Pre-pubs are designed to give the
biggest discount possible in exchange for payment on delivery, but what happens
when you can't afford it? Well, you're
basically left with two unattractive options. You can either put the full
amount on a credit card and deal with the fallout from that, or pay a lot more at
the higher price so you can get it on a payment plan. We realize both options
are pretty lame.
We want to change all that and make
it easy to get what you need at a payment you can afford. We can't simply offer
payment plans on Pre-pubs once they ship, because if we did, every successive Pre-pub
we shipped would dramatically reduce our ability to invest in new titles, and the
entire program would slow to a snail's pace. For example, if every Pre-pub cost
$10,000 to produce, and we got $10,000 in sales we could invest that same $10,000
into a new Pre-pub every time we shipped another one. That same $10,000 would
just keep being reinvested and recaptured over and over. If we offered payment
plans on that $10,000 investment when it shipped, taken to the extreme, it
would take us a full year to recapture that full $10,000 in order to invest it
into a new title. Multiply that out by the number of titles we offer and you
can see how dramatically that would impact our ability to keep serving you with
the titles you want and need.
We think we have a solution, I like
to call it the "Pastor's Piggy Bank".
(Apparently I am the only one that likes to call it that, and I'm not
sure why... it sounds cool to me... but more conservative heads may prevail and
I may be persuaded to change the name...)
...anyway the idea is to create a
"subscription" that will charge your credit card each month for a
fixed amount of your choosing. Since you are paying in advance, there are no
payment plan fees at all, and you can build up a credit balance to be ready to
spend on anything you want, even a Pre-pub.
So the big win is delivering a way
for you to get the discounted price on massive Pre-pubs like the new Baker
Academic Biblical Studies Bundle (86 vols.) http://www.logos.com/product/24042/baker-academic-biblical-studies-bundle
by using the credit balance from your piggy bank, and not missing out on the
lowest price. In addition, pastors and others on monthly book budgets can
charge a fixed amount every month automatically and make sure they are
maximizing their book budget even if their favorite Pre-pub isn't ready to
ship.
This can also be a useful tool for shopaholics,
that want to limit their Logos spending, to be accountable to their goals.
Determine the annual Logos budget, set up the monthly charge and it will be
there when you need it. It also works if you don't buy much from Logos but when
you do, you don't want to pay all at once and you don't like payment plan fees.
Well, that's a rough overview of what
we are planning, but we'd love to hear your thoughts on the idea before we
finish designing and implementing it.
What do you think? Ideas?
What would you use it for? Is it a
good idea? Bad idea? What problems would it solve? What problems would it
create? What would you do with it?...
