Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ubvax!ardent!rap
From: rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Peck's Book
Summary: remarkably difficult situation, solved (so to speak)
Message-ID: <573@ardent.UUCP>
Date: 1 Sep 88 17:51:28 GMT
References: <50330UH2@PSUVM>
Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 71

In article <50330UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
> Yesterday I called three Amiga mail order places trying to find Rob Peck's
> Programmer's Guide to the Amiga (correct title?) published by
> Sybex.
> 
> No luck.
> 
> Can someone suggest where I might find one?
> I tried Go Amigo, Computer Discount, and the Software Shop.

SYBEX has sold somewhere over 10K copies of the book, with relatively
little advertising (I guess they have a cadre of salesmen wandering
around here and there pushing their book lines and have had not much
need, they seem to feel, for direct advertising.)   For a while, there,
it was carried in both B.Dalton and Crown, but alas, it seems that even
though B.Dalton has it in their microfiche, if you order it from them
it could take 6 weeks or more to get, if they get it at all.  Part of
that was a temporary out of print condition, which has since been
resolved.

The problem, I find, is that Amiga Distributors (6, 8, 12, howmany-there-are)
don't carry the SYBEX line and I don't quite know why.  And the situation is
this -- an owner of an Amiga Computer Shop, or Amiga Mail Order Business,
stocks (some/all) of ONLY what the distributor provides, cause that's all 
he knows about -- if the distributor thinks that enough people will buy it, 
(and can get a large enough profit from it as a result), then HE stocks it,
so the dealer can figure that nuff folks will come in asking for it that
when it is stocked, the dealer will sell all that he buys and therefore profit
by it.  But with minimal advertising, maybe users don't even know it
exists, even though, as I have been told, it is helpful (and some even
say a good book).  (sigh)

As an independent software vendor, just TRY to get a distributor
to carry your stuff.  Do they know you?  Are you willing to place
an AD in THEIR brochure? 

SO, there is a compromise to be made... advertise or else, so I did.

There is an advertisement for the Programmers Guide To The Amiga that
will appear in the Commodore Mag Buyers Guide to the Amiga, scheduled to
be packed into each box with each unit sold beginning about 10/2/88.
Because of a current lack of dealer/bookstore carrying the book, as
a service to my potential readers, I am making the book available via
direct mail from:

	DATAPATH, P.O.Box 1828, Los Gatos, CA 95031-1828

	$28 buys the book, includes the source/object disk
	(normally $15 separately), and postage for US First
	Class delivery.  $32 to addresses outside the USA.

DATAPATH orders directly from SYBEX and keeps them in stock all the
time.

Thats what the ad says.  This (pseudo-commercial) posting is done
primarily as a service to those who want the book but cannot find
it.  I am pursuing other avenues, including making an open offer to
dealers and distributors to allow the free duplication of the
source/object diskette one-for-one with each copy of the book they
sell.   I don't mind the competition (in fact, I would rather NOT
be the only known source for the book --- aaaarrrgghhh).  Dealers
can write to the same address to get a letter of permission for 
duplicating the disk, and contact SYBEX directly to order the book 
for stock.  Often people like to pick up something and fondle it 
before they buy, not to mention checking out the table of contents 
and read a paragraph or two.

Rob Peck


CLAIMER (not disclaimer) -- DATAPATH is me.