But, a number of people were surprised when I sent them a "warning" yesterday telling them they were about to receive a free hardbound book, the one called ENDGAME by Frank Brady on Bobby Fischer. They were surprised they were in the TOP 21. To me that means they figured there were bigger spenders than they out there! Hmmm... you know what, wouldn't that have been nice?
I will be sending out another batch tomorrow and then be finished for now. I had asked the publisher Random House for a desk copy (I did buy 25 copies to resell) and never heard from them. I prefer to review my own book rather than one I want to sell to someone else. That way I keep the coffee stains off of it--which is interesting because I don't even drink coffee. Greg Delaney donated his copy to me. Thanks Greg.
Who services the West Coast or down South when it comes to chess books? If there are chess resellers in those areas I never hear from them. Is it just me, USCF and ChessCafe? That's hard to believe. I know some look at Amazon 15-20 times a day but that's not the same as buying 15-20 times a day. If any of you out there know of other sources I would like to meet them. One reason is that I am sending most of my stuff overseas! Germany, England, Holland, Australia... and am wondering what is happening to the USA. Wholesale Chess keeps telling me they will order from me but I think they would rather sell chess sets (which everyone else has too). Some are only into scholastic stuff and that means clocks, pads, bags, and sets and boards... and probably their whole garage is full of that.
I am giving some thought to opening up 15-20 boxes of books, magazines, and chess sets which I have had sitting idle for years and letting the cosmos rip with that! All previously owned stuff.
The Blog
By the way, I see a few more have signed up (whatever that means) for this Blog. Thank you.
Catalogus Nextus
Am working on a catalog of New in Chess titles and it is in a format I think I can now live with for other catalogs. Sometimes it takes years of experimentation. I am always getting catalog requests from out of the blue. It reminds me of the days when we used to mail out catalogs (and so did Chess Digest)... I would often get scores of requests from people who never ordered anything. I took that to heart--it meant one of two things (future chess business people, note this):
a) there were those people, and not just those in prison, who sit down and send off for catalogs on all kinds of stuff and never have any intention of purchasing, they are just looking for cheap reading material, which regularly, will show up in their mail. Herman Herst, one of the best stamp dealers in NY told me he regularly took postcard requests and tossed them in the waste basket.;
b) those who want to be tantalized but who can never reach for that credit card, checkbook, or PayPal button. I've met them. In fact, Bobby Fischer was kind of like this. No price was cheap enough or low enough. No book was fat enough. No DVD was long enough in content. And in those extremely rare times when they actually did buy something (I am sure that by this time the seller had just been put into an asylum) it was so dog-earned and worn that you would have thought they would be a genius at the subject only to discover--they weren't. As the old Jewish lady said, "I could tell you stories."
Just another day at the salt mine. Now... to fill some orders. Sorry I missed ya yesterday, busy.
bob@thinkerspressinc.com
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