Weird
I find it weird that certain books from Christian publishing houses don't make it to Logos or Faithlife ebooks and yet we're being offered some very strange titles, that I wouldn't expect to find in Faithlife ebooks:
https://ebooks.faithlife.com/product/274448/take-back-the-magic-conversations-with-the-unseen-world
https://ebooks.faithlife.com/product/266922/the-negroni-a-love-affair-with-a-classic-cocktail
And a whole load of books on presumably secular musicians, eg:
https://ebooks.faithlife.com/product/270187/david-bowie-starman
Without passing judgement on these books, my point is more about why we can be offered these books and yet Logos don't offer the whole catalogue from certain Christian publishing houses - in whichever format to meet a publisher's wishes.
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For the same reason that the PL480 library (books from developing countries in exchange for foreign aid for food) which originally included everything published in the country but was revised to allow libraries to do some screening, had a 5 foot stack of books in Bengali on Bengali cricket players. I think the expectation of whole catalogues is unrealistic and possibly not even possible as publishers own different rights for different books. Books that have rights owned by heirs appear to more frequently have issues.
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."
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For the same reason that the PL480 library (books from developing countries in exchange for foreign aid for food) which originally included everything published in the country but was revised to allow libraries to do some screening, had a 5 foot stack of books in Bengali on Bengali cricket players. I think the expectation of whole catalogues is unrealistic and possibly not even possible as publishers own different rights for different books. Books that have rights owned by heirs appear to more frequently have issues.
And yet my 2nd favourite Bible software company seems to be able to offer more complete offerings from the major Christian book publishers. I'd have thought Logos would have more sales with what I deem to be "missing" books than the rather odd assortment we're being offered (in addition to the books we might expect to see) and I'd have thought Christian book publishers would be delighted to supply Logos.
Obviously there may be "rights" issues, but given my 2nd favourite Bible software company don't appear to have a problem offering these "missing" books, it makes you wonder.....
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Faithlife is a company that makes our bible software. A discerning customer just won't buy the books you mention. But for the same reason I buy the Ultimate Base Packages someone might require these resources.
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As I recall, Logos has not been able to reach agreements with certain rightsholders for copyrighted works.
as for what pops up as a FL ebook, that’s always been a head scratcher.
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Verbum Max0 -
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."
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Originally, I expected that Logos was a good source of curated books, with some assurance of quality and trustworthy content. That was purely an expectation. And until recently, I found that to be true. No longer. The Logos name is no longer associated with trustworthy Biblical resources. I only buy very cautiously with outside research. And in the future, I will direct young people to consider alternatives to Logos. I sure wish it hadn't' turned out that way.
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Originally, I expected that Logos was a good source of curated books, with some assurance of quality and trustworthy content. That was purely an expectation. And until recently, I found that to be true. No longer. The Logos name is no longer associated with trustworthy Biblical resources. I only buy very cautiously with outside research. And in the future, I will direct young people to consider alternatives to Logos. I sure wish it hadn't' turned out that way.
Your assumption might well be more true of the Logos storefront, but clearly not true of the Faithlife ebooks storefront. What surprises me with the Faithlife ebooks store, is that the books that surprise me, don't seem to come from publishers that sell many Christian books.
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What surprises me with the Faithlife ebooks store, is that the books that surprise me, don't seem to come from publishers that sell many Christian books.
If you read Bob's post in the forum tread I posted above, this will cease to surprise you - it was anticipated when the store was opened.
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."
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What surprises me with the Faithlife ebooks store, is that the books that surprise me, don't seem to come from publishers that sell many Christian books.
All those "weird ones" used to be visible only in the "general" ebooks store - people complained that it's cumbersome to search multiple stores for free and discounted books. It seems the books are now more cross-listed, but that shows those general books in the Faithlife store.
Have joy in the Lord!
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I'll just reiterate my bigger point was "I find it weird that certain books from Christian publishing houses don't make it to Logos". And many of these missing books are from popular authors with major Christian publishing houses.
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I'll just reiterate my bigger point was "I find it weird that certain books from Christian publishing houses don't make it to Logos". And many of these missing books are from popular authors with major Christian publishing houses.
My understanding would be that some publishers just don't want to work with Logos at all. Others want to do only specific contractual relations which may result in only Logos editions or only eBooks becoming available (Abingdon being a major example). One major problem is that the margin Logos makes on eBooks is very very small, thus it is not sustainable for them to bring out a majority of resources in eBook format. The prices for those need to be comparable to Amazon prices or are even fixed by the publishers. Then there's the problem that Logos doesn't have the production bandwidth to really bring over all books they would want to as Logos editions (and it takes ages to do so). At least in some cases, they on purpose don't bring out a book as an eBook if they think there could be a slim change that they want to produce the same as a Logos edition years down the road (which for most of those will mean we don't get them at all).
It's a very difficult situation and the only real solution into the direction of getting all relevant Christan books into Logos (at least all that are electronically available from publishers willing to sell them) would be to find a way of seeing eBooks and Logos editions not as exclusive, but as development stages. The issue is finding a way to have us pay for the Logos edition when it comes three years after the eBook but contains the same text, just better formatting, links etc. To have us pay the Logos edition up front wouldn't work since most eBooks would never rise up.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Here's an example of a missing book. RT Kendall who succeeded Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel has 47 books in Logos/Faithlife ebooks. Chosen publishers have 390 books in Logos/Faithlife ebooks. Most of RT Kendall's books are available in the Faithlife ebooks store and yet Receiving the Isaac Promise which was published back in August by Chosen is not available despite the ebooks store requiring very little effort on the part of Logos.
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It's a very difficult situation and the only real solution into the direction of getting all relevant Christan books into Logos (at least all that are electronically available from publishers willing to sell them) would be to find a way of seeing eBooks and Logos editions not as exclusive, but as development stages. The issue is finding a way to have us pay for the Logos edition when it comes three years after the eBook but contains the same text, just better formatting, links etc. To have us pay the Logos edition up front wouldn't work since most eBooks would never rise up.
But how...?
Currently, the Logos edition is usually free some years down the road for previous owners of the ebook edition.
If that's changed, and for example the price difference is charged to upgrade to the Logos edition, most users likely won't pay for the upgrade. since the ebook edition is sufficient for basic functions such as reading and searching.
If the upgrade is made mandatory, that would open a massive can of worms, as credit cards get charged years after the purchase without the customers' consent. (So that's not an option at all.)
Likewise, paying up front wouldn't work for reasons already given.
I do have an idea, but it might not be ideal, neither for the customers, nor for FL... The price for the Logos edition would be charged up front. Then FL would have three years to produce the Logos edition or reader edition. If it doesn't happen in the given time frame, the price difference would be refunded to the customer as Logos credit. The downside for the customers would be to pay up front, and possibly never get what they paid for. The downside for FL would be to have to give out free Logos editions if they take more than 3 years to produce the Logos edition, and all the customer payments have already been refunded.
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I suggested an idea to Logos a few years ago. For early adopters of books in the pre-pub program, sell us the ebook for the pre-pub price. That might encourage people to opt into the program early, as currently there's little incentive to pre-order early and this would give Logos a guaranteed income ahead of conversion to a Logos edition.
This still doesn't answer why the example a gave this morning doesn't make it into Faithlife ebooks. The book is available digitally, is from an author and publisher with many books in Logos and is the type of book one would expect in the Faithlife ebooks store and therefore not require any development work.
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Here's what I hope is a good example of weird. I can buy Michael Connelly novels or Killing Eve novels and yet Faithlife ebooks don't have the latest novels by Joel C. Rosenberg published by Tyndale House Publishers. Faithlife carry the first 3 volumes in Marcus Ryker series, but not the latest 2 volumes, despite this being a Christian writer with a Christian publishing house.
I understand Faithlife want to offer "non-Christian" books, but seems odd that they then have gaps from existing authors and publishing houses - especially when both are "Christian", which you would expect to be the core audience.
Interesting I can now buy John McEnroe 's autobiography and Rick Steve's travel guides.
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It's the nature of business.
Just because it's a Christian book, a well-respected Christian book even, doesn't mean Logos can just make it available in their format.
Logos as a business are are chasing sales so they are here tomorrow and the day after that, and so have decided, right or wrong, depending on your perspective to include publishers willing to work with them that include secular books.
Faithlife, right or wrong, depending upon your perspective, don't curate the eBooks they convert to their format they don't even check the quality of the output, they just push the button and wating for the sales to start rolling in, at least in theory.
Am I impressed by the range of books that result? - no
Am I impressed by the quality of the e-books? - no.
Do I find Logos 'marketing' of their e-books accurate - no.
Do I have to purchase them? - no.
Is everything I'd like to have in my digital library in format? - no.
Do I find this situation weird? - no
It's the nature of business.
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It's the nature of business.
Just because it's a Christian book, a well-respected Christian book even, doesn't mean Logos can just make it available in their format.
Logos as a business are are chasing sales so they are here tomorrow and the day after that, and so have decided, right or wrong, depending on your perspective to include publishers willing to work with them that include secular books.
Faithlife, right or wrong, depending upon your perspective, don't curate the eBooks they convert to their format they don't even check the quality of the output, they just push the button and wating for the sales to start rolling in, at least in theory.
Am I impressed by the range of books that result? - no
Am I impressed by the quality of the e-books? - no.
Do I find Logos 'marketing' of their e-books accurate - no.
Do I have to purchase them? - no.
Is everything I'd like to have in my digital library in format? - no.
Do I find this situation weird? - no
It's the nature of business.
I get that. The strange thing is that Logos through the Faithlife ebooks store have 21 books by the author I referred to - all by the publisher I referred to. In addition Logos have over 900 books across the 2 stores from the publisher. Given Faithlife ebooks take little effort to offer, it's strange when such gaps occur.
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