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individual volumes in select series'


jeff.mellema

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I am wondering, do you anticipate making the NIVAC, BEC, and ZEC commentary volumes available for individual purchase (as opposed to only the complete set being for sale) in the future? Many of us prefer to shop for commentaries by volume rather than series, as most series are somewhat inconsistent in their usefulness. Forgive me if you've already answered this question in a past posting...I didn't find it if you did. Thanks!

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This sort of thing has been requested in several previous threads. It is usually not economical for the Accordance folks. Here is a response from Helen Brown on another thread (see # 18): http://www.accordancebible.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3885&hl=%2Bindividual+%2Bvolumes&do=findComment&comment=38714

Edited by Michael J. Bolesta
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In the past when we have done this the response has been negligible, and it's not a trivial amount of work to split them up, create separate product pages and database support, bibliographic citation support, etc. Then, we usually get questions on upgrading towards larger sets. So sales then has to account for that, if they decide to.

 

The result has been that we keep them in larger sets like OT and NT that are still relatively affordable. Or in the case of incomplete series (like ZEC or Hermeneia) we wait until we have enough vols to make it a good deal. And, speaking of deal, you will always get a better deal per volume when you purchase them in larger sets.

 

I hope this helps to explain things.

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  • 2 months later...

As a student I would really appreciate an opportunity to purchase the commentaries individually. Normally I purchase commentaries based on what book I am studying next in my devotions rather than by set. Also, I would really like to be able to see my commentaries individually and not by set. For example, I own EBC. I would like to sift through it to see the commentary on James vs. just clicking the entire set.

 

Also, I was recently told on your live chat that this is also dependent on what the publisher has allowed you to do. I understand if this is the case. But if there is any way I could get a commentary separate from the set then I know I would be spending more money on your product.

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  • 1 year later...

I am "bumping" this thread because it remains relevant to many students and pastors who simply cannot afford entire series within their budget constraints (whether "lump sum" or via installment plan). It would be fantastic to be able to purchase individual volumes of NIVAC, BECNT, ZECNT and others as needed for sermon series or coursework. I understand that there would be development costs involved in splitting up series, but it seems like Accordance could offset those costs by marketing the individual volumes that rate highly on bestcommentaries.com or the commentary surveys of Tremper Longman III and D.A. Carson. While true that not every individual volume will sell well, the ones that are highly respected should generate interest.

 

Thanks for listening!

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  • 3 months later...

I agree that individual volumes are essential...When you visit an actual bookstore, you don't have to buy a whole shelf of books just to obtain ONE!

For me, at the moment, I want the BECNT Galatians commentary by Moo.

It cannot be a publisher's limitation on this one, as the INDIVIDUAL VOLUME IS AVAILABLE FOR LOGOS.

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Publisher limitation no... contract limitation likely. Amazon sells many commentaries in Kindle format as single volumes (they most often never have a collection price). That is there contract. Logos will often renegotiate a contract to break up a series, but even then it has often been impossible for them to arrange that. These things are very possible for Accordance to do, but as noted above it can become a big headache for not too many more sales. 

 

-dan

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I bought the four nivac gospels on kindle and only one had a linked index which made finding the chapters difficult in the other three editions. I think the whole series has been revamped but the editions i have certainly havent been updated. I am buying single volumes in accordance of other sets now and would only consider kindle as a last resort if you must have an ebook.

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Sorry I never meant to imply Kindle editions were a good alternative to Accordance or other Bible software, only that their sales model is to sell them individually and that is how their contracts would be written out. I know from hearing things on the Logos forums sometimes the publishers have no desire to even think of breaking it up. This seems to be changing more and more, but still not quite as simple as one would hope, for me personally I am much more excited about them pursuing new works than devoting time to trying to break up current works. That is just me and I do know and appreciate it would be nice to buy just "Volume 34" of some set... or just the "Gospels" 

 

-Dan

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Sorry, i know you didn't Dan, i was just sharing my experience.

 

I prefer kindle To ibooks but the kindle editions are very hit an miss in how good the index is. Betjeman's english churches is fabulous on kindle but with a rubbish index which makes it very difficult to use, but that is equally true of the insight travel guides. Good in theory but they still have a long way to go to meet the standard accordance has set.

 

;o)

 

Zondervan recently had an offer and you could pick up a lot of nivac on kindle for 5$ and i had hoped that they would have funded a similar offer for accordance which would have been very tempting for the sets.

Edited by ukfraser
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As Rick Bennett said above, even where the contract and royalties allow it, we find that it is a lot of work to break up the volumes (for example, all internal cross-references have to be reworked) and the sales of each volume are negligible.

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Hi helen, totally understand what you say but by my maths with 20 new testament volumes at $5 a kindle volume, zondervan could have subsidised you to enable you to sell the NT set for $100 plus a sensible markup for all your added features and this would have been another of your super offers (still have a warm glow from your offers last year) but you need zondervan behind you supporting you like they must have supported amazon to enable them to sell the kindle versions at a fraction of their normal cost.

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Hi helen, totally understand what you say but by my maths with 20 new testament volumes at $5 a kindle volume, zondervan could have subsidised you to enable you to sell the NT set for $100 plus a sensible markup for all your added features and this would have been another of your super offers (still have a warm glow from your offers last year) but you need zondervan behind you supporting you like they must have supported amazon to enable them to sell the kindle versions at a fraction of their normal cost.

 

We cannot do anything about their decision to price the Kindle editions so low. Honestly, it undervalues ours and other electronic versions. So, Kindle pricing cannot even be considered in this discussion at all; sorry.

 

Moreover, commentaries and other reference works are not suited to the Kindle format / platform. I own a number of Kindle books and they vary widely on their quality; some of which (from huge publishers) do not even have hypertexted footnotes! Point being, there is no comparison when it comes to a commentary or reference work between our edition and Kindle; ours is far superior. And, personally I think worth the investment. 

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We cannot do anything about their decision to price the Kindle editions so low. Honestly, it undervalues ours and other electronic versions. So, Kindle pricing cannot even be considered in this discussion at all; sorry.

 

Moreover, commentaries and other reference works are not suited to the Kindle format / platform. I own a number of Kindle books and they vary widely on their quality; some of which (from huge publishers) do not even have hypertexted footnotes! Point being, there is no comparison when it comes to a commentary or reference work between our edition and Kindle; ours is far superior. And, personally I think worth the investment. 

 

 

This is exceptionally true. I bought early on 3 Biblical resources, NRSV, Orthodox Study Bible, Believers Bible commentary. The NRSV was completely unusable, the BBC was next to impossible to navigate, the OSB surprisingly was not too bad to navigate and slightly acceptable, thankfully the OSB came available in Olivetree and works even simpler there and the BBC became mobile enabled in software I owned it in already. I bought these items because they were very cheap at the time of purchase and I thought it would be great to have them on my iPhone, they sit there ignored when I need to look some reference in a book up it is far easier to switch from Kindle to Accordance and back again than to open the OSB and do the index.. select testament..select book...select verse (may sound not too bad but you must remember sometimes it may take you pages to school through to get to the right book). I would dearly love to have the NOAB on my iPad and in Kindle it is not too expensive, but I know I would find it inconvenient and likely  useless. So I wait for Accordance or even Logos to bring it to a decent electronic format. So while I will buy general Christian books and theological works in Kindle I will never consider buying any reference material in it.

 

-Dan

Edited by Dan Francis
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