libraries have reviews in their library newsletter about new books. >Write 'em a review. (The publishers of mainstream books do this. People are >lazy, so they take the "review" and publish it. Could lojban central >provide us with a review filler press release? Something like: > >1 November 1997 (whereever, virginia) The Logical Languages Group today >announces publication of the newly baselined grammer. Derived from original >research done by James Cooke Brown, blah blah blah. We plan to do this, though it will not be all that different from the original book announcement as posted on the WWW site. That will be posted by the way, on the actual day we receive and start shipping the books, rather than specifically on 1 November. The latest from the printer suggests it will be at the beginning of the week after the 1st. >By the way, has lojban central managed to get any reviews by the mainstream >press, linguistics journals, or logic journals? No we have not, though I have solicited one person to writ4e one as a free l lance who has the connections to get it published. One net-site that does reviews has asked for a review copy, but I have not checked out to see if they are worth the publicity to send a free copy to. No one can review the book till we send them a copy, and we cannot afford to send proofs (which cost us $75 unbound unless we make them oursel ves at a Xerox machine). Indeed, we cannot blithely send review copies in the hopes of getting reviewed - we need to know that someone will indeed review it. This is the price of keeping the cover-price reasonable. Normal book marketing presumes that the publisher will send out between 200 and 500 review copies between1 and 3 months ahead of puboication. But we will start shipping essentially as soon as we have the books, and are so tight financially that we cannot afford to give away lots of copies in the hopes of getting reviewed. I may solicit Arnold Zwicky to do a review. He did the original scathing review review of Loglan 1 that appeared in _Language_, but since then has acq uired the title of President of theLinguistic Society of America, and a bad review from that level is better publicity than a good review from a nonentity. (Besides which, Cowan has shown that he can answer the sorts of criticisms that Zwicky is likley to make). In any event, we can't solicit reviews until we can send review copies, and, to be hionest, I feel obligated to put first priority on sending books to our patrons. We're faced with a very limited resource (my Lojban time), and a big field tro master (book publishing) which has established ways that require money (another very limited resource) to grease the skids. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.