ESV Bible Study seems far more expensive then it should be! I feel like I'm being ripped-off.
I recently purchased your software and although the software itself is excellent, I got a very different impression about the content, the amount of commentaries listed were misleading as the majority seem to be commentaries on single books, rather then the Bible. What I am mainly messaging about is the what seems to be ridiculous price I found to download the ESV study Bible, I found it online for just £7...
While to download a copy for Logos is £39! I bought the software because I didn't want hardcopies, but your prices are FAR more expensive! Why is that?
I would also like to know what resources that come with the Bible Study Package are the most valuable (so I know where my money has gone and what resources I should most make use of).
Kind Regards,
Henry
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Hi Henry - and welcome to the forums, I am glad you are enjoying the software.
Henry Lea said:I got a very different impression about the content, the amount of commentaries listed were misleading as the majority seem to be commentaries on single books, rather then the Bible
The description of the Bible Study Package shows that - in terms of commentaries - it contains:
Some of these are single-volume commentaries on the whole Bible - Bible Knowledge Commentary, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Whole Bible, Holman Concise Bible Commentary, Commentary on the Bible by Matthew Henry and Teacher's Commentary.
This sounds as though they were the sort of resources you were looking for.
Others cover a range of books with - for example - the "Bible Exposition Commentary" covering each New Testament book whereas "Discovering John" just focuses on John's Gospel.
So there are a range of commentaries here as shown in the description of the product and the details available on the Logos website.
Henry Lea said:What I am mainly messaging about is the what seems to be ridiculous price I found to download the ESV study Bible, I found it online for just £7...
The price issue is one which is raised frequently - as sometimes (often) Logos digital books are more expensive than elsewhere. The reason for this is that they need to do work on them to tag them so that they can be fully incorporated into their overall environment to add value during study. The decision that we each need to make is whether this additional benefit is worth the extra cost.
Having said that, sometimes Logos resources are not more expensive than others and they also do some very helpful sales which allow people to pick up resources at very reduced rates. They have recently started giving away some resources for free as well!
The other way Logos make resources available more cheaply is through their "Pre-Pub Programme" - http://www.logos.com/products/search?Status=Pre-Pub - which allows users to place orders before the resources are available resulting in reduced prices. While this doesn't help for resources which have already been published when you start using Logos it is very helpful over the longer term.
Henry Lea said:I would also like to know what resources that come with the Bible Study Package are the most valuable (so I know where my money has gone and what resources I should most make use of).
This is a more difficult question to answer because I don't know what is of value to you.
Do you mean which is the most expensive or which would help you most in your studies?
If the former, then it would involve looking at the individual prices of the products (or collections) on the Logos website. If the latter, then we would need a better understanding of what sort of study you are looking to do.
Hope this is helpful
Graham
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For the same price I've the bought the ESV (brand new version, paperback) at another book store. BTW, the UK Googlestore is maybe not available for US or other residents in other countries. Apparently Google Ebookstore offers a nice deal there, but that's the market! You will always find it cheaper and more expensive elsewhere. Indeed we could also tell other Internet MarketPlaces that they don't offer Bundles like Logos does ... But most probably they would tell you to go for the cheaper in another store. They won't change it because they fix their prices in function of a whole structure. And there are legal restrictions in each country. Example : as I live in Belgium, I will never be suitable to get the Owen collection for free ! because of restrictions :-) At least a chance to win ...
So I would say "yes the ESV is cheaper "there" but you will also find more expensive books "there" than on Logos." I see it as a fact. That's the way the market can actually work. The advantage with Logos is the integration of the ESV in your Logos library that permits instantaneous linking with ALL your resources. Personally there are some books I prefer to handle "physically", such as the Bible (and I have enough Bible in my Logos). And I would pay even more than electronic Bibles just to keep ... the Word of Living God in my hands, everywhere :-) ... "More everywhere" than an eBible ;-) because the Bible has batteries within and eternal ones ... not the ipod/ipad, lol.
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Thank you very much for your reply Graham, that does help shed some light on why it's so much more expensive. However, even though the books are being worked on to integrate them into the software, the price still feels a bit high. The ESV Study Bible is one of your best selling items, it must be costing you around £7 (or less), it would cost me that much to get a soft-copy. You are charging £39, that's 5.5 times the price! On each sale it's an additional £32 and how many have been sold? Hundreds or even thousands I would imagine, if you sold 1000, that means you would be making £32,000, now it may actually cost that much to integrate that Bible into the software, I don't know (it is a big job). But I still feel a bit uncomfortable about the difference in price, it seems a bit too steep for a best selling product, as the more you sell, the more money you raise to pay for the integration. I hope perhaps you can shed a little further light on the situation? That's all my thoughts on pricing.
In regards to the commentaries, thank you for sharing with me which ones cover the whole Bible, that was very useful as I am unfamiliar with a lot of them, plus want to great commentary tabs, permanently open that I know will cover whatever passage I am on.
In regards to the free give aways, I think that's brilliant! I was just wondering though, once a new month arrives, does the previous months free item go back to having a price? As I did notice it's not a list of free items that are being added to monthly, so I've missed out on previously free items?
Finally, in regards to what is of value in the Bile Study Package, I was trying to ask what is the most valuable in terms of cost? The Matthew Henry Commentary for example is widely available, for free, on a lot of websites, so that would be of little value (cost), at least that is the impression I get. Are there any specific resources in the Bible Study Package that cost a lot more then others? Basically, in terms of the books available, where has my money most gone?
One other last thing which I've struggled with, cross references, I know that by using explorer rather then passage guide I can get a more exhaustive list of cross references, but I was hoping that list could be included in the cross references in the passage guide. There is no "more" link to click, that would give me an exhaustive list of the cross references, with the text included. Passage guide states the reference and what the text of that ref is, but doesn't show all the refs. Explorer does show a lot more refs, but doesn't show the text of those refs, if that makes sense? Maybe there is a section of the program I am missing that would provide a list of all the cross references (including the text from those references)?
Thank you very, very much for your quick reply, help and clarification on these things.God Bless,
Henry
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Hi Fabrice, Thanks for the reply. I was just wondering if you have an example of a book that is cheaper on Logos? And also know why that is cheaper when others are more expensive? Is it because they are not linked in the same way? Less work is done on them, therefore less money is spent integrating them, therefore the price can be lower? I would be interested to see an example of a book that is cheaper on logos then elsewhere and know why it's cheaper.
God Bless,Henry
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Hi Henry
Henry Lea said:Thank you very much for your reply Graham, that does help shed some light on why it's so much more expensive
Glad it was helpful.
Henry Lea said:The ESV Study Bible is one of your best selling items
Just to clarify - I don't work for Logos so have no control over any of this. I am just a user, as are most people on these forums, offering my perspective on things. Logos employees on these forums are identified by a Logos icon under their avatar as:
Henry Lea said:plus want to great commentary tabs, permanently open that I know will cover whatever passage I am on.
If you want to do this, then you probably want to look at "linking" your Bible and the commentaries. For more details on this please see http://wiki.logos.com/Linking_Resources
Henry Lea said:In regards to the free give aways, I think that's brilliant! I was just wondering though, once a new month arrives, does the previous months free item go back to having a price? As I did notice it's not a list of free items that are being added to monthly, so I've missed out on previously free items?
That is my understanding - most of them (even thought not all) - are on a limited-time basis and so its worth keeping tabs on what is being offered which may be of interest to you.
Henry Lea said:Are there any specific resources in the Bible Study Package that cost a lot more then others? Basically, in terms of the books available, where has my money most gone?
That's difficult to say without analysing the complete composition of the package, but:
- the 30 volumes of "Opening Up Commentary Collection" is sold by Logos for $279.95
- you have 22 Bibles - and Logos have recently reduced the prices on many Bibles to $10 each which means you are looking at over $200 worth there
- you have some introductions (taking a couple for example) the "Introducing the Old Testament" and "Introducing the New Testament" are sold for between $25-$30
- you have the complete "Old Testament Survey Series" which would normally sell for $25 per volume
- "Great doctrines of the Bible" goes for $45
So, these are some examples, but it is difficult to give a complete breakdown. As you can see from the above, however, even this subset covers the $265 cost of the package.
(Note, the prices I have given here are regular prices from the Logos website - not addressing any question as to whether these are cheaper or more expensive elsewhere)
Henry Lea said:One other last thing which I've struggled with, cross references, I know that by using explorer rather then passage guide I can get a more exhaustive list of cross references, but I was hoping that list could be included in the cross references in the passage guide
Not sure exactly what you mean here. Could you provide a bit more detail, please?
Graham
EDIT: Modified to say "Logos employee" as opposed to "Logos users" as per Kevin's post below
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Graham Criddle said:
Just to clarify - I don't work for Logos so have no control over any of this. I am just a user, as are most people on these forums, offering my perspective on things. Logos users on these forums are identified by a Logos icon under their avatar as:
Graham means Logos employee, not user.
Prov. 15:23
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Thanks Kevin
Good catch!!
I have edited it to correct this.
Graham
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Just to add what has been already said:
Sometimes the publisher sets the price not Logos.
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Thanks again for the reply Graham! Much appreciated.
In regards to cross references, let me try to explain. When you look at the "Passage Guide" you will see a short list of cross references that include the actual text (i.e. "John 3:16 'For God so loved the world'). This list, however, is not exhaustive, it misses a lot of references. You can then try "Explorer" where it gives more verses, but without the text (i.e. Jn3:16,etc). What I was after was a complete list of cross references, with the text, so I could literally find all the cross references to a particular passage, copy all of them, with the text, to a word document, so that I could preach on one specific point and have all the corroborating passages, simply by doing one search. Is that possible? Something that lists all cross references with text?0 -
Hi Henry
If I run a Passage Guide on John 3:16 I get the following in the Cross References box:
:If I open the explorer window I get
So they are giving the same results just presented slightly differently. As you point out, the Explorer window doesn't show any text.
You will also see in the Passage Guide window references to two resources - "The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge" and "The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge" which are very useful resources for what you are wanting to do.
Can you advise whether what you are seeing is different or the same? I am trying to understand how the different Base Packages we have may be affecting what we are seeing here.
If you could post screenshots of what you have that would be useful. For details of doing this, please see http://wiki.logos.com/Screenshot
Graham
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Henry - just to clarify a couple of points: Logos is a value added reseller of eBooks, which are integrated into a sophisticated Bible Study software program. Purchasing a book from Logos is not like purchasing one from Amazon. When you buy a Kindle book, Amazon has only provided a means of distribution, similar to other companies (such as Barnes & Noble, Sony, etc.). As the others have mentioned, Logos spends a lot of time & resources to tag the books for future searching. Furthermore, Logos provides support for resources indefinitely, the other resellers do not. An example of this is the Yale Anchor Dictionary which recently underwent a major updating on the part of Logos (see THIS THREAD). This was done at no cost to owners of this resource! Service like this requires prices to be higher sometimes.
Another thing to consider is that Logos is selling resources that others have created. The publishers play a major part in determining the cost of Logos resources because they can charge more or less to Logos for each license. For example, Logos resources do not have the same strict copy protection that other formats have, and publishers may charge more because of it.
Last of all to consider: Some vendors sell books at a loss to gain marketshare. This is certainly the case with Amazon. These companies use the practice of the "loss leader" (see HERE) to drum up sales. Amazon can afford to lose money on the sale of some items, just to make it up on the sale of others. Most stores will use this practice to some extent, but Amazon has put many booksellers out of business (Borders is gone in the US; Barnes & Noble may follow).
FWIW - I too want the ESV study bible, but I have a print copy now. I am holding off for a GOOD deal. <hint, hint>. Also, if it has not been recommended to you yet, you should call sales. Sometimes you can get a better price over the phone. Some of the other users can give you info on calling from overseas.
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Henry Lea said:
Thanks again for the reply Graham! Much appreciated.
In regards to cross references, let me try to explain. When you look at the "Passage Guide" you will see a short list of cross references that include the actual text (i.e. "John 3:16 'For God so loved the world'). This list, however, is not exhaustive, it misses a lot of references. You can then try "Explorer" where it gives more verses, but without the text (i.e. Jn3:16,etc). What I was after was a complete list of cross references, with the text, so I could literally find all the cross references to a particular passage, copy all of them, with the text, to a word document, so that I could preach on one specific point and have all the corroborating passages, simply by doing one search. Is that possible? Something that lists all cross references with text?The cross reference section of the passage guide should be seen as providing a portion of potential cross references. A more complete list of cross references can be found in a resource like the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or the New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. But even these are incomplete (IMHO), and miss things I think are obvious.
Based on my experience, I don't think there is such a thing as a complete cross reference. At best cross references illustrate the kinds of places similar or contrasting thoughts are expressed.
Let's take your example of John 3:16. What would a complete cross reference include? All the references to God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as loving? All the references to "the world"? All the references to God sending? All the references to Jesus as God's Son? All the references to believe (including faith, trust, faithfulness - uses of faith as both noun and verb)? All the references to perish, be destroyed, hell, damnation, punishment, etc.? All the references to eternal life, everlasting life, salvation, the afterlife, etc.
You get the idea. The results would be overwhelming unless they were limited, or focused somehow. No matter how one limits the cross reference, there will be something left out - maybe something you, or some other commentator believes is important.
I don't believe what you're asking is possible -- at least not in the sense that it would be usable from the pulpit (unless you want to take hundreds of verses with you). You could do your own searches and find places where certain words are used together, and create your own list of verses. My guess is that you'll want to narrow down any search list in some way. Logos can help you do your work, but it won't do all the work for you. [;)]
As far as getting a verse list into Word there are different ways of doing that. I suggest looking at the wiki on creating a passage list. These can be copy/pasted into Word, or exported (using the print/export function).
Help links: WIKI; Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)
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Hi Richard
Richard DeRuiter said:Based on my experience, I don't think there is such a thing as a complete cross reference. At best cross references illustrate the kinds of places similar or contrasting thoughts are expressed.
This is a good point.
I was working on something similar yesterday evening looking at John 1:1-18 and working through all the references to this passage in "New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge".
While I could see why most of the linkages were there, there were many which I ignored because they weren't the sort of things I was looking for. For example, with John 1:3 talking about the role of the Word in creation there were lots of references to passages about creation. While these are all relevant - to a degree - they were too many for what I was looking for at the time!
Graham
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Henry Lea said:
Thank you very much for your reply Graham, that does help shed some light on why it's so much more expensive. However, even though the books are being worked on to integrate them into the software, the price still feels a bit high. The ESV Study Bible is one of your best selling items, it must be costing you around £7 (or less), it would cost me that much to get a soft-copy. You are charging £39, that's 5.5 times the price! On each sale it's an additional £32 and how many have been sold? Hundreds or even thousands I would imagine, if you sold 1000, that means you would be making £32,000, now it may actually cost that much to integrate that Bible into the software, I don't know (it is a big job). But I still feel a bit uncomfortable about the difference in price, it seems a bit too steep for a best selling product, as the more you sell, the more money you raise to pay for the integration. I hope perhaps you can shed a little further light on the situation? That's all my thoughts on pricing.
Henry,
I have felt some sticker shock purchasing items from Logos (e.g. this very ESVSB resource). One thing you have to be careful about is comparing apples and oranges. I'm going to be a self-centered American and covert to dollars for my explanation here, so I apologize.
On Amazon I can buy the hard cover ESVSB for $8.54. But that's not the same thing as the electronic resource. What you're buying when you purchase an electronic copy is a license, so you would want to compare what Crossway Books charges for a license. If you look on their website, they sell that license for about $20. Logos sells it for $40 (so that's 2x instead of 4.7x or 5.5x). My gut tells me that Crossway sells those licenses to Logos for $20 each as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's more since they might view Logos as a competitor (they're trying to build out esvbible.org as an online Bible study portal, that seems to compete against biblia.com). One Logos pays Crossway, they need to make sure they recoup their investment for tagging the commentary, and since they give the Logos software away for free, they need to also recoup their investment in building that out. There are Fixed Costs from past work and Variable Costs from continued development that need to be factored into their licensing fees. You are gaining the benefit of getting to use the ESVSB on your Mac, PC, iPhone, Android and the web all at the same time--that's what you're paying above and beyond the $20 for. And then it seems fair that Logos should make a profit on their work. The Pritchets have invested their money and livelihoods in building this company. They took the economic risk in the free market and are welcome to their reward. That does not mean you must purchase the ESVSB, that comes from your own personal analysis, and Logos must bear the reward or consequence from your decision.
Bill
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By the way, all this talk about cross references reminds me of a great graphic I saw a bit over a year ago. It was published here:
http://theresurgence.com/2010/11/15/the-bible-is-very-consistent
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William, on Amazon the $8.54 is for the Kindle version. [:D]
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Dennis Parish said:
William, on Amazon the $8.54 is for the Kindle version.
Ah yes, you are correct; I browsed Amazon too hastily. I suppose then, that when compared to a paper copy in the US, the Logos version is an even smaller multiplier. Though if you look hard enough, you can probably get an ESVSB for free.
Anyway, the point is that you have to compare similar products. The book has the license built in to the pages--the only thing you can do with the book is open it up and read it. The Kindle version can only be used on Kindle devices and readers* even though it appears to be an electronic license. The Logos version is linked to other study resources, as is the Crossway version I had shown.
*I own this version as well (I've bought the ESVSB in too many formats), and while it's okay, it's probably the hardest format to use. When reading the Bible text in the Kindle, you can click on the superscript numbers or crosses to jump to the study note (and then click on the corresponding link in the note to get back to the text). With the Kindle, you don't get to see them side by side, or have one move with the other. At least with the book version, the note is on the same page as the text.
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I agree the Kindle isn't easy to navigate and is slow. I won't regularly use the ESVSB on Kindle.
For me, the value that Logos adds is that each word in the ESV can be used to move instantly to relevant info in other books (bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, commentaries, word studies, maps, etc.).
Part of Logos' cost is that they embed the tags to access the entire Logos library (reported at 17,000 resources) in the ESVSB (and every other) resource. And, I suppose, they have to test that each of these tags work, thus the long time in production.
But for the me, the larger my library becomes, the more benefit I receive from this tagging. Awesome.
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Henry Lea said:
While to download a copy for Logos is £39! I bought the software because I didn't want hardcopies, but your prices are FAR more expensive! Why is that?
Henry,
There seems to be some confusion. Because you already own the ESV Bible in Logos, the version of the ESV Study Bible you need to purchase is this one:
http://www.logos.com/product/5255/esv-study-bible-notesThat is priced at $39.95, which at current prices is £26.13, not £39. So although this is more expensive that the Google Books version, it is not nearly as much as you thought it was.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Wow! Thank you so much for the feedback everyone! I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Amazing community forum you have here! Never found anywhere so helpful! I guess that's because it's Christian
I'll read through everything and post back soon, just got a few things to do first.
God Bless,Henry
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Henry,
I compiled this comparison from the websites of other Bible study software vendors. I didn't recheck the work.
Vendor
ESV Standard
Upgrade
to ESVSBESVSB
A
$30 (on sale for $20)
$40
$70
B
$40 (on sale for $24)
$50 (on sale for $35)
--
C$20
Site says available but doesn’t state the fee
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Logos
$40 (on sale for $10)
$50 (on sale for $40)
$70 (on sale for $60)
D
$8
--
$40 (on sale at $32)
E
$30
--
--
FFree
--
--
G
$30 (on sale for $10)
$50
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Prices on 1-13-12 per vendor website. Not responsible for errors. I am not implying that each of these software products gives ESBSV equivalent functionality. -- means not available. DLP
I hope this helps you.
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Hey Henry, to answer your question (if there was any item cheaper in Logos than other shops), I think Logos is more of a "bundle" and special collection pack, or of course, the Basic Libraries up to Portofolio that are very cheap/item endly. Also there are books on Logos you won't find in other bookstores. Hey, and of course the Community Prices are unbeatable ! :-)
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