Transformation: The Marvel UK Website and Now Book! Plus Dalek's Other Published Works.

[Brendocon 2.0]

With that last bit you've actually hit upon one of the harder parts of turning this into something that worked solely as a book rather than a collected website. Cutting out all the contempoary references actually would have been fairly easy (and a lot did go), but I did very much want to keep the feel of this being a "Journey" in real time where the stuff going on in my life did have an impact--be it good, such as the fun of reading Enemy Within whilst sat at a bar near Simon Furman, or bad, hello ReGeneration One fans!---on how I went into each issue.

Drop the Dead Donkey that shizzle.

"This entry was originally written on 23rd June 2013, in a week when Stuart couldn't get his spell-check to work and a really shit issue of RiD had just landed."

[Rack 'n Ruin]

"This entry was originally written on 23rd June 2013, in a week when Stuart couldn't get his spell-check to work and a really shit issue of RiD had just landed."

But those things could apply to any given week!


I kid, I kid...


And c'mon, Dalek, how did you not love Robo Capers? While not as good as Combat Colin, it was infinitely better than that bloody cat. I did like those bonus strips, though. Happy days!

[Brendocon 2.0]

Almost as if my examples were carefully chosen.

(Joking, obviously. I've still not read RiD so wouldn't dream of casting aspersions about its quality).

[inflatable dalek]

But RID isn't weekly.

[Denyer]

In passing, if anyone wants to get into a bidding war, this is the first copy of Eugenesis I've seen come up for sale in a long while...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transformers-Eu ... 571344308?

[inflatable dalek]

Speaking of price wars, I do love the person who has set up a second Amazon page for the book so they can try and fleece idiots with extortionate prices:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transformation- ... sformation

£410 for a new copy. But only £291 for a used one (which has actually gone up from last week when it was worth £110). Except the used copy will be exactly the same as a new one as I've not sold enough for there to be a second hand market (and the bulk of those are signed, which I say should make it worth more than a new one!) so this person will just order a copy and send it to you regardless of what you pay.

Are Amazon good at sorting out this sort of thing if you contact them? Whilst this greedy tit is entitled to try and make as much money as they can, I think it should at least be merged with the proper Amazon page for the book so people can have the choice/not thinking there's just stupidly priced versions out there because they only see the one page and so don't buy (which is more of a concern for me).

Oh, and it's both back in stock on the proper Amazon page after not being so for a couple of weeks (why I'm not sure when they just order a copy from Lulu when you buy from them. They're claiming to only have ten in stock), and if anyone wants free postage it's on the Book Depository as well, three pence more for some reason I can't fathom though.

[Skyquake87]

Stuff like that on Amazon annoys me no end. There's some knobhead keeps chucking Lego sets on there for a grand a throw or more. There's too many folk like this that have got wise to Amazon's pricing by availablity and are treating it like the stock market.

...isn't captialism marvellous?

[Cliffjumper]

Most of it's automated stuff thrown up by ISBN/EAN with no human interaction, feeding back from Amazon's own database. You can make up a product for Amazon (not too difficult, just need an EAN for something that's not already on there; storebrand stuff is handy if you're, say, trying to set up a listing page for something that predates EANs) and several automated sellers will set up an automatic listing once it's all fed fully through the database; would suspect that any purchase of one of these would be met with an out of stock refund. This is why the famous Paul Ross box canvas attracted so much attention, because there were some for sale for thousands.

[Cliffjumper]

Cutting out all the contempoary references actually would have been fairly easy (and a lot did go), but I did very much want to keep the feel of this being a "Journey" in real time where the stuff going on in my life did have an impact--be it good, such as the fun of reading Enemy Within whilst sat at a bar near Simon Furman, or bad, hello ReGeneration One fans!---on how I went into each issue.

Personally I feel you're selling your writing short by using such a device as the "on-topic" sections did a perfect job of conveying the real time aspect both for you reviewing them and the readers of the time.

[Skyquake87]

Most of it's automated stuff thrown up by ISBN/EAN with no human interaction, feeding back from Amazon's own database. You can make up a product for Amazon (not too difficult, just need an EAN for something that's not already on there; storebrand stuff is handy if you're, say, trying to set up a listing page for something that predates EANs) and several automated sellers will set up an automatic listing once it's all fed fully through the database; would suspect that any purchase of one of these would be met with an out of stock refund. This is why the famous Paul Ross box canvas attracted so much attention, because there were some for sale for thousands.

I did not know that, I just assumed (wrongly) it was a chancer on the make.

[inflatable dalek]

There is a chancer on the make, me.

Interesting stuff about the how the secondary market works on there, all sounds a bit baffling to me.

Personally I feel you're selling your writing short by using such a device as the "on-topic" sections did a perfect job of conveying the real time aspect both for you reviewing them and the readers of the time.

The second book should be a bit smoother, I've actually been thinking "So how will this work in the book?" so as to save work rewriting later.

[Cliffjumper]

It is and it isn't; larger Marketplace sellers often have their shops set to "match lowest price" and often set up something to pick up any additions to either the catalogue or Amazon's insane chart. They'll have an upper limit set and the insane price is probably what it is; as yet as something so newly published there probably aren't any genuine used listings on Amazon, just auto-setups, so there's no competition for a low price.

If I was to log into my Marketplace now and list a copy at - say - £30 - within minutes/hours (depending on how quickly Amazon's cache picked it up) their copies would drop to £29.99. But as said there are no genuine used copies out there so no personal sellers are using that field; let's say Dalek sells 1000 copies, chances are for some reason or another a couple of people will move them on in a couple of years and you'll have multiple genuine used listings from people happy to get a fiver for a genuine used book.

So it is chancers from the point of view that Marketplace sellers are happy to provide the 'cheapest' price for an item in multiple condition categories however absurd the actual price is (I guess the logic being that if someone does plump for a £100 used copy they can just source one - and due to the way Amazon's marketplace system works cancel the order if it proves impossible, or if they can't get a copy for significantly less than £100).

But it isn't from the point of view of there being a bloke sat there going "look at that book, I reckon I can get £100 for one of those by setting up my own listing, LOL".

And TBH I'd be surprised if Amazon could be bothered to do anything about the situation, especially as it's their mechanism that effectively sets up the automatic undercutting in favour of big business marketplace sellers. The answer is likely to be to rely on customers doing their research.

It is a system that's open to abuse if you've got the balls, though - find item you want used; set up a listing and undercut lowest price by a significant amount if the lowest prices are by bulk outfits; wait for their prices to drop automatically and buy while hoping they don't realise it's you doing it (not difficult as your seller ID isn't your buying ID) and cross your fingers no-one buys it off you in the meantime.

(Not that I have done this on multiple occasions; though post-checkout there is often someone human pulling the stock out and if you overdo crashing the price on something too obscure the seller will miraculously have no stock to send).

[inflatable dalek]

let's say Dalek sells 1000 copies

I like the way you say things.

Though if anyone sells their copy I will cut them.

Oddly, whilst Lulu tells me every time they sell a copy direct, I've not had any information on how many I've sold through Amazon/Barnes and Noble/The Book Depository yet. I'm presuming they do that quarterly, though considering Lulu has to send them out anyway I don't know why they can't keep me better informed. I only know people have been buying it off Amazon because they've told me themselves.

[Denyer]

In passing, if anyone wants to get into a bidding war, this is the first copy of Eugenesis I've seen come up for sale in a long while...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transformers-Eu ... 571344308?

Got up to just under $150, which isn't bad for something that thankfully isn't exclusive (leaving aside minor edits) to its original print run.

[Cliffjumper]

Someone's going to be very disappointed that there's not a single incident of Swerve doing epic bantz in there.

[Death's Head]

I was reading some old TMUK stories the other day and I must admit, it jarred me slightly when Swerve showed up and behaved...like a metallurgist. He was doing his job and everything!

[inflatable dalek]

The young lady who won the book seemed delighted with it on twitter yesterday, but--whilst it's clearly of historical value (even if Roberts hadn't gone on to do anything else, an entirely self published Transformers book is a pretty insane thing. Especially before the sort of lazy and easy ways of self publishing some tossers use today were available) and I'd not say no if the chance to get a copy came up... I think I can live with the PDF.

Though having the PDF and access to easy self publishing, if anyone has a good scan of the cover we could print our own and say, sell one "Original" every few months. We'd be rich! Rich!

Ahem.

If I've worked it out correctly the second part of the Cosmic Carnival will be (counting the Annuals/Collected Comics/Addendums) 200th Transformation piece. That means I've got less that two weeks to come up with something celebratory.

Maybe I'll randomly attack myself for no readily apparent reason other than to pad things out?

I've been browsing a draft of the Other Book On Transformers that will be coming next year (I can't go into details as it's not formally been announced yet, and as it's coming from a proper publisher I'd probably get the author--who foolishly thinks I know enough to be sent an advanced draft--into trouble. But it obviously won't be as good as mine) and was reminded of something Tom touched upon earlier:

Back when this started a lot of people did actually ask me to do detailed synopses and credits. That wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to do (having grown tired of the approach I'd used for the reviews here), but it did come up again when I started on the book version as a few people did think a proper book would need them for context.

I did consider it as whilst there's plenty of online synopses, there's only been that now very outdated Prime Targets in print. Luckily finding out this other book that is actually doing all that was coming relieved me of that and saved an awful lot of rewriting. Huzzah!

[Denyer]

Who got it? Anyone we know?

Though having the PDF and access to easy self publishing, if anyone has a good scan of the cover we could print our own

Not the first person to make that suggestion. Not having anything to do with a for-profit printing, but I'd like a copy on acid-free paper and am considering working out the logistics (ditto epub). Got as far as reading some instructions for TeX some years ago, but there are probably mature open source authoring tools around now.

BTW -- not in this evening but will make podcast edit tomorrow all being well. Will be quicker if someone lets me know what bit to clip out, rather than re-doing from new original source.

[Cliffjumper]

Regarding non-profit, IIRC Lulu does have an option to set the book price at cost (or did when I did those Robo Machine things... which'd also mean for anyone feeling sneaky there's the option of setting it up as a private book). Mind, it'd feel pretty rude considering the writer is interactive with fandom, and it'd be a red flag to the arselickers... Has anyone asked Roberts about this option? What's the copyright status of the book, i.e. is it up to him?

[inflatable dalek]

Though I have previously considered printing off my own copy as a one off (putting it out of mind as I'd need help with the layout and cover, so that person would have to have a copy as well. Then there'd be a few "Well, so and so must have one, they're a good mate and they deserve it!" folk and the whole thing grows out of hand), I'd not do so without getting some sort of permission from Roberts, which he'd probably not be able to give these days, even clandestinely.

So if someone cad passing through nicks my fiendish money making scam, I'll be really annoyed.








Because I won't see any money from it.

Who got it? Anyone we know?

I didn't recognise them, they said they were bringing it to the TFCon in Charlotte so get signed, so presumably an American/Canadian.

BTW -- not in this evening but will make podcast edit tomorrow all being well. Will be quicker if someone lets me know what bit to clip out, rather than re-doing from new original source.

Did Terome not send you a file with the new edit in it? I was under the impression he had.