$2 per volume on CP etched in my head
While relatively new to Community Pricing, someone wisely (and I like that ..) 
suggested a $2 per volume pricing.
Either there are now more disposable income, an impatient need to see resource crystallized or whatever reasons, it seems $4 per volume or slightly less has been causing CPs to close at 100% earlier. The situation has caused an uneasy feeling that one may be paying too much or conversely being indifferent to price.
Is there a truly recommended pricing that the community as a whole indeed can sustain and reach a consensus? If there is volume, price can surely be reduced. Your thoughts please ....
Comments
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One factor is how many want the resource. Another factor is how soon do you NEED it.
Another is number of pages - $2 is good for small to mid sized works but How much for massive ones? [[some that many want are massive - Current bid is ~ 30 but needs to be ~ 75]]
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Alan said:
While relatively new to Community Pricing, someone wisely (and I like that ..)
suggested a $2 per volume pricing.Either there are now more disposable income, an impatient need to see resource crystallized or whatever reasons, it seems $4 per volume or slightly less has been causing CPs to close at 100% earlier. The situation has caused an uneasy feeling that one may be paying too much or conversely being indifferent to price.
Is there a truly recommended pricing that the community as a whole indeed can sustain and reach a consensus? If there is volume, price can surely be reduced. Your thoughts please ....
I [personally try to hold to a $1.50, but it does depend on the resource, example like almost all the current "Classic Commentary and Studies..." series, I have only purchased 2- the rest I cancelled they were not worth the price. I have probably cancelled 95% of the CP items reaching production due to pricing.
So CP "pricing" is in the eye of the beholder- still you have to practice personal responsibility. BUT- here's the kicker most of the CP you don't buy will be thrust upon you with the next series of upgrades- the packages in L7 will contain these upping the price of any package you purchase- so you'll pay in the long run- and hopefully pay less than $1.50 a volume.
This is only my personal observation and approach.
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It does seem that the suggested price range is higher than when the CP program started. And, with few exceptions, it also seems like volumes are pulled from ancient obscurity more frequently than in the past. While that stands to reason (e.g., you can only truly offer the greatest 19th century commentary on John once), my interest in CP offerings has declined through the years. I used to get class commentary collections as a matter of course, but almost never get the classic commentary upgrades for the two reasons mentioned above: The price seems higher, and the volumes offered seem less essential.
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I would pay $20/volume depending on the volume. As it is, I often bid <$2/volume or don't bid at all because the minimal bid is too high. Naturally, I haven't gotten much at all from CP!
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Alan said:
Is there a truly recommended pricing that the community as a whole indeed can sustain and reach a consensus?
Although I greatly appreciate lower priced items Community Pricing is simply based on a supply and demand model. Whatever the majority of the people want to pay for the resource is the price that is set once it goes over 100%.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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What books and authors would you like to see in Community Pricing? Help us improve it by sending us your suggestions. Every suggestion is recorded and referenced when we put together a collection. We also try to build collections keeping in mind what references exist within our Logos ecosystem--so, we make sure to offer books that are cited by contemporary and modern commentaries and studies, as well as books favorited by Spurgeon, Schaff, Berkhof, etc.
As to the $2 per book scheme, this information is a bit dated now, and generally only works for 19th or 20th century books that are commentaries (when you get into 17th and 18th century commentaries, the language and typeface of such books make them much more expensive to produce, especially as many of them run 500 pages or more). As Bruce noted, it's built on the supply/demand principle. Remember that getting lower prices in Community Pricing is contingent on the volume of customers bidding on a product; so, in order to get the price down, it has to be a product that appeals to the most people (hence the $2/volume you can get with Classic Commentaries and Studies--everybody loves commentaries!). However, for something more specialized, such as Select Works of So-n-So, such a collection will probably only appeal to people of the theology/denomination of So-n-So, or historians who want to narrow in on that facet of Christian history. Those have a more narrow appeal, or for whose audience we're still trying to grow (i.e. Wesleyans!), and the $2/book scheme doesn't quite work where the market is still small.
But we would love to hear if you have suggestions for authors or topics you'd like to bid on in Community Pricing. I skim through the Suggestions forum every day and take vigorous notes on what Logosians want.
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Brandon Rappuhn said:
But we would love to hear if you have suggestions for authors or topics you'd like to bid on in Community Pricing. I skim through the Suggestions forum every day and take vigorous notes on what Logosians want.
I'm very glad to read that!
Please tell me that you or someone else goes through at least weekly into the Catholic Products Forum for the same information.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Forget price. It's based on usefulness first. Low prices simply will get you to pull money from your pocket. I was out shopping today and wound up with two items in my cart. The low price tug. Then I realized that both were nice but not necessary. Back out they went.
Buying means yes to something and no to something else. A lot of my yes is at Logos, but I've become much more selective about what gets that decision.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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Brandon Rappuhn said:
What books and authors would you like to see in Community Pricing? Help us improve it by sending us your suggestions. Every suggestion is recorded and referenced when we put together a collection. We also try to build collections keeping in mind what references exist within our Logos ecosystem--so, we make sure to offer books that are cited by contemporary and modern commentaries and studies, as well as books favorited by Spurgeon, Schaff, Berkhof, etc.
Thanks for asking. It's a great question, but I guess the point of my earlier response is that the supply of books written, say, in the 19th century that are significant for the 21st century (except for historical studies) eventually runs dry.
This is coupled with a phenomenon common to all fields with respect to older contributions: As time marches on, works must become more and more significant in terms of "paradigm-shifting". That is, works that shake up the world of biblical studies, say, for a period of 10 years in 1880 are usually forgotten by the mid-20th century. To take a musical analogy as an example, not many of us listen much to Louis Spohr's compositions, although he was quite a thing in his time. But we still listen to Beethoven because his music changed music for centuries, not just for decades.
So, I've got enough Gunkel, Baur, Wrede, Schweitzer, et. al. for now. If I needed to understand the interpretive history of some biblical book, it might be only because I've seen a footnote in a footnote or something. All of this does not mean there are not PD works that I'd consider (I've had most of the Loeb collections on my CP list forever, but they don't seem to move much), but volumes related to biblical studies are less and less interesting to me when they come up as my library gets saturated with older books. But that's just me.
If something comes along, though, I'll let you know!
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mab said:
Forget price. It's based on usefulness first. Low prices simply will get you to pull money from your pocket. I was out shopping today and wound up with two items in my cart. The low price tug. Then I realized that both were nice but not necessary. Back out they went.
Buying means yes to something and no to something else. A lot of my yes is at Logos, but I've become much more selective about what gets that decision.
There you go
I feel the same way about my library- at 60- I have more books than I can shake a stick at in Logos and paper- my only concern as I move into my later years who will benefit from my purchases, meaning I will eventually have to decide when I leave this life who gets the pot of paper, or digital mumbo jumbo [:D].I have after spending over 50 k in Logos realized, that all the comfort and knowledge I need for life and faith comes from reading my BIBLE! and go figure the good ol' paper version.
Thank God for the Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit- how many Believer's have walked through life without a library, but only the comfort of the God givn Scriptures to carry, sustain them- what a magnificent, gracious God we have.
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mab said:
Forget price. It's based on usefulness first. Low prices simply will get you to pull money from your pocket. I was out shopping today and wound up with two items in my cart. The low price tug. Then I realized that both were nice but not necessary. Back out they went.
Buying means yes to something and no to something else. A lot of my yes is at Logos, but I've become much more selective about what gets that decision.
I agree so much. This is how I shop too, and how I prioritize the books I buy and read. We do look for useful books and topics and authors, but as Lew mentioned, "you can only offer the greatest 19th century commentary on John once," and we're facing that problem with certain authors and topics that have broad appeal. It's almost literally a case where "one man's junk is another man's treasure" (not that any books or authors are junk!). For example, Thomas Coke's Commentary. Thomas Coke was pretty much John Wesley's right-hand man and was pivotal in establishing the Methodist church in America, so his commentary represents an early and almost literally Wesleyan look at Scripture. It's a must for Methodists, as much as Matthew Henry is for the Reformed and Evangelicals, but for the rest of us, because it's dated, how useful can it be in Baptist sermon preparation or for Catholic social teaching? Because it is content that not everybody wants, those few who want it will have to pay a higher price (I'm not even sure we have enough customers using Community Pricing in general to fund such a huge commentary for $2 per volume--Coke's commentary is pretty massive and will be expensive to produce).
Such is the challenge with Community Pricing; balancing content that Faithlife's diverse audiences want with pricing that makes it possible to get funded. Most of the time, $2 per book will not be enough--at least not from the start. Looking at our recent past, if you want something to make it into your library someday, bid higher than $2 per book from the get-go, and once it passes over the 100% mark, watch its price drop down to $3 or $2 per book or less. But if you start at the $3 or $2 per book value, it will often take much much longer to reach 100%... if it does at all...
SineNomine said:Please tell me that you or someone else goes through at least weekly into the Catholic Products Forum for the same information.
I know certainly the Verbum team does. I check it too... if for no other reason than that I'm Catholic too and want to see what everyone else is reading
But I do look for suggestions on each denominational subforum to make sure we're offering our customers what our customers want to buy. #business101
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