Lumix LX3 Book is Available on Amazon

A few days ago the print-on-demand paperback edition of my new book, Photographer's Guide to the Panasonic Lumix LX3, started showing up as available on Amazon.com.  They have it listed at $24.95, the full retail price. The price may be keeping people from buying it; I believe it has sold about one copy in the five or so days it has been available; as of a few minutes ago its sales rank had dropped into the 800,000 range, which is not too good.  I have listed a copy on Amazon as a 3d-party seller for $19.95, and it hasn't sold either.  Oh, well -- the camera's replacement (the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5)  has been announced, which must be a factor.  Ironically, though, the Leica D-Lux 4 camera seems to have been officially discontinued, though the book about the D-Lux 4 is continuing to sell fairly well.  Neither book has sold any PDFs lately, though.  I have a web designer working on re-designing my home-made site, but the point of that exercise is fading, because no one is buying the books!  Maybe the redesigned site will help.  I'll try to post another update in a few days.

It's Been Quite a While, But I'm Back to Post Once Again

My last post was in January, after Clenise and I had finally ended our home-based printing enterprise and moved on to having Photographer's Guide to the Leica D-Lux 4 printed by Lightning Source, Inc., a major print-on-demand company. The arrangement with LSI has been fantastic. After an initial waiting period of 3 months, I get paid by direct deposit shortly after the first of the month for the books that were sold three months previously. I have set the back up for sales both by Amazon.com in the US and Amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom. The book sells fairly well in Britain, where amateur photographers are very active and take their hobby quite seriously.

I have just finished an updated and revised version of the book, geared to the Panasonic camera that is almost identical in features and functions to the Leica D-Lux 4.  That book is called Photographer's Guide to the Panasonic Lumix LX3.  Rather ironically, I approved the proof copy of the book yesterday, which happened to be the same day that Panasonic officially announced the replacement model, the Lumix LX5. Well, I knew that was coming, but I still wanted to get the second book done, for those readers who still will be buying and using the existing model for a few more months, I hope.  The new book is updated to cover the features added in the upgrade of the camera's firmware to version 2.2; that updated information also applies to the Leica D-Lux 4.

On another front, after writing the Leica book, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to co-author some other camera guides, with David Busch, who is a very established and well-respected author of numerous guides and other photography books. That has been a great experience, and I hope to be continuing in those endeavors.

Well, I wanted to add this brief update to let people know that I have not totally disappeared. I will try to add more updates from time to time as things progress.