What is up with PrePubs?
What is going on with the PrePubs. I have thirteen 'under contract' prepubs on my account. Many have been there a long while. Why? There must be some problem we don't know about. Can anyone help?
Paul
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Though I have no insight, I expect that it is the normal process. Check out this essay for a description of the process:
http://www.logos.com/features/prepub
I thought I saw something earlier, maybe someone else can find the earlier posting.
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Hi, Paul. Don't feel too badly. I've got over 100 'under contract' prepubs. I too have been wondering why they've been so slow to finish them. But they are still working on them, as every month I've been receiving anywhere from one to four of the prepubs I'd been waiting on. I guess you just happen to have ordered some of the ones that have been lower priority for some reason. They tend to work first on the ones that have more people waiting on them. And there are other reasons why some of them take longer. They might have had a very bad digitized text to start with and have to do lots of corrections in it. They have to look up and tag all the cross-references, so works that are longer and have lots of references to Logos resources will take longer to prepare. It's pretty manually intensive work, and they perhaps don't have enough people working on it to get more than a few done each month.
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Floyd Johnson said:
Though I have no insight, I expect that it is the normal process. Check out this essay for a description of the process:
Thanks for posting that link. I'd never seen that essay before, and it's excellent. Here's another essay I found in the "features" directory on their website, which explains the scanning process for old books where a digitized copy of the text is not extant:
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Rosie Perera said:
they perhaps don't have enough people working on it to get more than a few done each month.
And hopefuly some are enjoying well deserved summer holidays? [:)]
Regards, SteveF
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I have bought so very many Logos resources recently that I'm glad to have a bit of a hiatus until I have to open my wallet again! *smile*
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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If you go to the PrePubs page, and click the order to be by Ship Date, you will see there is only ONE PrePub with a ship date, and it's near the end of the month,. For whatever reason, the shipment of PrePubs has really dried up. That has to be a concern to Logos, as there is big bucks in shipping new resources. I wonder what is up...
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I know that a lot of work went into the Learn Greek and Hebrew videos. I wonder if many of Logos' resources were on that project?
By the way, my wallet also needs some time to recover from the past year: (Logos 4 Platinum upgrade, NICOT, NICNT, WBC, Learn Greek and Hebrew videos, Charles Spurgeon and Calvin Commentaries, not to mention other smaller prepubs). So I'm okay if it takes some time to get the other prepubs completed.
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Dominick Sela said:
If you go to the PrePubs page, and click the order to be by Ship Date, you will see there is only ONE PrePub with a ship date, and it's near the end of the month,. For whatever reason, the shipment of PrePubs has really dried up. That has to be a concern to Logos, as there is big bucks in shipping new resources. I wonder what is up...
This year there has been an unprecedented number of pre-pubs released, in a very short space of time. I spent more money on pre-pubs in three months than I usually spend in six. That would have involved a huge amount of work. What we are seeing now is a return to more typical release rates, and just as well for my wallet.
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Jonathan Burke said:
What we are seeing now is a return to more typical release rates
This may be so. I've only been on the prepub wagon for this past year, so I'm not that familiar with the past rate. However I did hear them say (at the Morris Proctor seminar) that they are gearing up to be able to produce up to 4000 new titles per year. I personally think it would be a mistake to produce that many even if they could. It would dilute their potential customer pool for each title, since we can't possibly buy that many books in a year. And so many of the prepubs wouldn't reach 100% of production costs. It wouldn't be worth their while to advertise so many prepubs, IMHO.
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Rosie Perera said:
. And so many of the prepubs wouldn't reach 100% of production costs. It wouldn't be worth their while to advertise so many prepubs, IMHO.
Unless the plan is to create the books without going through pre-pub and make their profits through selling enough different books that all costs could be recovered. But that would probably mean fewer discounts. And that I do not like.[:(]
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Rosie Perera said:
However I did hear them say (at the Morris Proctor seminar) that they are gearing up to be able to produce up to 4000 new titles per year.
This really can only be done proportional to the number of customers, and hence the number of new customers If you had 40 customers total, no way does 4000 new resources a year make sense (just as an example) If the average person buys say 5 resources a year (?), and if you needed 100 purchases to break even (and it may easily be more than that), you need 80,000 customers for all those books to profit. If there is an intrinsic overall benefit to having lots of resources (that it attracts new customers on its own), the model is better Or if you manage it all like a portfolio (some of the 4000 generate huge profit, some a little, and some are at a loss for the overall good), then the model is also better All that said, I don't see that there is the customer base to support 4000 resources a year right now.
Also - I think some resources should be published no matter what. In my other post
http://community.logos.com/forums/p/19816/149121.aspx#149121
it seems to me that important links go to a resource that is not available because it's mired in a resource bundle that's not going anywhere quickly. THat does seem like a great solution, it only frustrates users trying to use Logos to drill into resources like the ads say. In this case, you can't, and that's why the profit model on this resource doesn't seem to make sense.
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I know the ultimate goal of Logos would be to get users to buy books. I also remember hearing a long while back that a majority of users do not purchase books on top of the base packages. I know I read that somewhere. Maybe that has changed.Rosie Perera said:However I did hear them say (at the Morris Proctor seminar) that they are gearing up to be able to produce up to 4000 new titles per year.
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William Bingham said:
I know the ultimate goal of Logos would be to get users to buy books. I also remember hearing a long while back that a majority of users do not purchase books on top of the base packages. I know I read that somewhere. Maybe that has changed.Rosie Perera said:However I did hear them say (at the Morris Proctor seminar) that they are gearing up to be able to produce up to 4000 new titles per year.
Maybe a way to start encouraging purchasers of base packages to explore Logos's vast catalogue would be to give them a token unlock credit (say, $20) free with their purchase of the base package, and have it expire within 6 months. Then once they've had some time to play around with Logos a bit they can go on the website and see what else they might like to add to their package. While they are browsing around, surely they will come across other books they might want to order.
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Rosie I think you might be on the right track. The lists of current resources, pre-pubs, community pricing resources can be quite intimidating. Since buying Logos, I've been on wikipedia trying to figure out who authors are, backgrounds of certain commentaries, and reading the forums for recommendations as to what to buy. the wealth of resources can have quite a learning curve for many. Is there a way to better encourage the investigation of series, commentaries, and individual books as well as renown authors without showing a bias?
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On second thought, I guess great authors rise to the top of purchasing lists. Maybe we could have a more interactive top ten resource list that updates more frequently so new users know what seasoned customers are looking at.
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Paul,
Might I suggest to you a book published by Baker called "Handbook of Evangelical Theologians", its a great place to start learning about the different theological perspectives, different theologians believe. It also gives a historical overview of their theological thinking and how it has evolved over time.
One other thing that would be helpful for you is to study the theological perspective of the different schools that an author attended or who was an authors doctor supervisor. Another helpful thing to do is get a feel for the theological bent of the different publishers.
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BobbyTerhune said:
Paul,
Might I suggest to you a book published by Baker called "Handbook of Evangelical Theologians", its a great place to start learning about the different theological perspectives, different theologians believe. It also gives a historical overview of their theological thinking and how it has evolved over time.
Good suggestion. I would also suggest Bible Interpreters of the Twentieth Century, also from Baker. I couldn't find any overlap between the two books so they complement each other well, and you get a somewhat more contemporary selection of individuals in the latter.
Handbook of Evangelical Theologians:
Augustus H. Strong
James Orr
B. B. Warfield
Francis Pieper
Edgar Young Mullins
W. H. Griffith Thomas
Lewis Sperry Chafer
Louis Berkhof
H. Orton Wiley
J. Gresham Machen
Henry C. Thiessen
Cornelius Van Til
John Murray
Gordon H. Clark
G. C. Berkouwer
Charles W. Carter
Helmut Thielicke
John F. Walvoord
Francis Schaeffer
Carl F. H. Henry
Anthony Hoekema
Bernard Ramm
J. Rodman Williams
Edward John Carnell
John R. W. Stott
Robert D. Preus
Charles C. Ryrie
J. I. Packer
Donald G. Bloesch
Thomas Oden
Millard J. Erickson
Clark H. Pinnock
Alister E. McGrath
Bible Interpreters of the Twentieth Century:
John Charles Ryle
William Henry Green
John Albert Broadus
Theodor Zahn
Adolf Schlatter
Robert Dick Wilson
Geerhardus Vos
A. T. Robertson
Richard C. H. Lenski
Oswald T. Allis
Arthur W. Pink
William Hendriksen
Ned Bernard Stonehouse
Edward Musgrave Blaiklock
Merrill Chapin Tenney
Edward Joseph Young
Merrill Frederick Unger
Frederick Fyvie Bruce
George Eldon Ladd
William Sanford LaSor
John Wenham
Bruce M. Metzger
Leon Lamb Morris
Donald Guthrie
Donald J. Wiseman
R. K. Harrison
Joyce Baldwin-Caine
J. Barton Payne
Ralph Philip Martin
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
Gordon D. Fee
Edwin M. Yamauchi
Peter C. Craigie
D. A. Carson
Nicholas Thomas WrightMacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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Hey thanks guys! I'm noticing more and more I'm having trouble with my 19th century theologians. Are there any definitive resources that serve the same purpose as the aforementioned for the 1800's?
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Paul said:
Hey thanks guys! I'm noticing more and more I'm having trouble with my 19th century theologians. Are there any definitive resources that serve the same purpose as the aforementioned for the 1800's?
Historical dictionaries should have decent coverage of pre-20th century individuals:
- Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters
- Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (slightly revised ed. of the Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters)
- Biographical Entries from the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
- Biographical Entries from New 20th-Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
- Who's Who in Christian History (in all base packages)
- Nelson's New Christian Dictionary
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church
- The Encyclopedia of Christianity
- Dictionary of Christianity in America
These vary widely in cost and depth. You probably already have some of them. Sometimes the more concise ones can be more useful than the longer ones, depending on how you're using them.
MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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Rosie Perera said:
This may be so. I've only been on the prepub wagon for this past year, so I'm not that familiar with the past rate.
I've been buying prepubs consistently for at least three years. My prepub list typically has at least 20-30 works on it at any given time. We have definitely seen an unprecedented rate of publications this year, as was confirmed to me by one of the Logos staff.
[quote]However I did hear them say (at the Morris Proctor seminar) that they are gearing up to be able to produce up to 4000 new titles per year. I personally think it would be a mistake to produce that many even if they could. It would dilute their potential customer pool for each title, since we can't possibly buy that many books in a year. And so many of the prepubs wouldn't reach 100% of production costs. It wouldn't be worth their while to advertise so many prepubs, IMHO.
Advertising the prepubs is the way they decide whether or not they will be profitable. If they don't receive sufficient support, they're just not published, so Logos doesn't lose out. Furthermore, even if they were to publish 4,000 titles a year, they would only do so if there was a market for them (that's how prepubs work). I can see that market very easily, especially if you include titles in Spanish (and potentially Chinese). There are also a large number of titles which are produced by Logos but which are not sold on their site. Logos converted 150 years of a particular theological journal for my church, but that's not being sold on their site. I don't know how large the Logos customer base is, but it is very likely numbered in tens of thousands.
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Floyd Johnson said:
Unless the plan is to create the books without going through pre-pub and make their profits through selling enough different books that all costs could be recovered. But that would probably mean fewer discounts. And that I do not like.
That is extremely unlikely given that prepubs provide Logos with the opportunity to guarantee that titles receive sufficient support to be profitable.
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Jonathan Burke said:
I don't know how large the Logos customer base is, but it is very likely numbered in tens of thousands.
As of March of this year, at Camp Logos, one of the Logos people quoted a figure of about 3/4 million customers. That number has surely gone up since then with the popularity of L4.
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Rosie Perera said:
As of March of this year, at Camp Logos, one of the Logos people quoted a figure of about 3/4 million customers. That number has surely gone up since then with the popularity of L4.
That's phenomenal. There's your market for 4,000 new titles a year, right there.
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Jonathan Burke said:Rosie Perera said:
As of March of this year, at Camp Logos, one of the Logos people quoted a figure of about 3/4 million customers. That number has surely gone up since then with the popularity of L4.
That's phenomenal. There's your market for 4,000 new titles a year, right there.
Yes, but the vast majority of users never buy anything beyond their base packages. Probably relatively few even go back to the Logos website after making their initial purchase. Just to get an idea, only 28,000 users are registered on the Forum. Indeed there are probably plenty more who read the forums as lurkers but never post or even register, so say that figure is quadrupled. It's still only a tiny fraction of all the Logos users. The potential market might be out there, but judging by how many pre-pubs get stuck not being able to reach 100% for years, the titles are not interesting people, or are too expensive (large bundles instead of being able to buy a couple of books at a time), or the marketing materials (blog and pre-pub feeds on Home Page, occasional emails) aren't reaching people.
I think they need to be more pro-active about showing people what resources they have lots of links to in their library but don't own yet, and suggest (from within the software) that they might want to buy. They'd need to be smart about such recommendations so that they don't become annoying. I.e., only recommend products that are linked to from within resources that the user has actually opened to the pages where those links are.
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Rosie Perera said:
Yes, but the vast majority of users never buy anything beyond their base packages.
Understood, but the number of prepubs I've bought in the last three years tells me there's still a very large number of people buying a lot more. I realise why I'm going to have to wait a while for Migne, and Grenfell & Hunt (and where is Inscriptiones Graecae?). They're hardly mainstream products. On the other hand, the vast majority of what I have placed on prepub has come through within 3-6 months.
Rosie Perera said:I think they need to be more pro-active about showing people what resources they have lots of links to in their library but don't own yet, and suggest (from within the software) that they might want to buy. They'd need to be smart about such recommendations so that they don't become annoying. I.e., only recommend products that are linked to from within resources that the user has actually opened to the pages where those links are.
This makes good sense.
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Rosie Perera said:
I think they need to be more pro-active about showing people what resources they have lots of links to in their library but don't own yet, and suggest (from within the software) that they might want to buy.
You know what would be an interesting idea, is that when you buy a package, you get all the resources, but the ones you have not purchased you get like 5 chances to look at it, then it's locked There would have to be a status on the screen saying this is a freebie view, 1 of 5, etc This may violate copyright or their deals with publishers, but it would sure spur sales if everything that came out you got and had 5 clicks to look through it!
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Rosie Perera said:
I think they need to be more pro-active about showing people what resources they have lots of links to in their library but don't own yet, and suggest (from within the software) that they might want to buy.
Maybe, but if I just spent several hundred dollars on a software package, I would not want a pop-up window appearing every time I clicked a reference that I did not own. Maybe having un-owned resources which are available via LOGOS display in a different color (GREEN?) - if I click it, then a small, highlighted, footnote could appear at the bottom of the screen.
If the "pro-active" technology was very intrusive, I might be tempted to use one of the other products and/or recommend another product to friends, etc. Now, it is just my enemies that get a recommendation to other products [6].
Blessings,
FloydPastor-Patrick.blogspot.com
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Dominick Sela said:
You know what would be an interesting idea, is that when you buy a package, you get all the resources, but the ones you have not purchased you get like 5 chances to look at it, then it's locked There would have to be a status on the screen saying this is a freebie view, 1 of 5, etc This may violate copyright or their deals with publishers, but it would sure spur sales if everything that came out you got and had 5 clicks to look through it!
That's a cool idea. Kind of like free software trials that expire and you have to buy them if you want to keep using them. I'm sure studies have been done as to whether that model is effective. It must be, because companies keep using it. I'm sure publishers would be hard to convince, but Logos could point out to them that people can go into a bookstore and browse through any book for free, but if they want to keep it they have to pay for it. The tricky part with a digital book is that during the free view period, people could copy a significant portion of it in chunks and save it somewhere, so publishers would not be thrilled to give people a free crack at it. In a bookstore, you'd be noticed if you brought a pocket scanner in with you and tried to steal content that way. Maybe it could be limited by not being able to select in it or copy from it during the free trial views which would solve that concern.
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What is the most active pre-pubs anyone has seen on the list. Does it usually stay under ten?
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Rosie Perera said:
Yes, but the vast majority of users never buy anything beyond their base packages.
The newspaper style homepage in L4 will hopefully contribute to changing that.
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Paul said:
What is the most active pre-pubs anyone has seen on the list. Does it usually stay under ten?
Not sure what you mean by "does it usually stay under ten" (you mean under ten percent?) -- no, many pre-pubs do make it all the way up to 100% and go into "under contract" and eventually are produced and shipped. If you go to the pre-pubs page and click to sort by Ship Date, then click to jump to the Gathering Interest section, you'll see several that are getting very close to 100% and many that are way over the halfway mark.
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Yikes, I'm mixing up my names.
I meant to say...
What is the largest number of active community pricing selections anyone has seen on the community pricing page at one time?
Rosie - I kept reading your post until I realized where I goofed!
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Paul said:
Yikes, I'm mixing up my names.
I meant to say...
What is the largest number of active community pricing selections anyone has seen on the community pricing page at one time?
Rosie - I kept reading your post until I realized where I goofed!
Oh, that explains it! I guess I answered a question you didn't have. Oh well.
I've only been aware of community pricing for the last year or so, so I can't answer from historical experience. In this time I've never seen it go above ten, though. I'd like to see some of the public domain works that have been languishing as pre-pubs get moved to CP. I think they might have a better chance of flying there. If they did that, I bet we'd see the number go up significantly higher than 10.
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I would love to see that happen!!! Logos would still make its money.....Likely more since they would get many more overall purchases. Yes, it would be at a lower price point but I really don't see that being an issue. However, I would like to see some prepubs go gold before too long.Rosie Perera said:I'd like to see some of the public domain works that have been languishing as pre-pubs get moved to CP.
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William Bingham said:
I would like to see some prepubs go gold before too long.
Ditto. None of the over 100 "under contract" pre-pubs that I have on order has an anticipated ship date. That's very discouraging. And it's not even taking into account all the "gathering interest" ones!
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Dominick Sela said:
when you buy a package, you get all the resources, but the ones you have not purchased you get like 5 chances to look at it, then it's locked There would have to be a status on the screen saying this is a freebie view, 1 of 5, etc
That might be welcome by some. Others may hate it like the 90 day trial of Office that gets packaged with new computers.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Rosie Perera said:
Ditto. None of the over 100 "under contract" pre-pubs that I have on order has an anticipated ship date. That's very discouraging. And it's not even taking into account all the "gathering interest" ones!
Would it be difficult to add a bar graph to the "Under Developement" titles -- Similar to the "Gathering Interest" titles? There wouldn't have to be a set shipping date but at least we can anticipate a general time frame.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Matthew C Jones said:
Would it be difficult to add a bar graph to the "Under Developement" titles -- Similar to the "Gathering Interest" titles? There wouldn't have to be a set shipping date but at least we can anticipate a general time frame.
I'm guessing it would look somewhat like this:
[sn][:(]
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