Today's daily door prize donated by NACHIBookStore.com

[Nick Gromicko]

1 http://www.nachi.org/reportwriting.htm

First member to reply wins.

[James H. Bushart]

meeee

[Dana E. Littlefield]

Pick me, Nick

[Nick Gromicko]

Jim wins!

[Keith Swift, PhD.]

Somebody emailed me to say that they didn't think the book was worth it, and he seemed like a straight shooter, so I sent him a full refund. Hope this won't impugn Nick's reputation.

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by kswift

Somebody emailed me to say that they didn't think the book was worth it, and he seemed like a straight shooter, so I sent him a full refund. Hope this won't impugn Nick's reputation.

I have many of your Books and feel they are great .
I am glad to hear you sent them the money at least you have another satisfied customer .
They will now be telling all what a great guy you are .
Glad for him he got to see another one of the great group we have at NACHI.

[wforsyth]

Originally Posted by kswift

Somebody emailed me to say that they didn't think the book was worth it, and he seemed like a straight shooter, so I sent him a full refund. Hope this won't impugn Nick's reputation.

I'll be perfectly honest Keith, out in the real world, I'd never pay more than 2-3 dollars for a 21 page booklet. 17 dollars is awfully steep, and even 13 dollars is steep including the shipping considering PDF is available with Adobe Elements making it so easy.

I expect one heck of a large, hefty, meaty book for that kind of money and if you price books, which I'm sure you have or could, 21 pages for 17 is almost a dollar a page. Does that seem equitable to you? Maybe that's what it's costing you to print and for you to be able to turn a profit? But then if so, put it out in PDF, which is basically free once you purchase Elements (which is not cheap I know because I have it) and then charge $2-3 for the booklet and you will sell more because more people will be willing to buy it. I would like to buy the book but I would never pay that price for it. Too expensive no matter how good the material.

Hope this helps. It's meant to help, not as criticism and hopefully nobody will try to spin it that way.

[Keith Swift, PhD.]

Printing costs were exhorbitant, probably due to my naivete as a businessman, but I'm learning (slowly).

[wforsyth]

I can totally understand. When I went to look at printing costs they were ridiculous. But for that small of a booklet unfortunately you won't be able to move the book at enough of a rate to make your money back.

I think you are working with LULU is that right?

Is it possible that you aren't having to publish them all upfront? Just a few at a time? You may be able to save this still and rethink your publishing and reprice it and all. I think you could end up with a very successful publication in that case as it's an excellent work from what I've seen.

[wforsyth]

Keith, I'd like to make an offer to you.

If you don't have Elements, I'd like to go ahead and print your book on my computer's internal printer using my copy of Elements and send you the PDF file so you can print out the book or sell it as a secure PDF file or whatever you want.

Would you allow me to do that? I think that would save you so much money and then you could charge a more reasonable price and I'm sure everyone would want to buy a copy from you.

[Keith Swift, PhD.]

I've actually made great strides since I started, and have projected printing costs down to a level at which I can make a reasonable profit with future projects, but thanks for offer.

[wforsyth]

Ok no problem.

[wforsyth]

Well, I'm sure I'm being led into a situation where I'm going to put my foot in my mouth as usual, but isn't that comparing apples to oranges?

[Doug Edwards, CMI]

You have already assumed someone is trying to set you up for a *** womping but I am not that person. I offered up an opinion as to the "value" of information and gave a real example simply to further illustrate my point. I made no comparision. Take or leave the information, your choice, always is, doesn't always require a commentary or even a comment. This is precisely why people have stopped offering advise or sharing information on this bulletine board. Sure, if you want to know which is the best ball point pen to use during an inspection or for the 300th time which is the best software, than this is place to get 267 opinions and possibly a heated arguement as to why. I do not have the time or the inclination to offer either. My work here is done.

[wforsyth]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying and I'm sorry for that. I knew what I was about to say was going to sound insulting to Keith whether I meant it to or not.