Re: lojban book at www.amazon.com

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

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.