Lamothe's book via Amazon?

lnielsen

Can someone say if Andre' LaMothe's HYDRA book will be available in bookstores or Amazon and when? Currently it seems to only be available on the two web sites.

Thanks in advance,

AndreL

There is no reason we can't get it on amazon, I will let the marketing person see if she can give you more detail on this. However, any reason why you would want to buy it off amazon? We decide the price and discount still. One thing would be of course if we ship to amazon UK, etc. then shipping cost would be decreased in those areas of course. And of course having the book on amazon then you get increase traffic and searches for microcontroller, propeller, game development, etc. all would pop the book up which is good for sales.

Andre'

lnielsen

Thanks for the quick response. I would actually like to buy it from Barns & Noble because I have a discount card with them and at $60 that would lower the price to between $50 and $55. I did not look to see how shipping and sales tax compares. I also think that if this book is more readily available there is a greater chance that some of the libraries would carry it.
I like to try out technical books when possible because there are too many of them where I buy it, read a few chapters and never finish. In this case your's is the only full book out currently on the Propeller so there is not a lot of choice and my son is interested in video games so I am hoping to get him involved as well.
I am hoping to modify one of the new ProtoBoards with your expansion slot and PlayStation controllers instead of buying the HYDRA board. I am also very interested in robotics and I think the ProtoBoard will be more flexible for me.

Len

Gadgetman

Another reason for us to want to buy the book on Amazon is that it's easier to combine shipping-costs, then...
(I usually order 'a few' books at a time because international shipping is going to cost me a lot, anyway)

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Don't visit my new website...

lnielsen

Andre'

Has there been any progress on getting your HYDRA book carried by the major bookstores like Barns & Nobles and Amazon?

Len

AndreL

Parallax is in charge of this and have to contact the distributors such as B&N and amazon.com, the marketing person and sales are in charge, so I have to see what kind of progress they make. But, as soon as the next print run of books come back they will hopefully get this done and get the book on amazon and in a few key retail stores along with my other books. Keep checking back, also you can contact sales directly and query them about it to get a more detail periodically. But, I hopefully parallax will make the book available in these channels soon to increase eyes on it, and of course sales, so I can write more books [noparse]:)[/noparse] Also, I think amazon would be a cool place to sell the hydra as well as thinkgeek, gamestop, eBootuique, discovery store, etc. which they are working on as well.

Andre'

ciw1973

Surely the reason this hasn't happened already, is the fact that the guys at Parallax need to recoup the money invested in developing the HYDRA and writing the book. Not sure how the full kit is selling, but there certainly seems to be a lot of more interest in the book, especially as many of us will already have Demo Boards, so it may be that book sales are the primary source of HYDRA related income at the moment.

Companies like Amazon, and in fact any distributor will want their cut and it will therefore take longer to make the money back on the project, if they ever do. Parallax are certainly going to want you to buy the book directly if at all possible.

Yes, you might save some money buying from B&N, Amazon, or Parallax's distrubitors around the world, and you'll almost definitely save on shipping, but in doing so you may actually be harming future projects like this.

Maybe the best solution would be for Parallax to try and negotiate a better, fixed price deal with their couriers for shipping the HYDRA book.

Javalin

Following on from the post above, from a UK perspective, the distributor is not that up-to-date. We cannot get the HYDRA stuff here, and would either have to order it from Europe or the States.

Perhaps a quicker update of distributors outside of the USA is whats needed, or a requirement that they hold more of the product line?

James

AndreL

More distrubution is always better. Its simply a time consuming thing to set up. Amazon has one of the highest margins in all the world, but that's just the way it is, doesn't stop everyone from selling books on there, just makes less per unit, but better to make $1 on 10000 units than $5 on 1000 units.

Anyway, parallax's normal distributors will pick up the hydra more and more. Since it came out at the end of the year, you loose the holidays more or less before any kind of "new business" can take place. So february will be the month when heavy penetration of the hydra start hopefully, plus more advertising will start in february as well. Thus, more uk, europe and other overseas distro's will hopefully have it by then that normally stock parallax products.

Also, if you do have a favorite distributor in the UK that doesn't sell the hydra, call their sales dept. up and tell the them to stock it, they get enough calls they will contact parallax·and make a buy.

Andre'

Post Edited (AndreL) : 1/15/2007 2:24:10 PM GMT

lnielsen

I am not taking away any credit for the effort Andre' put into writing this book but at $70 for the book/CD or $250 for the full HYDRA system, this is not a small investment. And since this is the only Propeller book out there - anything that makes the book more cost effective will help swell the ranks of Propeller users. It seems like Andre's most expensive book on Amazon is around $33

Michael Popoloski

I know for myself, that I would love to purchase his book, but 70$ seems to be quite a steep price for a book. The most I have ever bought a book for was 40$.

Paul Baker

Micheal, haven't been to college yet? You're very lucky to find a textbook under $100, I had a couple graduate texts which were $350 apeice, they wanted to give me $70 to sell it back to them, and they still sit on my shelves.

New books always cost more than ones more than a year old. We also had to do expedited printing for the first run which left very little margin because of the higher cost.

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

Michael Popoloski

I realize the cost of college text books, but this book doesn't appear to be one. And while I don't doubt the work that Andre put into the book ( I own at least another of his early programming books and know the depth he goes into ), and don't doubt the price that it might cost for you to print it, it still seems almost too much for a hobbyist type experience. For example, I have many programming books, some of which are even larger than the HYDRA book, and haven't payed nearly as much for any of them. Still, I am contemplating purchasing the book.

Gadgetman

I've bought a few books in the same price range...

Mostly books with the word 'bible' in them.
(Though, for some of them I would have been better off with the Dummies edition... )
Price isn't always an indicator of quality, but in this case, yes.
Besides, you also get an eBook(.pdf) edition of one of andre's earlier books, which is stuffed with 3D theory and algorithms. (Most of which only gives me a massive headache, but that's another matter entirely

Anyone contemplating writing games, or 'just' messing about with GUIs on the Propeller really needs this book.

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Ken Gracey

Hey all,

I rarely comment to justify the cost of some products, but this one piqued my interest. Andre' LaMothe has thousands of hours into the Hydra book, not to mention his extended network of programmer friends. Parallax has invested more up-front costs into the book and product line than you may possibly imagine. Even with our backing, it took a significant interest and self-motivation from Andre' to finish the book. His effort and persistence matches only a few I've ever seen through the years. We can't give it away for free, unfortunately. We even printed the first batch of books at a whopping cost of $30 each just to have them available before the holidays (locally, short-run). Our costs are going down with volume, but the retail won't change anytime soon.

Europeans should inquire with their distributors, and if you're not satisfied just order direct from Parallax. Choose USPS and our Sales Staff will only charge actual USPS charges.·Distributors are notified well in advance of any public release, so they have no excuses. Notify me personally if distributors aren't stocking all of the Propeller products you want to buy and I'll·ensure that·they're stocking the line. Propeller is a growing focus of Parallax.

If shipping costs are a real problem from Parallax and that's why you want to use Amazon, just contact me off-line. I'd rather deal with your cases individually than go through Amazon setup right now. We've done it in the past and didn't have tremendous sales, perhaps because we already had reasonably good distribution and most customers wanted to order hardware and books, at the same time.

Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.

lnielsen

Ken,

Thanks for your input - I just ordered the new proto boards and the book from Parallax. I am looking forward to both, I just wish it didn't cost quite so much... Hobbies are on a budget.