Provide correspondence for the product wishlist on the Wiki.
I was curious as to who maintains and even looks at the wiki's product wishlist, since I added a few...
- Commentary and Reference Survey. John Glynn. Kregel Academic & Professional.
- Keep in Step with the Spirit. J. I. Packer. Baker Books.
- Old Testament Commentary Survey. Tremper Longman III. Baker Academic.
- When People are Big and God is Small. Edward T. Welch. P & R Publishing
...which made me think that it would be really cool if Logos had a separate list, that users couldn't edit, of resources they've committed to obtaining the rights to that would eventually have each item marked by "Acquired" or "Failed".
Comments
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I agree that this would be nice.
For some resources, I may withhold buying a different format (Kindle, Digital Editions, hard copy) if I know for sure that Logos is going to add it (having it in Logos is the best). But if I think it will take them a few years to get to it or that they may never get to it, it would be nice to know so I can get in a different format.
perspectivelyspeaking.wordpress.com
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I don't know the entire process it takes for getting a book from the request stage through being available for users to buy. But I'm guessing it goes something like this: 1. User suggests it -- perhaps several others chime in saying they think it's a good idea.
2. Logos notices the request and discusses it amongst themselves
3. Logos decides either "too small a potential market, not worth our time" or "yes, we think that's a good idea and we'll add it to our to-do list, but we're awfully busy right now with lots of other books we've been wanting to do so we'll get to it when we get to it."
Some time goes by....when they actually take it off the "someday" list and actively start pursuing rights is a mystery to me. They have their priorities.
4. Logos approaches publisher about obtaining rights
More time goes by
5. Publisher agrees (or not)
6. Logos and publisher sign a contract contingent upon enough interest being raised through pre-pub program [actually, I'm not sure whether a formal contract gets signed here or after reaching 100% in pre-pub]
7. Logos puts the book in pre-pub and waits for interest to reach a certain critical level
8. Users sign up to order the book via pre-pub
More time goes buy until user interest reaches 100% of critical level needed to proceed
9. Now a final contract gets signed to proceed with production [again, I'm not sure of this]
10. Logos does production on the title
11. Release of book and party time!
I'm not sure they would want to tell us which books they are pursuing publication rights to. That might be an intentionally well-guarded secret, since competitors might be trying to get the digital rights to the same books.0 -
Rosie Perera said:
I'm not sure they would want to tell us which books they are pursuing publication rights to. That might be an intentionally well-guarded secret, since competitors might be trying to get the digital rights to the same books.
Interesting point, but many e-books are available on many different formats. So I don't know why it would make too big a difference in any case. For example, I have a book in Adobe Digital Editions, but I know for a fact that it is also available for Kindle, Mobi, and Microsoft Reader. I guess it would be advantageous for Logos... but I'm not sure it would be for the publisher.
I'm not sure how Amazon does it with Kindle, but they apparently have a very fast system for doing this. On *several* occasions I have suggested that they make a book available in Kindle format and they have done it in just a matter of days. Of course, it would take a little longer for Logos because of formatting/tagging, etc. and I suppose Logos doesn't have as much influence as Amazon does.
perspectivelyspeaking.wordpress.com
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The simplified process: (Though Rosie's guess is pretty good -- wrong only in that we don't really discuss a given book much...we just ask for it if you ask for it.)
1) Email the suggestion to suggest@logos.com. (In reality, we also scan for ideas, and many users insist on emailing them directly to me. And then I forward them to suggest@logos.com. :-) )
2) Periodically the suggest email folder is harvested, and books are added to a spreadsheet, or a "vote" is added.
3) When meetings / calls come up with a publisher, the list is pulled out and we ask for the books on it, in roughly voted priority. (There are lots of variables here, ranging from publisher interest in e-book licensing to how many books of theirs we've already licensed and haven't yet pushed through pre-pub, etc.)
-- Bob
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Bob, do you harvest book suggestions from the Forum too, or should we (forum posters and/or MVPs) be funneling them to suggest@logos.com?
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Thank you so much. I was unsure if the book suggestions on the Wiki were looked at at all. Now I know suggest@logos.com is a surefire way of getting my request heard. Thanks!!
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Rosie Perera said:
Bob, do you harvest book suggestions from the Forum too, or should we (forum posters and/or MVPs) be funneling them to suggest@logos.com?
Glad you asked that Rosie, I was going to ask the same thing. (so that makes this an unnecessary post right? Is Solidarity unnecessary?)
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
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Sam Shaw said:
- Old Testament Commentary Survey. Tremper Longman III. Baker Academic.
+1 [Y]
I was so focused on answering Sam's surrounding question/suggestion that I forgot to look specifically at his recommended book list. I want to give a big thumbs up for Baker's OT Commentary Survey. Logos has the corresponding NT Commentary Survey (part of the Baker New Testament Studies Collection), and I've been looking for the OT one lately and been frustrated that it wasn't there. It should be part of the Baker Old Testament Studies Collection! I like symmetry.
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Rosie Perera said:
Bob, do you harvest book suggestions from the Forum too, or should we (forum posters and/or MVPs) be funneling them to suggest@logos.com?
Forum looks a good place for harvesting the books because Logos can see the reaction of other people on the given suggestion. If we just send the suggestion to the email, no other people can know about it and support the suggestion. It stays then just as a suggestion of one person.
Bohuslav
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:Rosie Perera said:
Bob, do you harvest book suggestions from the Forum too, or should we (forum posters and/or MVPs) be funneling them to suggest@logos.com?
Forum looks a good place for harvesting the books because Logos can see the reaction of other people on the given suggestion. If we just send the suggestion to the email, no other people can know about it and support the suggestion. It stays then just as a suggestion of one person.
Yes, true, but posting book suggestions on the Forum has been feeling like a black hole because we get no feedback that anyone is looking at them. At least with the email address we get an automated reply saying they'll take all our suggestions into consideration. I'm not saying I don't trust that someone checks the forum periodically for new suggestions. But...um...no evidence really so far that they've had time to look, with everything else on their plate. Even a simple reply saying "this suggestion has been acknowledged" would be nice. Not a promise that they're actually going to do anything about it, but just that they saw it and probably logged it in a list they're keeping somewhere and are waiting to see how much interest there is in it. Actually, maybe it's a better use of their time to leave these threads sitting here un-looked-at for a long time to see how many of us notice them and pipe in with our +1's... :-) But they aren't likely to ever get noticed by other users even, unless there is a collated list somewhere in a public place (like on the wiki) where people can scan it and see if what they're about to suggest has already been suggested so they can just +1 it, or scan to see if there are any books other people have suggested which they themselves hadn't thought to request yet but which, on seeing them there, would make them go "Yeah!"
This is why having a correspondence for the product wishlist on the wiki, as Sam suggested, would be a great idea. Someone's got to take that on, though. And I...alas...am pretty maxed out already. Anyway, I wouldn't take it on without Logos agreeing to use it as a clearinghouse for this sort of info and giving us feedback when they'd decided to go ahead and pursue a particular diea (the way they've been responding back once bugs are fixed on the wiki bug page).
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Yes, Rosi, I agree with all you just said. It would be great to get some kind of confirmation from Logos that they noticed... but you know, how we humans work. You would see than posts saying: "Bob/Dan/Melissa etc. said... and it means we will see the book soon. How it is we do not see it already? You promised...[:)]
When we want something really a lot, we take any word as promise. Just to "warm up my pot of soup" (as we say it in Czech) when Bob just asked me in one earlier thread for the contacts on the Czech Bibles publishers, I took it as a finished deal already. I would be really disappointed if we do not see those Bibles published soon. May be that's just me but I suspect some more people are like that [:)]
Bohuslav
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Bohuslav Wojnar said:
Yes, Rosi, I agree with all you just said. It would be great to get some kind of confirmation from Logos that they noticed... but you know, how we humans work. You would see than posts saying: "Bob/Dan/Melissa etc. said... and it means we will see the book soon. How it is we do not see it already? You promised...
When we want something really a lot, we take any word as promise. Just to "warm up my pot of soup" (as we say it in Czech) when Bob just asked me in one earlier thread for the contacts on the Czech Bibles publishers, I took it as a finished deal already. I would be really disappointed if we do not see those Bibles published soon. May be that's just me but I suspect some more people are like that
Bohuslav, you're right! I do hope you get to see a Czech Bible soon in Logos.
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I don't know where the hangup is with getting a Czech Bible in Logos format - whether the push to get L4 out, or licensing, or $$, or what. But, maybe if Logos could put a Czech Bible out on the Pre-Pub or the Community Pricing, we could get as many Logos customers as possible to pledge to buy a copy thereby demonstrating some verifiable demand and help Bohuslav get his warm pot of soup. I don't speak or read Czech as well as he speaks and reads English [;)] but I would certainly be willing to help him get his wish if all it took was a pledge/purchase.
Instead of Artificial Intelligence, I prefer to continue to rely on Divine Intelligence instructing my Natural Dullness (Ps 32:8, John 16:13a)
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JRS said:
I don't know where the hangup is with getting a Czech Bible in Logos format - whether the push to get L4 out, or licensing, or $, or what. But, maybe if Logos could put a Czech Bible out on the Pre-Pub or the Community Pricing, we could get as many Logos customers as possible to pledge to buy a copy thereby demonstrating some verifiable demand and help Bohuslav get his warm pot of soup. I don't speak or read Czech as well as he speaks and reads English
but I would certainly be willing to help him get his wish if all it took was a pledge/purchase. I would gladly do that too, for Brother Bohuslav. That's part of being a community of faith (as well as software users)! :-)
Bohuslav, is the Czech Bible text available in the public domain? If there are no licensing problems with it, maybe as a preliminary step you (or someone who is adept at making PBBs) could turn it into a PBB for Libronix (Logos 3). It would then automatically get imported into L4 whenever Logos gets the PBB importing implemented which is supposed to be by the end of the 2nd quarter of 2010.
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