How does Faithlife decide between Vyrso and Logos?

Just out of curiosity, how does Faithlife decide which book will be published in Vyrso and which books will be published in Logos? It seems like there are a number of books in Vyrso that should have been published in Logos, at least they would be better suited for the Logos audience. Moreover, how does Faithlife decide which Vyrso books they are going to convert to Logos format? I know this was done with several books in the past. Is there a list of books we can expect to see make it into Logos format?

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Fred Chapman

I cannot say with any certainty, but I would imagine this has a lot to due with the publishing and usage agreement they negotiate.

JT (alabama24)

The licensing agreements for "Vyrso" and "Logos" editions are different. Whatever the disagreements are between FL & Moody, for example, can be found in those differences since Moody sells books through Vyrso but not Logos. FL never wants to put books in Vyrso and then move them to Logos, but sometimes it happens... They don't want to do it because the Vyrso editions are sold at little profit to FL, whereas "Logos" edition resources are "value added." Generally speaking, FL puts into Vyrso books that either don't belong in Logos OR ones which are unlikely to come to Logos due to agreements with publishers. Sometimes books "slip through the cracks" and a book which should belong in Logos (because of content and ability to get an agreement with publisher) ends up in Vyrso. When users ask questions like "why is this book in Vyrso," there are times where the book has been pulled within the hour. If you want said book, you better grab it ASAP! [:P]

There likely wouldn't ever be a list of books which will migrate to Logos because it isn't in the interests of FL... once FL knows they want a book in Logos, they pull it from Vyrso. Similarly, there are books which have been held out of Vyrso because FL knows they want it in Logos.

Kevin A Lewis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736923#Comment_736923

The licensing agreements for "Vyrso" and "Logos" editions are different. Whatever ....

That seems like a very comprehensive summary of the situation - thanks

Shalom

John Kight

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736926#Comment_736926

Thanks for the responses! I figured it was related to licenses, but it is still a bit perplexing.

Dan Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736923#Comment_736923

There likely wouldn't ever be a list of books which will migrate to Logos because it isn't in the interests of FL... once FL knows they want a book in Logos, they pull it from Vyrso. Similarly, there are books which have been held out of Vyrso because FL knows they want it in Logos.

I remember it being talked about but if you could refresh my mind, what happens when a Vyrso book comes up for pre-pub in Logos main store?

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009). Has just been added as a Logos pre-pub even though it is or was sold as a Vyrso book?

-Dan

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736968#Comment_736968

I remember it being talked about but if you could refresh my mind, what happens when a Vyrso book comes up for pre-pub in Logos main store?

If you own the Vyrso book already, you will automatically get upgraded to the Logos edition once it ships, so you don't need to order the pre-pub. I wish the Logos website was capable of letting us know that we already own a title in Vyrso so we don't need to order the Logos edition. I'm sure FL customer service would refund us the money if we accidentally got charged for the Logos edition and noticed it. But I'm not 100% sure that they would not charge us in the first place, noticing that we already had it, and I'm about 90% certain that I wouldn't notice it myself.

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009). Has just been added as a Logos pre-pub even though it is or was sold as a Vyrso book?

There are a bunch of others that just showed up in pre-pub today on logos.com. E.g., Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity and This Mortal Flesh: Incarnation and Bioethics, These appear to all be part of the Baker Academic and Brazos Press Ethics and Spiritual Formation Collection. I wonder if those of us who already own some of these titles from Vyrso will get dynamic pricing on the collection?

Dr. Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/736987#Comment_736987

Isn't another difference between the two that Vyrso books are mainly just eBooks converted into a "Logos Readable/Searchable" format whereas Logos boois contain all the hand tagging and extra goodness?

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737754#Comment_737754

Isn't another difference between the two that Vyrso books are mainly just eBooks converted into a "Logos Readable/Searchable" format whereas Logos boois contain all the hand tagging and extra goodness?

Yes, that is the difference between the two. I assumed by the way the question was posed that that was understood and the OP was just trying to find out how Faithlife decides when to publish a book in Vyrso format and when to do them as full Logos editions.

Licensing from the publisher no doubt has something to do with it, but there are certain types of books (e.g., references works with lots of cross-referencing, commentaries, Bibles, and others) which don't make much sense to publish as Vyrso eBooks. Sometimes they do slip through as Vyrso books on a first pass, but they almost always get upgraded to Logos books eventually.

The kinds of books that work fine as Vyrso titles are biographies, fiction, popular Christian living titles, etc.

Users can always request that a Vyrso title be considered for upgrading to a Logos edition. If there are lot of dates in it, for example, where it would benefit from being integrated into Logos's timeline feature, or lots of cross-references to other Logos titles, then it's very limited to have it as only a Vyrso title. But sometimes the publisher won't give Faithlife a good enough contract to warrant them spending the time to do all the hand-tagging. So it really depends on their relationship with the publisher.

Kyle G. Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737756#Comment_737756

I'll refrain from stories about why some books started in Vyrso and then moved over to Logos channels.

Generally speaking Vyrso is geared toward tradebooks (i.e. fiction, Christian living titles, biographies, etc.) and Logos gets the rest. (There are also certain licensing issues that may require us to sell in Vyrso.)

For titles that could be sold in either channel, we have employees that make the determination. Generally speaking the main criteria is this: is this a title that would be more functional in a Logos (as opposed to Vyrso) environment? An Anchor Commentary, Bible Dictionary or Latin Bible would be better in Logos. A book about the Daniel diet probably doesn't need to be in the Logos environment--hence it goes to Vyrso. For borderline cases we try to err on the side of reserving them for logos.com.

John Kight

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737864#Comment_737864

For titles that could be sold in either channel, we have employees that make the determination.

I ask this with all do respect, but do the employees that make the determination have any familiarization with the content of the books apart from the titles? I can think of a number of B&H Academic books that would be much better candidates for Logos than Vyrso. With that said, I don't mind getting the frequently discounts either!

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737885#Comment_737885

do the employees that make the determination have any familiarization with the content of the books apart from the titles?

I'm sure they have access to the digital files of those books. They probably haven't read them through from cover to cover, but they likely skim them just as much as you or I would in a bookstore if we were deciding whether to buy a book.

J. Remington Bowling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737864#Comment_737864

Would be nice if there was better quality control on this process. For instance Life's Ultimate Questions is in Logos format, but For the Love of Wisdom is in Vyrso format even though both are the same type of book (introductions to philosophy) and in fact the latter book is more academic and technical than the former book! Not having pagination or proper footnote linking/pop-ups is a real annoyance in this type of work.

John Kight

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737886#Comment_737886

I'm sure they have access to the digital files of those books. They probably haven't read them through from cover to cover, but they likely skim them just as much as you or I would in a bookstore if we were deciding whether to buy a book.

I think your right, and I assumed that much. But my question would be why do you find books like Zondervan's Counterpoint series in Logos and B&H's Perspectives series in Vyrso? The content aim of the series are identical. Shouldn't there be more than mere employee discretion in these decisions? It would be nice if the Counterpoint series was published in Vyrso so we could take advantage of the frequent sales typically found on Kindle and such.

John Kight

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737888#Comment_737888

For instance Life's Ultimate Questions is in Logos format, but For the Love of Wisdom is in Vyrso format even though both are the same type of book (introductions to philosophy) and in fact the latter book is more academic and technical than the former book!

Exactly! If the content is academic in orientation it should be published in Logos. For example, if a book is published by B&H Academic as opposed to B&H it is a pretty good indicator that it should be published in Logos, rather than Vyrso.

Kyle G. Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737890#Comment_737890

I'm sure they have access to the digital files of those books. They probably haven't read them through from cover to cover, but they likely skim them just as much as you or I would in a bookstore if we were deciding whether to buy a book.

I think your right, and I assumed that much. But my question would be why do you find books like Zondervan's Counterpoint series in Logos and B&H's Perspectives series in Vyrso? The content aim of the series are identical. Shouldn't there be more than mere employee discretion in these decisions? It would be nice if the Counterpoint series was published in Vyrso so we could take advantage of the frequent sales typically found on Kindle and such.

I alluded to it in my original post and I can't get into too much details here but suffice to say there are certain books that when they were originally posted in vyrso we wanted to put in logos but couldn't for a myriad of reasons. Just as now there are titles that we wish we could put in logos but can't.

There have also been cases where something originally appeared in vyrso but then later got switched to logos. We prefer not to have to do this but when it happens we update the vyrso resource so that whoever owns the vyrso resource now has a resource with full logos mark-up.

John Kight

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/737896#Comment_737896

Understood. I appreciate the explanation, Kyle.