Settling into a Groove

Today did not see any major problems or breakthroughs; actually, the orders for the D-Lux 4 book slowed down so much that no new orders came in for about 24 hours, until early this afternoon. By the end of the day we had six new orders, two from the U.K., one from Switzerland, and three from the U.S. We shipped the 23 books off to Amazon this morning. It was interesting to look at the book's listing on Amazon today, because now the listing shows what items people "often" buy along with the book, including, not too surprisingly, the D-Lux 4 camera itself, the leather case, extra batteries, and the Leica external viewfinder. I have been lucky in one way, because the D-Lux 4 camera was on back order for quite a while until recently; now it seems to be quite available, and there is some demand for the camera. I believe people often look for accessories and items such as this book when buying a new camera, so the timing has worked out quite well for launching the book.

Also, although I easily could be wrong about this, from reading the postings on various Leica-related forums it seems there is a good chance that Leica will not be replacing the D-Lux 4 with a D-Lux 5 or other similar model in the near future, or, according to some people, ever. Some people believe that, because Leica will be releasing the new X1 camera within the next couple of months, the company is going to focus on more traditional German-made cameras, and stop producing new hybrid Panasonic-Leica models like the D-Lux 4. If that turns out to be the case, and they continue to sell the D-Lux 4 (which is highly regarded as a compact camera), it could be good news for ongoing sales of this book. But I'm certainly not counting on that happening. In any event, even if Leica stops selling new D-Lux 4s, there may be some market for the book with people who buy them used, or who have had the camera for a while and want to learn more about its operation.

The printing and binding went well today; Clenise cranked out eight more copies tonight, so we actually have a small inventory waiting for new orders. Our goal is to build up an inventory of 20 or so books, but that has been hard, with the orders coming in fairly steadily.