Pre-Pub Changes
You’ve helped us produce thousands of products through our Pre-Pub system over the years. Despite this success Pre-Pub has, in some ways, become a bottle neck. We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them. We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
If any of your pre-orders are affected, you’ll be receiving an email that details how these changes impact you specifically.
Comments
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- What about the ones coming from Community Pricing that are now in Pre-Pub, are they going to be cancelled?
- What rules do you guys use to keep a Pre-Pub or to cancel a Pre-Pub? (what if the Pre-Pub is popular but the threshold is just really high to be met?)
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Community Pricing products that have moved to Pre-Pub are not affected. The Pre-Pubs affected here were were judged on a case-by-case basis by overall performance.
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Does that mean only prepubs "under development" get to stay and the almost there and the gathering interest get to be cancelled? Because there are some under development that have been there forever and no word on what's going on and why it's taking so long. Just wondering about that.
DAL
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Pre-Pubs that are Under Development have not been affected.
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Matthew Miller said:
We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them. We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
I clearly misunderstood the Pre-pub system. What resources are used by a pre-pub while it is gathering interest that will now be redirected towards producing and shipping resources faster?
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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Matthew Miller said:
We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them.
When will they be pulled? Have they already been removed?
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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MJ. Smith said:Matthew Miller said:
We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them. We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
I clearly misunderstood the Pre-pub system. What resources are used by a pre-pub while it is gathering interest that will now be redirected towards producing and shipping resources faster?
Good question.
A number of resources support Pre-Pubs while they are Gathering Interest, including several types of promotional assets. Additionally, reducing the number of existing Pre-Pubs will bring greater visibility to remaining products.Super.Tramp said:Matthew Miller said:We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them.
When will they be pulled? Have they already been removed?
Yes, they've already been removed.
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MJ. Smith said:
What resources are used by a pre-pub while it is gathering interest that will now be redirected towards producing and shipping resources faster?
Maybe some of us are looking at how much we might potentially be committed to and are cutting back on new items? Maybe there are just too many so that the focus is too broad, leaving lots of pre-pubs stranded? Don't know.
I'd favor a time cut-off on all pre-pubs. It seems to be a rare occasion when a pre-pub that has been in existence for two years or more gets into production. The exact data FL has and I'd suggest they apply it.
Pastor, North Park Baptist Church
Bridgeport, CT USA
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Matthew Miller said:
If any of your pre-orders are affected, you’ll be receiving an email that details how these changes impact you specifically.I assume this means a list of pre-pubs that were cancelled on our accounts?
Pastor, North Park Baptist Church
Bridgeport, CT USA
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Correct.Mark Smith said:Matthew Miller said:
If any of your pre-orders are affected, you’ll be receiving an email that details how these changes impact you specifically.I assume this means a list of pre-pubs that were cancelled on our accounts?
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Is this to make a way for Crossway's Pre-Pubs?
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I'm guessing none of my prepubs have been affected as I haven't had an email. But do we have any examples of the prepub books that have been removed?
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Matthew Miller said:
We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them.
I applaud this move to reduce the number of pre-pubs according to how they were performing. It is interesting that years ago I used to carefully review the pre-pub list on a regular basis but more recently, because there have been so many, I seldom even look at them.
In light of this I have a couple of questions.
- Have you determined the approximate number of pre-pubs that might be offered at one time?
- Have you considered publishing a date of how long they will be offered before reaching a certain minimum level? This time-sensitive approach might motivate people to buy who might be sitting on the fence.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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Bruce Dunning said:Matthew Miller said:
We’ve identified a number of products that weren't gaining enough interest and decided to cancel them.
I applaud this move to reduce the number of pre-pubs according to how they were performing. It is interesting that years ago I used to carefully review the pre-pub list on a regular basis but more recently, because there have been so many, I seldom even look at them.
In light of this I have a couple of questions.
- Have you determined the approximate number of pre-pubs that might be offered at one time?
- Have you considered publishing a date of how long they will be offered before reaching a certain minimum level? This time-sensitive approach might motivate people to buy who might be sitting on the fence.
Your questions can be great suggestions that will help get books faster in the Logos platform. I hope they do something about those who have been in development land for almost an eternity.
DAL
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Jim Snowden said:
I'm guessing none of my prepubs have been affected as I haven't had an email. But do we have any examples of the prepub books that have been removed?
I checked on my orders and see that one of my languishing orders is gone but I haven't received an email.
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Bruce Dunning said:
I applaud this move to reduce the number of pre-pubs according to how they were performing. It is interesting that years ago I used to carefully review the pre-pub list on a regular basis but more recently, because there have been so many, I seldom even look at them.
[Y][Y]
I also regularly used to browse the list but don't any more because of the sheer length of it. I also wonder if it would be worth taking some off after a certain amount of time - if people aren't buying them, they're just clogging up the list. I have some where I bid two or three years ago (and I don't want to start another competition to see who's got the oldest Pre-Pub bid!) I know I've sometimes gone back and cancelled those that were bid on a long time ago where my need for the book has passed or it was a marginal decision to buy it.
As others have said, hopefully this will enable resources to pass through the system more quickly.
Running Logos 6 Platinum and Logos Now on Surface Pro 4, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, i5
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I can tell by the cost of all my prepubs that thousands of dollars have been removed, yet I received no email about it.
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Bruce Roth said:
I checked on my orders and see that one of my languishing orders is gone but I haven't received an email.
Matt Hamrick said:I can tell by the cost of all my prepubs that thousands of dollars have been removed, yet I received no email about it.
Matthew wrote that the pre-pubs have already been pulled (past tense) and that users will be (future tense) receiving an email.
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Matthew Miller said:
We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
If no work is done on a resource until it goes into production, I don't understand how a prepub that has not gone into production has any impact on Logos' ability to "produce and ship products faster."
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After rereading the thread it looks like there are "promotion assets" used to support resources gathering interest. However, this is still confusing to me. I'm not sure what "promotional assets" are.
I'm not upset at all about the resources being removed, just not not sure how it impacts other resources from getting produced.
Another thought I had is that if a resource is on prepub for several years, even if it reaches production, a user who preordered the resource at the beginning may have changed their mind about wanting it, but because they ordered it so long ago they may have forgotten to cancel their order. I can see how this would impact Logos financially.
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Ronald Quick said:Matthew Miller said:
We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
If no work is done on a resource until it goes into production, I don't understand how a prepub that has not gone into production has any impact on Logos' ability to "produce and ship products faster."
I think that they are assuming that if they shorten the list we will switch our orders to the few that they keep on their list even thou we ignored those items in the past.
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Ronald Quick said:Matthew Miller said:
We believe this will optimize the Pre-Pub system and help us produce and ship products faster.
If no work is done on a resource until it goes into production, I don't understand how a prepub that has not gone into production has any impact on Logos' ability to "produce and ship products faster."
I don't think the issue is the employees ability to "produce and ship products faster," but rather, by having fewer prepubs, users will be more concentrated on a few items, causing them to go into production more quickly. By doing so, prepubs will be able to be "produced and shipped faster."
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It looks like my Pre-Order Total is lower than I remember, but I can't tell what may have been removed. Hopefully the e-mails go out today.
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Notice how few pre-pubs were added from the time when the FL layoffs took place till the Crossways sunami happened.
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1. When will the email be sent out that tells us what was already removed from Pre pub?
2. What happens to those products removed from pre-pubs? Has a decision been made not to produce them? or to move them to community pricing? or to move them to see them in production another way?
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Thank you, Faithlife, for the notification and explanation.
It makes sense to me that if a stage of pre-publication is "gathering interest," it would follow that if not enough interest is gathered over time, the product cannot remain offered indefinitely. Is there a specific duration of time that serves as criteria to gauge interest and after which a pre-pub would be cancelled?
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I suspect that if a prepub has been languishing for years and eventually gets enough interest to go to publication, it probably doesn't make economical sense to bother putting it into publication as it probably won't sell many copies as a regular product.
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FYI - As I see things now here are the current stats of books in pre-pub
- "Under Development" = 361
- "Almost There" = 85
- "Gathering Interest" = 719
- Total - 1,165
That still is quite a few resources.
Can we assume that, if a resource reaches "Almost There" it would likely not be pulled even if it has been a while?
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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So many questions. Hopefully they will all be answered today
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Mark said:
So many questions. Hopefully they will all be answered today
Some questions have already been addressed by other users and myself. I'll try to address a few that have come up that have not been answered or may need further clarification.1. Was the cancellation done to make room for Crossway? No. The Crossway products played no part in our choices about which Pre-Pubs to cancel. Each Pre-Pub was evaluated on its own individual performance.
2. How did Faithlife decide what to cancel? Our methodology primarily focused on two key elements: the age of the Pre-Pub and customer interest. There were times when other extenuating circumstances also played a part, but the vast majority of our decisions were based on these criteria.
3. What does this mean for canceled products? The canceled Pre-Pubs have been removed permanently and will not be produced. There are many reasons for this approach, but our main concern is clarity for our users. It is possible that some products will be reintroduced, but if they are they will come back as an entirely new/reconfigured Pre-Pub.
4. How will this help remaining Pre-Pubs? Reducing the number of Pre-Pubs will make remaining products more visible to users, and thus will concentrate customer interest on those offerings.
5. Where’s the email? The email has not been sent. It will be coming very soon, hopefully by EOD today.
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Thanks, Matthew.
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Matthew Miller said:
Pre-Pubs that are Under Development have not been affected.
Bullinger's critical lexicon is stll there few![:D]
P A
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P A said:Matthew Miller said:
Pre-Pubs that are Under Development have not been affected.
Bullinger's critical lexicon is stll there few!
P A
Yes [:D]
This week I have deleted almost all my pre-pubs, but this one stayed in!
MacOS Sierra / Logos 7 Collector's Edition & All Base Packages / Logos Now
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Goodbye Rod Mattoon! At least John Phillips made it
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DAL said:
Goodbye Rod Mattoon! At least John Phillips made it
Well, I guess this is all a good thing: at least now I can go buy cancelled products like Mattoon from the competitor with confidence, knowing it'll never appear in Logos.
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This is a very disappointing way in handling this situation. I just ordered a pre-pub last week that now appears to be gone. Could FL not have done some kind of simple announcement of pending deletions (say 30 days), minimal promotion (email, forums), and seen if that notice moved the needle sufficiently for a few of those resources?
Even though FL said that email announcements would be forthcoming, I'm skeptical. If they do send such emails, I hope they include the specific items in my pre-pub list that were cancelled.
Donnie
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Donnie Hale said:
Could FL not have done some kind of simple announcement of pending deletions (say 30 days), minimal promotion (email, forums), and seen if that notice moved the needle sufficiently for a few of those resources?
I think that strategy would have been appreciated by people but I'm not sure if it would have made much difference in the end.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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Donnie Hale said:
This is a very disappointing way in handling this situation. I just ordered a pre-pub last week that now appears to be gone. Could FL not have done some kind of simple announcement of pending deletions (say 30 days), minimal promotion (email, forums), and seen if that notice moved the needle sufficiently for a few of those resources?
Even though FL said that email announcements would be forthcoming, I'm skeptical. If they do send such emails, I hope they include the specific items in my pre-pub list that were cancelled.
Donnie
A "last chance" effort would have been nice. But I'm guessing it probably would not have made much of a difference, considering the items removed had all been up for a long time and were still a long way off from meeting the threshold. I'd be curious to see if there would have been any significant movement on any of those resources, though. An expiration date can be a powerful motivator. [:D]
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Excellent point, Mr Ames (you have interesting but cogent observations).
Myself, I'll definitely notice the missing pre-pubs, now that they're not there. Before, I completely missed them.
Actually, I took the hint from Matthew, and thinned down my prepub orders. Too many, and it diverts my interest in the remaining.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Average Joe said:
A "last chance" effort would have been nice. But I'm guessing it probably would not have made much of a difference, considering the items removed had all been up for a long time and were still a long way off from meeting the threshold. I'd be curious to see if there would have been any significant movement on any of those resources, though. An expiration date can be a powerful motivator.
Now that I look, I can already see a number of pre-pubs that I hadn't pre-ordered but probably would have had I known they were on the chopping block. Ah well.
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While I understand the action from a business perspective, my gut reaction is disappointment that there is no longer a visible commitment to the eventual publication of items that are necessary but not popular. This may make moving into the underserved markets more difficult. However, I will also admit that Faithlife is the only publishing company with which I am familiar that uses a popularity context to determine publications. I may have philosophical qualms about this approach but it appears to have been working well for the company.
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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MJ. Smith said:
my gut reaction is disappointment that there is no longer a visible commitment to the eventual publication of items that are necessary but not popular. This may make moving into the underserved markets more difficult.
You are making an assumption that underserved markets are still important to the new, meaner, leaner Faithlife.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Ronald Quick said:
If no work is done on a resource until it goes into production, I don't understand how a prepub that has not gone into production has any impact on Logos' ability to "produce and ship products faster."
I'm disappointed that several of my pre-pubs have been cancelled — Calvin's Sermons, for example, but I'm not surprised. Some of them had been languishing for years without much traction.
I hope the announcement also means that Logos will be a bit more discerning before adding books to the pre-pub pile. Work is done on pre-pubs before production: marketing copy is written, contracts are likely drawn up, and the books have to be costed. For some, more complex books, I imagine the costing process could take some time and energy, as at least an outline of the book design needs to be created.
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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MJ. Smith said:
However, I will also admit that Faithlife is the only publishing company with which I am familiar that uses a popularity context to determine publications.
https://unbound.co.uk/ takes that to an even deeper level. It's Kickstarter for books.
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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Would any of these titles be candidates for Vyrso?
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I can’t speak for our Vyrso team, but I can forward the pertinent information to them for consideration.alabama24 said:Would any of these titles be candidates for Vyrso?
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Matthew Miller said:
I can’t speak for our Vyrso team, but I can forward the pertinent information to them for consideration.alabama24 said:Would any of these titles be candidates for Vyrso?
Thanks Matthew! I know that there have been (and likely will continue to be) volumes held out of Vyrso because they are candidates for Logos editions. In the event that some of these are determined not to be viable for Logos, perhaps some of them would be viable in Vyrso.
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alabama24 said:Matthew Miller said:
I can’t speak for our Vyrso team, but I can forward the pertinent information to them for consideration.alabama24 said:Would any of these titles be candidates for Vyrso?
Thanks Matthew!
I'd like to add my thanks for this as well. Although Vyrso is not a good as Logos it is better than nothing.
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I, perhaps mistakenly, relied on the pre-pub list to be the list of books in FL that I wanted. I did not copy + paste it elsewhere.
Now, books have been culled.
I surely do hope that the email to me on this issue lists BY TITLE which books were affected.
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