Would like to see these in Vyrso!
Comments
-
alabama24 said:
I have suggested a number of times that Logos should release some works on Vyrso (at a higher price point) that serves as a "pre-pub" price for books designated for Logos. It would provide immediate access to new, important works, and ensure that the right kinds of resources end up in Logos.
That's a great idea!
0 -
-
John Allen: The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution
This should sell pretty well, I would think, if you get it while it is still fairly new.
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
0 -
Is there a reason you still have no books from Ignatius Press in Vyrso, although you have a good relationship with them for Logos? Is it meaningful to suggest books from them here?
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
0 -
Great question fgh! Thus far Bob has wanted to avoid putting Catholic books into Vyrso. However, you are more than welcome to make suggestions!
0 -
Brian Williams said:
Thus far Bob has wanted to avoid putting Catholic books into Vyrso.
Now, that's what I call an interesting piece of information! Perhaps you can also [ask Bob to] tell me why exactly I should support a company that consistently treats Catholics similar to Blacks in the South in the 50-ies? Good enough to earn money on, but not good enough to be let in through the front door and treated as equals. Not good enough for Vyrso. Not good enough for a Catholic subforum. Not good enough for the Catholic base packages or the Verbum website to be findable from logos.com. Hidden away out of sight, like something you're ashamed of.
Besides, I've got news for you and Bob: you already have Catholic books in Vyrso. Not many, but you do have them. You even made a Catholic writer Author of the Month once. Or have you forgotten that Brennan Manning's Catholic?
The thread that made me ask the question was More Ignatius Press Books, Please. Some of the books there would be good for Vyrso. But perhaps I should make a list of Catholic books to remove from Vyrso instead, so they don't hurt anyone's eyes or infect the other books somehow?
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
0 -
fgh said:
Or have you forgotten that Brennan Manning's Catholic?
The Brennan Manning sale was a direct response from Dan Pritchett to an email request I sent to commemorate Manning's passing.
If we are going to ban books from Vyrso let us start with the "Amish Romances."
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
0 -
Brennan Manning was Author of the Month in July 2012:
He didn't die until April 2013.
Thus no connection whatsoever.
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
0 -
fgh said:
He didn't die until April 2013.
Thus no connection whatsoever
I am unaware of the "Author of the Month" details but I guarantee you Logos had a sale when Manning passed. (And I had requested Dan to create such a sale.) I made no claims to the Author of the Month accolades.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
0 -
Super.Tramp said:
I made no claims to the Author of the Month accolades.
You sure sounded like you did:
fgh said:You even made a Catholic writer Author of the Month once. Or have you forgotten that Brennan Manning's Catholic?
Super.Tramp said:The Brennan Manning sale was a direct response from Dan Pritchett to an email request I sent to commemorate Manning's passing.
Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2
0 -
Brian Williams said:
Thus far Bob has wanted to avoid putting Catholic books into Vyrso. However, you are more than welcome to make suggestions!
Allowing that Bob doesn't want to put (more) Catholic books in Vyrso, Brian, could we please have a forum to make suggestions for Catholic books in Logos? If we had such a forum, our suggestions would seem much more welcome, among other (important) things.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
0 -
SineNomine said:
Brian, could we please have a forum to make suggestions for Catholic books in Logos?
There has always been such a forum. It is called the SUGGESTIONS forum... EDIT: I just noticed that there are sub forums for various other groups. There should be one for Verbum resources.
fgh: I don't think any offense was meant, and YES, there are some Catholic resources in Vyrso. I personally don't mind having a wider demographic, but with a few exceptions, Vyrso has really always been the ebook version of the "local american, 'broadly evangelical' book store".
0 -
alabama24 said:
There has always been such a forum. It is called the SUGGESTIONS forum... EDIT: I just noticed that there are sub forums for various other groups. There should be one for Verbum resources.
Yup, and most suggestions that go in the Suggestions forum feel like they are going into a black hole, because there is no product specialist assigned to respond to people's suggestions there. We are told that they all get logged in some big spreadsheet in the sky, or rather in Logos HQ, from which point the process is totally opaque to us. Maybe they track how many times each title is requested and wait until they are popular enough before going to bat with the publishers for them. Or maybe they wait until they have a sufficient number of titles from a given publisher to make a case for starting up a relationship with said publisher. We have no idea.
At least with the denomination-specific forums there is someone paying direct attention to the suggestions, and often giving us back encouraging replies such as "Good idea" or "I'm working on it" or "you might want to keep your eyes on pre-pub; hint, hint. [;)]"
Since there is a Catholic Product Manager, it makes total sense for there to be a Catholic Products suggestion forum, like with the other groups with product mangers that have subforums. I see no reason to intentionally exclude Catholic as a forum name, unless they're worried that it might be offputting to anti-Catholic Protestants visiting forums.logos.com. However, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's because they simply haven't yet seen all our multiple requests for a Catholic sub-forum. How loud do we need to shout?
0 -
-
Brian Williams said:
Great question fgh! Thus far Bob has wanted...
I apologize for the confusion. Brian works remotely and we haven't discussed this in a very long time -- I don't even recall the details of the conversation.
My position is -- and has been for a long time -- that we want to offer lots of books from a wide range of perspectives. Clearly we offer works by both protestant and Catholic authors; I was also the person to initiate and push for Noet, which offers books outside of religion as well.
I'm pro-lots-of-books.
My only concern about what books are sold where is 'the collective you.' Many users have expressed a desire to see more labels on books so they know what perspective an author is likely taking, which tradition its from, etc. Some of you want to read widely and don't mind everything served in one place, and others care a lot about 'putting stuff on the right shelf.' That's why we have Logos, Vyrso, Verbum, Noet, and (now) many denominational base packages -- to 'shelve' the books by categories. (Of denomination and even type -- Logos/Vyrso.)
Part of the segmentation is based on market demands; part is based on market size. We used to sell Catholic material at Logos.com when we had small sales in that category. When we had more we could afford to build a custom site, brand, etc. We did that because BOTH protestant and Catholic customers asked us to provide clarity in which books reflected which traditions. In the same way we have some other denominational packages at Logos.com that don't have their own site now, but might in the future. (The same is true for languages, for example, with Spanish having more support and French/German/etc. just a few pages -- for now.)
This is always in flux, always changing, and always reflects YOU, the customers: what you tell us about the labels/segmentation you (collectively) want, and what YOU tell us about how much we can invest in this based on your (collective) investment. Please don't read anything into today's segments / web pages / brands other than "this is what we have to offer today." There's no big scandal here, and no plan to hide/ignore a certain set of books. There's just the slow development of our sites, our brands, our publisher relationships, our market, etc.
-- Bob
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
I apologize for the confusion. Brian works remotely and we haven't discussed this in a very long time -- I don't even recall the details of the conversation.
My position is -- and has been for a long time -- that we want to offer lots of books from a wide range of perspectives. Clearly we offer works by both protestant and Catholic authors; I was also the person to initiate and push for Noet, which offers books outside of religion as well.
I'm pro-lots-of-books.
My only concern about what books are sold where is 'the collective you.' Many users have expressed a desire to see more labels on books so they know what perspective an author is likely taking, which tradition its from, etc. Some of you want to read widely and don't mind everything served in one place, and others care a lot about 'putting stuff on the right shelf.' That's why we have Logos, Vyrso, Verbum, Noet, and (now) many denominational base packages -- to 'shelve' the books by categories. (Of denomination and even type -- Logos/Vyrso.)
Part of the segmentation is based on market demands; part is based on market size. We used to sell Catholic material at Logos.com when we had small sales in that category. When we had more we could afford to build a custom site, brand, etc. We did that because BOTH protestant and Catholic customers asked us to provide clarity in which books reflected which traditions. In the same way we have some other denominational packages at Logos.com that don't have their own site now, but might in the future. (The same is true for languages, for example, with Spanish having more support and French/German/etc. just a few pages -- for now.)
This is always in flux, always changing, and always reflects YOU, the customers: what you tell us about the labels/segmentation you (collectively) want, and what YOU tell us about how much we can invest in this based on your (collective) investment. Please don't read anything into today's segments / web pages / brands other than "this is what we have to offer today." There's no big scandal here, and no plan to hide/ignore a certain set of books. There's just the slow development of our sites, our brands, our publisher relationships, our market, etc.
Bob, thank you for the thorough and honest reply.
Can you answer the other question that's been running along in parallel, as to why there is no subforum for suggesting Catholic/Verbum resources, when there are such sub-forums for Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Orthodox, Pentecostal/Charismatic, and SDA, and Vyrso and Noet: i.e., all the product categories that have Product Managers? Could there please be one added for Catholic too, since there's a Catholic product manager, and we otherwise have no way to get his attention when we're making resource suggestions? Thanks!
0 -
Rosie Perera said:
Yup, and most suggestions that go in the Suggestions forum feel like they are going into a black hole, because there is no product specialist assigned to respond to people's suggestions there.
I'm sorry it feels that way; it isn't true. Someone reads all those suggestions and logs them.
Licensing is complicated and involves people more than process. When you request Red Book, we don't just hop on the phone with publisher of Red Book and say "send a license!" That publisher may have recently told us "We're hiring a new permissions manager; let's talk in July." Or we may have a sit-down meeting scheduled for ICRS (International Christian Retail Show) in a month or two, and believe it would be more productive to arrive there with a list of 20 titles we want to license than to send 20 emails on 20 different days, filling their inbox and creating extra work.
The job of reading the suggest forum and logging suggestions is essentially a clerical task. The person doing it doesn't know the status of the discussions / contract negotiations / etc. with the publisher. To find out, for each request, would take a very significant amount of time on their part and on the part of the multiple publisher-relations reps -- time I'd rather they spend talking to publishers.
Like so many of the "Why won't you give us status updates?!?!" questions over the years, the answer here is because it take a lot of time away from the actual work you want done. And, on top of that, it's a negotiation process (terms, royalty rates, author feelings, etc.), and negotiations often don't work as well if there's a public audience getting blow-by-blow updates.
Rosie Perera said:We are told that they all get logged in some big spreadsheet in the sky, or rather in Logos HQ, from which point the process is totally opaque to us.
True.
Rosie Perera said:Maybe they track how many times each title is requested and wait until they are popular enough before going to bat with the publishers for them. Or maybe they wait until they have a sufficient number of titles from a given publisher to make a case for starting up a relationship with said publisher.
Both of these are true, though even one request can be enough. But lots of requests goes higher on the list.
Rosie Perera said:We have no idea.
Now you do. :-)
0 -
Rosie Perera said:
as to why there is no subforum for suggesting Catholic/Verbum resources
I have no idea. I sent an email asking that we make one.
I have some vague recollection that we talked about this early on and thought that since the Verbum app and site mirrored the Logos app/site there was no reason to have a separate forum: a question about 'how does resource priority work?' in the Verbum forum would be useful to people in the Logos General forum, and we'd just be duplicating/separating relevant answers. But that thinking was before the new denominational base packages, and there's no reason we can't do it now. (I also feel like we thought we'd eventually just have Verbum forums -- since Verbum has its own top level site -- but we lost our forum developer, which slowed forums work down, and the big Verbum.com launch took longer than planned, which we wanted to do first and just got up recently....
In other words, this isn't a 'won't do it' but more of a 'didn't get to it / hadn't thought about it again recently'... but we're on it now.
0 -
Thank you for stepping in and clarifying your position. I do appreciate the breadth of what you wish to carry. However, I still suspect one minor misjudgment of the market on your part.
Bob Pritchett said:We did that because BOTH protestant and Catholic customers asked us to provide clarity in which books reflected which traditions.
There is a group of Catholics who requested identification of their resources - they tended to represent the more conservative side of the Church with little recognition of the Eastern rites. As such, they represent a small slice of your potential market. It is also true that there is a group of Protestants who are very concerned about keeping Logos "orthodox" in the sense of having Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses ... etc. clearly identified. This ia a sufficiently large market share that you are correct in trying to meet their concerns. Where I believe you went awry was in assuming that the "middle way" semi-protestant groups (Anglican and Lutheran) associate themselves more with the Logos side than the Verbum side. While there are many Orthodox who identify themselves as "NOT Catholic", they tend to be comfortable with the Anglicans - or at least the high Anglicans. I therefore believe that if you listen to your market, the major division is what I call ACELO (Anglican-Catholic-Eastern Orthodox-Lutheran-Oriental Orthodox) vs. the rest of Christianity or loosely speaking, liturgical vs. nonliturgical churches. Yes, there are a number of individuals and churches that would still be in the gray area between Logos and Verbum but suspicions of prejudice would be minimized.
ACELO churches common features:
- recognize some group of deuterocanonical books (i.e. expanded canon)
- use liturgical calendar
- have a calendar of saints
- use a lectionary with multiple readings
- use a ritual book for primary service
- have a form of psalm based daily prayer
- have formal church documents
- use traditional, creedal and/or confessional elements in hermenuetics
- similar sacramental theology
- similar liturgical theology
- similar mystical theology
See why they belong together? Together they represent 31.5% percent of Americans or 1,746,000,000 people world-wide
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:In other words, this isn't a 'won't do it' but more of a 'didn't get to it / hadn't thought about it again recently'... but we're on it now.
That makes sense.
Bob Pritchett said:I have no idea. I sent an email asking that we make one.
Thanks. That usually ensures that something will get done.
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
Like so many of the "Why won't you give us status updates?!?!" questions over the years, the answer here is because it take a lot of time away from the actual work you want done. And, on top of that, it's a negotiation process (terms, royalty rates, author feelings, etc.), and negotiations often don't work as well if there's a public audience getting blow-by-blow updates.
Wasn't asking for status updates, just the friendly public face of a product manager who regularly reassures us that he (or she) appreciates our suggestions and is doing what he can to advocate for them. A number of them have been doing that on the denominational product forums. Perhaps you wish they didn't spend any time doing that but spent all their time negotiating with publishers. Well, we like it that they drop in on the forums every now and then. [:)] Just as we like it that you do too, even though we know you have way more important things to be dealing with. Good customer relations are important to the long-term health of the company.
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:Rosie Perera said:
as to why there is no subforum for suggesting Catholic/Verbum resources
I have no idea. I sent an email asking that we make one.
Thank you very much! [Y][Y]
Bob Pritchett said:In other words, this isn't a 'won't do it' but more of a 'didn't get to it / hadn't thought about it again recently'... but we're on it now.
I thought (and hoped) it was just something along those lines. [:)]
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
0 -
Now that you have a separate Verbum page, I have a suggestion for the forums page. You have a set of links to allow one to quickly navigate to other Logos sites. Add a link at the top of the page to Verbum.com like you have for Logos.com.
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:Rosie Perera said:
as to why there is no subforum for suggesting Catholic/Verbum resources
I have no idea. I sent an email asking that we make one.
...
In other words, this isn't a 'won't do it' but more of a 'didn't get to it / hadn't thought about it again recently'... but we're on it now.
Is it too early to ask for an update on this? I just want to know for sure that it's in the pipeline.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
0 -
I would like to see James Davison Hunter's To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.
0 -
That looks like a great book Rosie! I'll see what we can do about getting Oxford University Press into Vyrso.
0 -
That would be great, Brian! OUP has an astounding number of high quality books on Christianity and related topics, including excellent reference books. I was in England recently and stopped into the OUP store in Oxford the other day and couldn't help myself. Bought up 6 volumes of their "Very Short Introductions" series, which were on 2-for-1 sale. Would love to have an OUP Very Short Introductions collection in Logos/Vyrso!
0 -
How about Donald Miller's workbook, Storyline: Finding Your Subplot in God's Story ?
0 -
Storyline is a self-published title through Amazon, this decision has excluded the title from being sold at other ebook retailers–including Vyrso/Logos. Unfortunately, we won't be able to sell the title for the time being.
0 -
Brian Williams said:
Storyline is a self-published title through Amazon, this decision has excluded the title from being sold at other ebook retailers–including Vyrso/Logos. Unfortunately, we won't be able to sell the title for the time being.
Bummer, but not surprising. I noticed it wasn't available in Kindle format, so I was guessing it wouldn't be able to be done in Vyrso but thought it was worth asking anyway. Oh well.
0
