ABCs of Attack and Defense (Beta copies)

[Boidhre]

tchan001, you're looking at this through collector's eyes. For the regular go player the value is in just the content, not the rarity or whether it's out of print. Is this book worth $35 to a collector? Easily. For a player? I don't know, personally no, it's far too small a book in size and scope for that kind of money.

[lemmata]

They're the ones saying this book isn't worth a reprint and yet they charge a jacked up price for it...

Just because a book isn't worth a reprint doesn't mean that the price is jacked up. There are fixed costs associated with making a reprint order. I find the attribution of price-gouging intent to Slate and Shell disturbing. Price-gouging comes with market power. There are plenty of other go book-sellers out there and there are plenty of attack and defense books available. Slate and Shell does not have significant market power. If they priced incorrectly, then they're hurting themselves more than they're hurting you because you still have the choice of finding near-full substitutes elsewhere.

By the way, $35 is not prohibitive by any means for books in a small market. Mathematics reference books are $100-$300. Out-of-print math texts the size of James Davies' Tesuji can be priced at $150+. $35 might be a bad price in the Japanese go book market, which can use more economies of scale than the English go book market, but this book is not targeted at Japanese-speaking go players. The worst you can say about Slate and Shell is that they might have leftovers at this price. If Slate and Shell can sell their entire inventory at $35, then is someone who is willing to pay only $5 for the book more deserving of the limited quantity than someone who is willing to pay $35? If Slate and Shell does sell out the box at $35/book, then does that not reduce the financial risk associated with their enterprise? Does this not benefit the English-speaking go world in the long term? Are people letting their personal valuations of the book dictate their moral judgment of Slate and Shell's pricing?

It's one thing to blast large corporations, but Slate and Shell is a small scale operation. Do people really think that the owners of Slate and Shell can live large by selling a box of these books for $35/unit? It is far more likely that they're barely scraping by. I would kindly ask that the people attacking Slate and Shell consider things from their point of view. This is not Amazon.com deciding to charge double for Kindle eBooks in non-US locations.

I can completely understand someone telling me that this book is not worth $35.

What I cannot understand is someone implying that Slate and Shell is acting unethically by charging $35 for this book.

[kusto]

They're the ones saying this book isn't worth a reprint and yet they charge a jacked up price for it...

It has nothing to do with it not being worth a reprint...

https://twitter.com/gobooks/status/381918107448508416

[Bantari]

I really don't get this whole discussion. S&S is not a charity, its a business. If they think they can sell the inventory they have for $X a piece, that's the price they list it at. If they are mistaken, they will be forced to lower the price eventually. So people can buy it at that price, gamble the price will get lowered before the stock runs out, or buy it somewhere else.

And it has nothing to do with rarity (well, maybe a little) or reprintability (well, maybe a little) or anything else (well, maybe a little) - the bottom line is how much do they think people are willing to pay for the book. And apparently they think people are willing to pay that much. I assume they did some kind of math and maybe even some market research, and now they do what they think is best for them.

That's how you run a business.
To expect anything else would be... uncivilized.

[tchan001]

It has nothing to do with it not being worth a reprint...

https://twitter.com/gobooks/status/381918107448508416

As pointed out by the link from kusto and also noted here, the book will not be reprinted and will not be available as a SmartGo Books due to licensing/copyright issues. So don't buy it if you don't think it's worthwhile and don't complain in the future if later on you think you missed your chance.

[ez4u]

I really don't get this whole discussion. S&S is not a charity, its a business. If they think they can sell the inventory they have for $X a piece, that's the price they list it at. If they are mistaken, they will be forced to lower the price eventually. So people can buy it at that price, gamble the price will get lowered before the stock runs out, or buy it somewhere else.

And it has nothing to do with rarity (well, maybe a little) or reprintability (well, maybe a little) or anything else (well, maybe a little) - the bottom line is how much do they think people are willing to pay for the book. And apparently they think people are willing to pay that much. I assume they did some kind of math and maybe even some market research, and now they do what they think is best for them.

That's how you run a business.
To expect anything else would be... uncivilized.

"Those who enter to buy, support me. Those who come to flatter, please me. Those who complain, teach me how I may please others so that more will come. Only those hurt me who are displeased but do not complain. They refuse me permission to correct my errors and thus improve my service."
- Marshall Field, American department store founder

"There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."
- Sam Walton

To expect anything else would be... naive.

[Bantari]

I really don't get this whole discussion. S&S is not a charity, its a business. If they think they can sell the inventory they have for $X a piece, that's the price they list it at. If they are mistaken, they will be forced to lower the price eventually. So people can buy it at that price, gamble the price will get lowered before the stock runs out, or buy it somewhere else.

And it has nothing to do with rarity (well, maybe a little) or reprintability (well, maybe a little) or anything else (well, maybe a little) - the bottom line is how much do they think people are willing to pay for the book. And apparently they think people are willing to pay that much. I assume they did some kind of math and maybe even some market research, and now they do what they think is best for them.

That's how you run a business.
To expect anything else would be... uncivilized.

"Those who enter to buy, support me. Those who come to flatter, please me. Those who complain, teach me how I may please others so that more will come. Only those hurt me who are displeased but do not complain. They refuse me permission to correct my errors and thus improve my service."
- Marshall Field, American department store founder

S&S is not there to please you.
They are there to make money for their owner.

"There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."
- Sam Walton

To expect anything else would be... naive.

Heh...
Customer is the boss, this is true.
So if the customer doesn't buy the book, S&S will lower the price, as I have said.
Or the customer can go somewhere else - as we have both indicated.

But... if two people complain, and 100 rush to pay the 'inflated' price until there is no more inventory - the quote you cite does not work.

The bottom line is - does the book sell for that price?
If it does, the few complains are meaningless. If it does not, they are meaningless too, except maybe providing a clue as to *why* the book does not sell. But the deciding factor is, as always - does the book sell?

There will always be a few who want it for less... and there will always be a few willing to pay more.
Once you know the break-even point, you can make profit. Or, in this case - S&S can make profit.

Now lets see if they miscalculated or not. If they sell out - they were right. If they lower the price - they might have been wrong, but they still make profit from the few books that did sell high. So - from business perspective, in such cases, if you are willing to be flexible, offering it at 'inflated' price makes good sense.

[imabuddha]

"There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."
- Sam Walton

True, unless there's no other places left to shop…

[kusto]

Yet if they aren't buying, clearly they aren't a (or should i say "the") customer. We can all speculate that the latest Lamborghini or the latest iPhone is overpriced, yet there is an obvious market for these things and sales are made.

We should also bare in mind that not all customer complaints are valuable and in the scope of this topic it was originally deemed that the product wasn't worthy of a reprint. This information has been corrected and will hopefully bring with it more clarity for producing any further opinions.

My well wishes go out to all Go book distributors - even though i have had a disagreement with one. These guys are not making large sums of money no matter how you want to slice it and i do respect what they are doing.

Edit: My post was a little slow and a few have been made since i hit reply

[John Fairbairn]

I have just finished my next Go Seigen ten-game match book (the one against Karigane). Since this is for SmartGo I have forked out over £1,000 for a MacPro Book and several hundred pounds for an iPad, so that I can create and then view the book myself. Learning to think like an Apple person (like where the hell is the hash key) has been a trying and long process. Learning the SmartGo format, using a beta program with a changing spec written for a computer buff, has likewise been a trying process. I have already been through the similar grind of learning the Kindle format. Writing the book has been trivial, in comparison: collecting, reading and translating countless books and magazines, devising a text, creating several hundred magazines (in programs replete with bugs and limitations), proofreading, and so on ad infinitum. That's just my involvement. For just this book, I've had T Mark doing proofreading, a daughter doing artwork and poor Anders Kierulf answering countless questions, and still rewriting his program to accommodate the way I want to stretch it. Even then all is not finished, as we have to go through a final production process involving more people and more checks. This has been a very similar process to all my previous books, though each medium requires a different input. Bill Cobb of Slate & Shell, for example, created and laid out all the diagrams - try it yourself and count the hours, the hours, the hours - but has also had to add dealing with printers, warehouse dealers, copyright holders, pirates, whining customers and amateur businessmen who think they can do better, and so on.

Bill, like me, too on the burden of learning the SmartGo format ("very steep learning curve" was his comment) and doing the long and tedious work of conversion. The same sort of comments apply, of course, to all other people involved in go publishing. imabuddha, who has just posted here, can confirm how much work is involved.

The point of all this?

1. To make it obvious that no-one puts this sort of investment and time into a niche market like go as a true business venture. It is a hobby rather than a business. Most of us are satisfied with either our money back - forget the time - or just enough money to convince a spouse we are not wasting the kids' inheritance. Often the money is symbolic - that what we are doing is worthwhile. Some do like a bit of profit, but usually just to re-invest in go. In all cases it is (I repeat) really just a hobby, not a business. In nearly every case the people who are involved in western go publishing are retired people giving something back to the game. Those who are not retired usually have full-time jobs elsewhere, but also want to give something back to the game.

2. What follows from this is that the customer is NOT king. The customer is meant to be a go friend who understand what is being done on his behalf. And friends should act like friends, being supportive where possible, being tactful when disagreeing. And if the customer doesn't like what I do, the whole point of a hobby is that I don't have to care.

One carton of S&S books usually contains about a ten or twelve copies, I believe. Take off printing, warehousing and other costs, S&S may make $60-100 dollars at most. Do you begrudge your friends a few cups of coffee? Or, more likely, plugging a loss made on other books when so-called friends ran off with the internet slut.

If you have no friendly inclinations, and are simply a hard-nosed buyer, you will have not spent but invested $35 in a collector's item which gives you a chance of making $60-100 for yourself some day.

I too have a bad taste in my mouth, but not about S&S.

[Boidhre]

I have just finished my next Go Seigen ten-game match book (the one against Karigane). Since this is for SmartGo I have forked out over £1,000 for a MacPro Book and several hundred pounds for an iPad, so that I can create and then view the book myself. Learning to think like an Apple person (like where the hell is the hash key) has been a trying and long process. Learning the SmartGo format, using a beta program with a changing spec written for a computer buff, has likewise been a trying process. I have already been through the similar grind of learning the Kindle format. Writing the book has been trivial, in comparison: collecting, reading and translating countless books and magazines, devising a text, creating several hundred magazines (in programs replete with bugs and limitations), proofreading, and so on ad infinitum. That's just my involvement. For just this book, I've had T Mark doing proofreading, a daughter doing artwork and poor Anders Kierulf answering countless questions, and still rewriting his program to accommodate the way I want to stretch it. Even then all is not finished, as we have to go through a final production process involving more people and more checks. This has been a very similar process to all my previous books, though each medium requires a different input. Bill Cobb of Slate & Shell, for example, created and laid out all the diagrams - try it yourself and count the hours, the hours, the hours - but has also had to add dealing with printers, warehouse dealers, copyright holders, pirates, whining customers and amateur businessmen who think they can do better, and so on.

Bill, like me, too on the burden of learning the SmartGo format ("very steep learning curve" was his comment) and doing the long and tedious work of conversion. The same sort of comments apply, of course, to all other people involved in go publishing. imabuddha, who has just posted here, can confirm how much work is involved.

The point of all this?

1. To make it obvious that no-one puts this sort of investment and time into a niche market like go as a true business venture. It is a hobby rather than a business. Most of us are satisfied with either our money back - forget the time - or just enough money to convince a spouse we are not wasting the kids' inheritance. Often the money is symbolic - that what we are doing is worthwhile. Some do like a bit of profit, but usually just to re-invest in go. In all cases it is (I repeat) really just a hobby, not a business. In nearly every case the people who are involved in western go publishing are retired people giving something back to the game. Those who are not retired usually have full-time jobs elsewhere, but also want to give something back to the game.

2. What follows from this is that the customer is NOT king. The customer is meant to be a go friend who understand what is being done on his behalf. And friends should act like friends, being supportive where possible, being tactful when disagreeing. And if the customer doesn't like what I do, the whole point of a hobby is that I don't have to care.

One carton of S&S books usually contains about a ten or twelve copies, I believe. Take off printing, warehousing and other costs, S&S may make $60-100 dollars at most. Do you begrudge your friends a few cups of coffee? Or, more likely, plugging a loss made on other books when so-called friends ran off with the internet slut.

If you have no friendly inclinations, and are simply a hard-nosed buyer, you will have not spent but invested $35 in a collector's item which gives you a chance of making $60-100 for yourself some day.

I too have a bad taste in my mouth, but not about S&S.

What's your issue? That people are saying the books aren't worth $35 and that these are overpriced? Because really, friend, customer or hard nosed cynical hawk, that is something anyone is entitled to hold as their opinion rightly or wrongly. Or are we hard-nosed buyers simply because we don't agree with the pricing of something? That's not very reasonable.

Also, from a business point of view, most of the costs you're talking about are already sunk, these were warehoused unintentionally and presumably did not prevent the warehousing of other stock (which is the only cost that matters) and the printing costs were long written off, the marginal cost is the advertising bandwidth on the site and the writing of the webpage copy (minimal) and handling for postage and packing (given the small volume quite high per unit but such is life in go commerce). It's a matter of perspective whether you include the cost of the previous printing or warehousing but really I don't see why you would since you'd have paid for them regardless of whether the box had been found or not.

[John Fairbairn]

Bhoidre, look at your comments again and you will see that you are talking in business terms. Look at my comments again and you will see that I am saying that most of the people involved doing the actual work (as opposked to just mouthing off on a forum) are operating a hobby, not a real business, with not much more in view than providing a service to people like you.

Of course everyone is free to decide for themselves if they want to pay x pounds, and it is perfectly reasonable to decide not to buy. What is objectionable is to decide that you personall would rather not buy, and then to go online and publically slag off a go-community partner that has given you plenty of service in the past and is doing you personally no disservice now. It is gratuitous. It is offensive.

[Boidhre]

Bhoidre, look at your comments again and you will see that you are talking in business terms. Look at my comments again and you will see that I am saying that most of the people involved doing the actual work (as opposked to just mouthing off on a forum) are operating a hobby, not a real business, with not much more in view than providing a service to people like you.

Of course everyone is free to decide for themselves if they want to pay x pounds, and it is perfectly reasonable to decide not to buy. What is objectionable is to decide that you personall would rather not buy, and then to go online and publically slag off a go-community partner that has given you plenty of service in the past and is doing you personally no disservice now. It is gratuitous. It is offensive.

Sorry John, I cannot agree that running a for-profit company is not a business and can't be analysed as such (I've absolutely no problem with people doing this in go by the way). Not that one can't run a business as a hobby, but a business it remains.

[wineandgolover]

It is the slagging off that is neither necessary nor useful.

[Bantari]

Bhoidre, look at your comments again and you will see that you are talking in business terms. Look at my comments again and you will see that I am saying that most of the people involved doing the actual work (as opposked to just mouthing off on a forum) are operating a hobby, not a real business, with not much more in view than providing a service to people like you.

Of course everyone is free to decide for themselves if they want to pay x pounds, and it is perfectly reasonable to decide not to buy. What is objectionable is to decide that you personall would rather not buy, and then to go online and publically slag off a go-community partner that has given you plenty of service in the past and is doing you personally no disservice now. It is gratuitous. It is offensive.

Sorry John, I cannot agree that running a for-profit company is not a business and can't be analysed as such (I've absolutely no problem with people doing this in go by the way). Not that one can't run a business as a hobby, but a business it remains.

Well, if you see it as a business, then what I wrote should apply.
It makes sense for them to sell it for $35 for now, from a business perspective, I assume. Maybe they will lower the price, maybe not, we will see.

But trying to argue that they are a business and *therefore* they should lower the price is simply wrong, imho.

And sure - people can complain. But the most forceful complain they can make is - don't buy the book, period.
And sure - people can have an opinion that the book is overpriced. And voice it too. But whining about it is bad taste.
Its all just opinions, and we have to see if they are even shared by many people.

PS>
About the 'customer is the king' quote - this is just a marketing gimmick to get you in the door. Just like 'our cows are happy cows' and all that.
The king in reality is the bottom line. Sometimes the customer needs to be greased up so he can be squeezed more thoroughly. And sometimes the bottom line profits from actually making the customer happy. But - from a business perspective - if more profit is to be made by hurting the customer - the customer will get hurt, no question about it. Such decisions are not easy, but they are made every day in business world.

People who view their businesses as a hobby are usually *much* nicer than that, though. It should be appreciated and understood.