Shipping Lumix LX5 Books to Amazon; Finishing D-Lux 5 Book

Yesterday I received an order from Amazon.com for 286 copies of the book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 book.  This order came through the "Amazon Advantage" program, which lets smaller publishers send books to Amazon for Amazon to sell directly. This can be a useful program, except that Amazon requires a hefty discount for the books it buys.  In my case, this discount means that I lose money on every copy of the Lumix LX5 book that I send in. Anyway, I don't have 286 copies of the book, so I filled the order partially, with the 12 copies I had available, and shipped them off yesterday.  I don't need to send books to Amazon this way, because the books are being printed by the print-on-demand company, Lightning Source, and they supply all the books Amazon needs.  I wanted to send in this one shipment, though, to see if it has any effect on the pricing.  Maybe with the heavily discounted books, Amazon will charge less than the list price of $24.95, which I think may be holding down sales.  We should see in a few days, after those books arrive at their destination.

I've been able to focus more of my attention on finishing up the book about the Leica D-Lux 5, and I may be able to have a final version ready within a week, if all goes well from here on. I would like to have it available at least in PDF form before Christmas, and that seems like a realistic possibility at this point.

I have stopped selling books on Amazon.co.uk as a third-party seller, because several other sellers are offering the LX5 book there at a reasonable price, so there's no need for me to do so, and it's expensive to ship the books from here in Virginia to the UK and Europe; I only get paid the UK rate for those shipments.

Panasonic Lumix LX5 Book Sales Update; Leica D-Lux 5 Book Update

Not too much news tonight --  I had to work on something else, so I wasn't able to make any progress on the book about the Leica D-Lux 5, though I hope to work on it again soon. I still hope to have it finished within a week or two.  Today there were pretty good sales of the PDF version of the Panasonic LX5 book -- 14 copies have sold to buyers from Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Belgium, in addition to several U.S. states. The sales vary a good deal from day to day.  It's hard to tell how many are selling in paperback form through Amazon, but I would say probably around 5 copies per day as a rough estimate, so sales seem to be better for the downloadable version at least as of now.   If that's true, the reason is at least in part that Amazon still is not discounting the book at all, and I have no way to get them to start discounting it.  Also, Amazon in the US still does not keep the book in stock, so the listing there says "additional shipping time" is required; and, in the U.K., the shipping time is still listed as 2-3 weeks, which might easily cause someone to get the PDF version instead of waiting for a paperback to be shipped.

Response to Comment and General Update

A commenter asked earlier today if I might write a guide book to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 camera.  I have occasionally had people send me e-mail messages with similar questions about other cameras.  I appreciate your asking, but unfortunately I don't have that particular camera in line for a book; I'd love to do more books, but I don't have enough resources to do more than a few per year, at least for the present.  There is good news for users of the Panasonic GF1, though -- there is at least one very good book that covers that camera in detail -- a guide written by David Busch and Dan Simon.  I have had the opportunity to assist David with some of his other books, and I know firsthand that his books are very well done and provide a lot of excellent information. So, you may want to look into that book, and there may be others available also.

As for the update on my current camera books, today there was a little bit of a change at Amazon.co.uk.  For the past several days, they had listed the book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 as "Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks."  Now, for whatever reason, it is listed as usually shipping within 2 to 3 weeks. That is some improvement, I guess, though I really wouldn't want to have to wait 2 weeks or more for a book I purchased to ship.  I expect the actual shipping time is getting shorter and shorter, but it won't be really satisfactory until Amazon.co.uk purchases some books to keep in stock, so they can ship them overnight.

I hope to make some more progress on the Leica D-Lux 5 book tonight; I believe I'm still on track to get it done within the next couple of weeks.

Concentrating on D-Lux 5 Book; LX5 Sales Improving

Today I finished up some other work and now I can concentrate more closely on finishing up the book about the Leica D-Lux 5 camera.  The existing book about its near-twin, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5, is starting to sell a little better on Amazon now, judging from the changes in its sales rank. On the US site, Amazon.com, the book is listed as "in stock," though with a note that it needs "additional shipping time." But this is better than in the UK, where Amazon.co.uk says the book usually ships within "2 to 4 weeks."  Still, the book seems to be selling somewhat on Amazon.co.uk. I 'm just hoping the usual shipping time there will be reduced before too long.

I've had several people ask me when the D-Lux 5 book will be available, and I've been saying I hope to have it out in downloadable PDF by mid-December, and then in paperback not long after that.   I think I'm still on course for that schedule, though I definitely don't want to rush it out and have its quality suffer.  So, I still hope for a December release of the D-Lux 5 book.

Panasonic Lumix LX5 Book is Now More Available at Amazon.co.uk

I'm not sure if "more available" is the best way to put it, but that was the best short phrase I could think of.  Today, the book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 camera is shown on Amazon.co.uk as usually shipping within 2 to 4 weeks.  I guess that's better than "Temporarily Unavailable," which was its status for the past several days, though I'm not sure.  Two to four weeks sounds like a long time to wait for your order, especially for those who are ordering with Christmas in mind, now 3 weeks away. But this listing shows the gradual progress a book makes on the various Amazon sites, going from unlisted to unavailable to somewhat available; eventually, it should be listed as in stock and ready to ship for overnight delivery, but I don't know how soon that will happen.  In the meantime, there are still some third-party sellers offering the book on the UK Amazon site (including me), who will ship the book much more quickly than 2 to 4 weeks.

No progress today on the D-Lux 5 book, because I had to work on another project for a day or two, but I hope to finish the other project up soon, and then I should be able to concentrate on getting the D-Lux 5 book finished, possibly by mid to late December, first in PDF and later in paperback.

More Lumix LX5 Books for Camerabooks.com

Today I was glad to get an e-mail message from the owner of Camerabooks.com ordering more copies of the Panasonic Lumix LX5 book. They are an excellent specialty online seller of camera books of all types, and I'm glad to have them carry my books.

Other than that, not too much news today. The LX5 book seems to be selling a bit more steadily now on Amazon.com in the U.S., since it is now shown as "In Stock."  In the UK, at amazon.co.uk, it is still shown as "Temporarily Out of Stock," but they are taking orders, and there are now a few third-party sellers listing the book at reasonable prices, so sales seem to be picking up there a bit, based on the sales rank.


I made more good progress on the D-Lux 5 book today, though I still have several more days of work to do on it, and I have other projects that need to be done in the same time frame, so I'm still shooting for getting the PDF version ready before the end of December, and the paperback version as soon after that as possible.

Selling Some Books on eBay; No Discounts Yet on Amazon

Now I have a good supply of the book about the Panasonic Lumix LX5 camera; I ordered 26 copies from the printer so I could sell them on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk until those sites started showing the book as in stock and ready to ship.  Well, as it turned out, Amazon.com very quickly has gotten the book's status to the point of being shown as in stock, but taking some extra time to ship. On Amazon.co.uk, orders are being taken, though the book is shown as "Temporarily Out of Stock." However, there are several third-party sellers there now, so I really don't need to sell the book on either Amazon site at this point. So, tonight I listed the book on eBay again, as I did last week, to give it one more avenue for people to find it. I have already had one sale, to a buyer in NY state.

One reason I may have made a sale on eBay is that I listed the book at $19.95 instead of the regular list price of $24.95, which is what it sells for on Amazon.  For some reason, Amazon has not discounted the book at all. In the past, with my similar books, it often sold them at $19.95, and sometimes even for $17.95.  It's much better for me when Amazon sells the books at a discount. I get the same payment for the books no matter what price Amazon sells them for, but they naturally sell considerably better when the price is discounted. There's nothing I can do about the pricing; as long as Amazon pays me (or the printer, in this case, who then pays me), they can charge the public whatever they want. I just hope that some competition will arise from other retailers selling the book, so Amazon will eventually sell it at a discount.

On the D-Lux 5 book, I made good progress today.  If everything goes well, I hope to have it ready to start selling later this month.