New OOTS Book: "Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales"

[Glen]

Originally Posted by The Giant

Not only is there the Ookoodook newsletter that was linked a few posts above mine, but there is an Ookoodook Twitter feed where new OOTS books would also be announced as they go on sale. (GITP doesn't have either of those, or an RSS feed for the News.)

Thanks Giant

[NerfTW]

I can't find the original posts in this thread to quote, but remembering the discussion on absurd Amazon prices for the OOTS books, I finally found an explanation that makes far more sense for the ones that are $1000 or more.

On the day we discovered the million dollar prices, the copy offered by bordeebook was1.270589 times the price of the copy offered by profnath. And now the bordeebook copy was 1.270589 times profnath again. So clearly at least one of the sellers was setting their price algorithmically in response to changes in the other’s price. I continued to watch carefully and the full pattern emerged.

Once a day profnath set their price to be 0.9983 times bordeebook’s price. The prices would remain close for several hours, until bordeebook “noticed” profnath’s change and elevated their price to 1.270589 times profnath’s higher price. The pattern continued perfectly for the next week.

But two questions remained. Why were they doing this, and how long would it go on before they noticed? As I amusedly watched the price rise every day, I learned that Amazon retailers are increasingly using algorithmic pricing (something Amazon itself does on a large scale), with a number of companies offering pricing algorithms/services to retailers. Both profnath and bordeebook were clearly using automatic pricing – employing algorithms that didn’t have a built-in sanity check on the prices they produced. But the two retailers were clearly employing different strategies.

Kind of neat. Explains a whole lot.

[factotum]

In that case, why was bordeebook setting his price so much higher than profnath? Surely that would just drive people to buy from the other guy...

[NerfTW]

That's explained in the article.

My preferred explanation for bordeebook’s pricing is that they do not actually possess the book. Rather, they noticed that someone else listed a copy for sale, and so they put it up as well – relying on their better feedback record to attract buyers. But, of course, if someone actually orders the book, they have to get it – so they have to set their price significantly higher – say 1.27059 times higher – than the price they’d have to pay to get the book elsewhere.

[Felixaar]

Ah... only a few short weeks until the books will come to fruition... life is good

[Zerg Cookie]

As for the mail news about new books. If you guys don't wanna get mail about all of Ookoodook's products you can just try to make a filter (I know we have them in gmail).

Something like that should work:
From: Whatever Ookoodook's newsletter address is
Doesn't Have: "Order of the Stick"
Action: Mark as spam

[Richard J.]

How is the print run for this book holding up? I've got several expensive hobbies that suck up most of my disposable income and I probably won't be able to order this one for months. If it's close to going out of print though I'd like to jump on it.

I missed Paladin Blues and War and XPs. Wish I could at least put in a pre-order for a future reprint.

Actually, wouldn't pre-orders for a reprinting make sense anyway? I mean, once there were enough of them for a decently profitable print run, you could make the run and while surely some of the pre-orders would be dropped, there'd still be new orders and orders from people who waited to see if a re-print happened anyway.

Is there a downside to at least letting people put in a pre-order for a possible reprint down the road?

[Lissou]

Originally Posted by Richard J.

Is there a downside to at least letting people put in a pre-order for a possible reprint down the road?

I would suspect that if there is a lack of demand, doing that:

a) would be a waste of time
b) would disappoint people who do pre-order when no printing occurs due to low demand

Printing isn't as simple as 1 book = c cost, n books = nxc cost. Each book costs less and less the more books are printed. If the demand is low enough, it might be totally unprofitable to print and sell the books that do get ordered.

EDIT: re-reading your post, you seem to understand the print run requires a certain amount of pre-orders, and your suggestion is to wait until there is enough demand. Not only might it never happen (and if it did happen, how many people would actually still be interested if it takes years?) but I could understand if the Giant was reluctant to start a pre-order with no release date announced whatsoever.

[Armitage]

Originally Posted by Richard J.

there a downside to at least letting people put in a pre-order for a possible reprint down the road?

Currently, when you pre-order on Ookedook you get charged immediately.
While that works when you know that there will be a print in x weeks time, you can't do that when you don't know when (and if) there will be enough demand/pre-orders to actually start printing.

On the other hand, pre-orders without commitment could lead to overestimating the demand. If they don't risk anything, many people might pre-order who will not actually buy that book when there is a reprint or who will have lost interest by then.

[NerfTW]

Originally Posted by Richard J.

How is the print run for this book holding up? I've got several expensive hobbies that suck up most of my disposable income and I probably won't be able to order this one for months. If it's close to going out of print though I'd like to jump on it.

I missed Paladin Blues and War and XPs. Wish I could at least put in a pre-order for a future reprint.

Actually, wouldn't pre-orders for a reprinting make sense anyway? I mean, once there were enough of them for a decently profitable print run, you could make the run and while surely some of the pre-orders would be dropped, there'd still be new orders and orders from people who waited to see if a re-print happened anyway.

Is there a downside to at least letting people put in a pre-order for a possible reprint down the road?

There are loads of issues with this. If he charges the cards at the time of purchase, then he has to keep that money safe, pay taxes on it, etc. It's not just like "Hey, stick that couple thousand in my savings and don't touch it". There are laws and regulations you have to follow.

If he doesn't charge immediately, as noted earlier in this thread, he has to store the card information, which again, isn't as simple as saying "Here's a file with the info!". There are security precautions and audits one must follow to store that information. And the risk of a small business having those numbers stolen and being fined is far more in the "going bankrupt" category than it is for, say, a megastore like Amazon or Target.

There might not be enough demand, in which case the money would have to be returned. Again, a lot of overhead and work that is now turning absolutely no profit, and is costing you money.


And then you get the horror stories, where a book paid at the time of order takes years to be printed, to the point where customers are filing legal complaints to get their money back. This has actually happened for other early webcomics. (Actually, I believe there was a pre-order issue with the first book printed for this comic as well)

[Katana_Geldar]

Well, I picked up Dungeon Crawling Fools at a con. Now I have the complete set!

[MoonCat]

Originally Posted by Katana_Geldar

Well, I picked up Dungeon Crawling Fools at a con. Now I have the complete set!

I always get a thrill when I realize I can now read OoTS cover to cover, with only half an hour spent on the computer while doing so.

[Katana_Geldar]

And now I can really introduce people to it by lending them a book rather than to read until the first story arc.

[lerg2]

Does it seriously cost 28$ to buy and ship the book? If it is it's 3 dollars too many for me.

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by lerg2

Does it seriously cost 28$ to buy and ship the book? If it is it's 3 dollars too many for me.

If the site says so, it does.

But how you can think it's worth 25$ of your money but not 28$ seems a bit strange. It's the same order of magnitude and "area of cost". 25$ for a comic book is already a lot - but not much different from 28.

[Randel]

I just pre-ordered the book yesterday. Cost a bit due to the shipping but I like this comic enough to support it. I'm mostly looking forward to the Order of the Stick meeting up with their 4th edition counterparts.

[lerg2]

Only have 25$ I can spend.

[Katana_Geldar]

For me, the books were $25 AU each including shipping.

You know, I should have gotten them this week rather than last.

[EpsilonShawn]

Do we know when to expect the books to be shipped? My mail can't be forwarded and I want to know when I can...leave. Or whether I ought to slip in a change of address.

[MoonCat]

Now that it is early May, I'm impatient, even though I'd nearly forgotten about it all through April. Roughly what week should they be expected?

[factotum]

Originally Posted by Katana_Geldar

For me, the books were $25 AU each including shipping.

Australian dollar is worth slightly more than the US dollar, so that's not surprising...

[NerfTW]

Originally Posted by MoonCat

Now that it is early May, I'm impatient, even though I'd nearly forgotten about it all through April. Roughly what week should they be expected?

It's only May 3rd. The page says his goal is "Early May". There's still 2 weeks to go before you can reasonably be "impatient".

[Timeless Error]

Wait a second...it's May! It's May! The new book is almost out! *Goes off dancing*

[Absol197]

I'm betting (based on absolutely nothing) that we'll see the announcement that the books are being shipped when the next strip comes out. At least that's what I'm expecting.

[Katana_Geldar]

You were saying?

[Absol197]

Oh yeah! Take that! You were dead wrong! Wait...

[Ted The Bug]

I've noticed that products tend to be a bit delayed, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up for an announcement before the 15th.

[NerfTW]

Originally Posted by Ted The Bug

I've noticed that products tend to be a bit delayed, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up for an announcement before the 15th.

Which would still be "early May" and not delayed. I wouldn't call it delayed until June.

[Yehomer]

It would be too late for me, though. My cousin is flying out of the States on May 12th, so if the book doesn't get to her before that, I have to wait until the next time she comes home... Probably August at the earliest

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by Ted The Bug

I've noticed that products tend to be a bit delayed, so I'm trying not to get my hopes up for an announcement before the 15th.

Don't expect it until the end of June. That delay CAN happen but does not. If it does, you are not disappointed. If it does not, you get your book earlier and you are happy.

Adjust your expectations and it's pretty easy to be happy. ;)