First...to buy the eBook?

Can we get the eBook electronically signed?

Hm, I don’t know whether I want the e-book or the regular version…

Why not buy both?  Several times!

Larry, you are a marketing genius.

Hopefully for these guys there is a market for a retrospective look at the season.  I don’t know how much of one there will be, but good luck.

Does it look like Brock Hanke’s Baseball Sabermetrics, or what? That was the first thing I thought.

I bought one - print copy.  I bought the STATS books electronically, and that’s a tremendous PIA.

Another book to add to my christmas list.

I just ordered mine.  My girlfriend protested saying that it would take time away from me talking with her.  I responded by saying, “It’s not like I’m usually talking to you while I’m taking a crap anyway.”

Point, Will.

You take your laptop to the crapper?

Print version to sit next to Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Lineups.

My roomate in college used to crap and talk to his girlfriend at the same time.  Don’t know if she ever discovered this.

I take it this work will not be available in stores.

My roomate in college used to crap and talk to his girlfriend at the same time. Don’t know if she ever discovered this.

I hear Marcal Marceau used to wipe...and pretend to talk to his girlfriend!

UFC: Nope, Lulu is a web-only thing. Pretty cool, too, when you consider that the option before this was paying some vanity press out the wazoo to print out a bunch of cheaply made copies of your book.

I just ordered a print copy.  Now if I write a book, everybody at THT will have to buy it.  Pretty savvy, huh?

I take it this work will not be available in stores.

We don’t know yet.  Lulu is the fastest, easiest way to get our book to the public at a good price, so we pursued that first.  But we’ve got some other irons in the fire.

Is that picture of Larry breaking the chair in it anywhere?

Good luck with it, guys.

And let me suggest that you find a way to get one to Neyer, and maybe a few others.  A few words written about it in the right place could shore up sales exponentially.

And thank you to those who ordered the book.  We really do appreciate it.

Very minor thing:  on the Hardball Times page linked above, the link to Lulu.com itself (not the link to the book) is broken (the comma got stuck in the URL).

Lulu’s very interesting.  May I ask what format you guys uploaded the book in?  I assume you guys set the format yourself, and they just print the pages off?

Well, one way or another I’ll most likely get it. I’m still figuring out all this newfangled Internet stuff.

And definitely brilliant! of you guys to get it out at this time of year, when I am famished for baseball stuff. I’m already looking at the magazine rack for material that won’t arrive for another three months.

Thanks for pointing that out, Miko.  I’ll fix it. 

To answer your question, we uploaded the book in PDF format, along with images for the front and back cover.  They handle all the printing.

Congratulations, HBT - Aaron, Vinay, Larry, Studes, Burley, Joe, Steve.

Well… I sure feel left out…

Don’t worry Chris, I don’t really need to see my name mentioned to feel good about myself. I’m just being a pain.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go do a google search to see how many people have mentioned me and my writing…

I’m about to place my order.  I’m looking forward to this.  I know it’s not that similar to BPro, but if you guys grab even a tiny fraction of their market share, that would be great.  Those guys need competition, and I respect all y’all’s opinions more than I do theirs.

Just bought the Adobe version. I needed new reading material urgently, and couldn’t wait for the 4 weeks it would take to send it to Toowoomba.

Well done everyone, it looks at first glance absolutely brilliant!

I’m just gonna bump this so everyone will see it.

Yeah, I’m a whore.

Well, it’s no BBBA, but good luck HBT.

Kudos to the Hardball Times staff, and to Lulu:  buying the downloadable version is wicked easy.  Also unbelievably, astoundingly, commendably cheap:  you oughta find $6.25 in the cushions of your Lazy Boy.

And the timing is great, guys.  We NEED something during this little let-down period between the Series and the winter meetings, when the tradings/signings give us something chew over.

Hopefully, every Thinking Fan buys it.  (And, no, I’m not on THT’s payroll… )

Hopefully for these guys there is a market for a retrospective look at the season. I don’t know how much of one there will be, but good luck.

I, for one, prefer a retrospective look at a season as opposed to trying to predict the next season.  The virtual check is in the virtual mail, guys.

Well you’ll get my dollar.  But thats not saying much - I give mine away - heck I bought Jaime Newbergs book the last two years and opened it half a dozen times.

Thanks for all the kind words, guys.

For those in Canada, I have noticed that Lulu can charge quite a bit to ship to Canada.  We are working on Amazon listing (and Amazon.ca as well) which will hopefully take some of the sting out of that.

I’m also working on getting a bulk order of books myself to sell at reasonable S&H;rates to Canadians.  I’ll let you all know when that happens, or you can e-mail me at and I will let you know when details become available.

Wow, this is way cool. 

I haven’t really read much of HBT, for reasons relating to my lengthy disappearance from Primer.  But given the roster of people involved, including several of my favorite Primer posters, I look forward to using the book as my introduction to the HBT world.

I really think you guys have the opportunity to fill a void left by the demise of the BJAA of the 1980’s. The Prospectus annual is OK but doesn’t quite do it for me. It seems more designed for someone who is into fantasy baseball.

I agree completely with Kevin, which may be a first for me ... BPro’s increasing focus on fantasy (or what I percieve as such) has turned me off a bit—and I run a fantasy league.

Good luck, guys.

Yes, but without BP, I couldn’t win the advanced metrics fantasy office league and thus secure a date with . . . nobody.

{ducks, then runs}

I’m joking, of course. I’m sure all of those BP dudes are major players.....

Just bought a print copy myself.  Can’t wait to get my hands on it.  Needed to update my baseball reading collection.  I own Stats 2002 Handbook, Total Baseball 2001, and Win Shares.  I sorely needed a book with more stories.  Keep up the good work on the site.  Hope to be buying the 2005 Annual next year.  :-)

Bump!

I thought the crapper was the end all and be all reason for having a wireless laptop in the first place.

Enough, Larry.  I already bought my copy this morning.

I think I’ve asked this before, but who is “Studes” and what is his/her real name?

Studes is Dave Studement (sp?) He’s the one who has the Baseball Graphs website (baseballgraphs.com?)

Dave Studenmund

Bump?

I had a look last night, it’s a great retrospective. Thanks, I needed this. Start the trades, already!!

I’m thinking about buying the electronic version so I can start reading now

I’m just Studes.  No need to know/use my full name, is there?  Thanks for the post, Chris.

Studes, just professionalism.

Or you could go by Saki.

Hey, I’ve got no problem being known as an amateur.  This way, my true competitive spirit is unsullied by the spoils of commerce!

Ha!

I am sure unusual pseudonyms have kept people from jobs, as well as the lack of using capital letters.

I’d like my competitive spirit to be a bit sullied by some spoils.

Does the eBook version just come as a PDF or a file for an eBook reader program?

It’s a PDF file.

It’s just a regular PDF.  We trust you not to put it on Kazaa.  :-)

Haha, my real concern was putting it on my palmpilot. But now that you mention it…

I tried ordering a print version, but after putting in all of the billing info and clicking Continue, it sends me right back to the beginning of the process. I did it 3 separate times, and there was no mistake that I could see. And even if I did make an error, it’s supposed to tell me what the error is. At first meeting, LuLu seems to be crap.

Very frustrating…

Alfonse, I’m really sorry to hear that.  Did you contact LuLu?  If not, I can follow up.

BTW, the book will soon also be available on Amazon.

Sweet. I’ll order it in a couple of days.

Bump

That picture of Bump Wills looks disturbing like Damon without a beard....

On the useless completely pointless question side… Studes, are you by chance related to a Bill Studenmund that got a Ph.D. in applied physics about 7 years ago? Its the only other time Ive come across that name.

Yes, Bill is my cousin.  If you run into a Studenmund, chances are we’re related.

I used to play softball with Bill on the Lab’s softball team. I have not seen him since his Ph.D defense though. Id say small world… but I dont think I know either of you well enough for that to mean anything.

Looking forward to the HBT book. Im hoping for lots of cool graphs!

Heh.  about 40 graphs in all.  I wanted to do more, but the other guys wanted words, too.  oh well…

Hey, Dan, is there a good PDF reader for the Palm?  I don’t have one.

You can use Plucker to make a Palm-readable file from a .pdf.  I haven’t used it; but it’s listed on tinyapps.org and I’ve always been happy with anything listed on their site.

Bump.

Well, Erik, my Tungsten T3 came with a PDF reader on the Software CD...so I honestly can’t recommend anything for you. What kind of Palm do you have?

It’s just a Palm version of Adobe’s first-party PDF reader, as far as I can tell, although I haven’t really used it extensively yet.

Hey guys, good luck with this. If it gets on amazon, I’ll be sure to look out for unfriendly reviews suspiciously composed in Rob Neyer’s prose style. Seriously, I’ll give it a good rating and buy the print version eventually. But you must promise that Larry Mahnken won’t use whatever amount of royalty my purchase provides, on anything related to the Yankees.

Heh. about 40 graphs in all. I wanted to do more, but the other guys wanted words, too. oh well…

Yes, but as a graph guy, you should appreciate that the trend is your friend.

I think that spending it on myself in any way pretty much relates it to the Yankees.

I have an older Clie.  But I’m not sure if I’d want to squint at baseball graphs on my little screen anyway.

Is it really an equivalent price?  The book’s about ten dollars more - do the authors receive the same money whether people buy the book or the PDF?  I wouldn’t have thought that publishing of a physical book would essentially be 2/3 publishing costs and 1/3 for the creative content.

TVerik, yes, we get the same profit whichever version of the book you buy.

I wouldn’t have thought that publishing of a physical book would essentially be 2/3 publishing costs and 1/3 for the creative content.

There isn’t a given proportion.  The publishing costs are more or less fixed.  The creative content (read “profit") is a function of whatever the price-setter anticipates that the market will bear.

In fact, the production, marketing, and distribution cost of a physical book falls into the 60-70 percent range of the cover price. Publishing houses, in my experience, aim at getting around 40 percent from which they then have to pay the labour and infrastructure costs of the offices, as well as the money due the author.

Having bought the e-book, and quickly scanned the NL East review, I feel the Expos got shortchanged once again. No mention of their disastrous start, nor their amazing run after the All-Star break (in comparison with the disastrous start) until the beginning of September. And a final month in which they probably played at their true talent level, but managed to derail the Marlins’ Wild Card express. And one needn’t have added much more than that to make it a fair review of a sad season.

Look how much more space the Mets’ soap opera got.

Steve, are you kind of saying that the publisher takes a bigger profit from sales of the physical book? 

So while my friends at THT are paid the same either way, people who work at the publishing house REALLY want me to buy the book in book form?

So while my friends at THT are paid the same either way, people who work at the publishing house REALLY want me to buy the book in book form?

Well, there is the cost of printing the book.  Lulu quotes us the cost of printing per book (based on factors like the size of the book, the binding type, number of pages, etc), and that’s the difference between the two prices.

Looking around at various self-publishing options, Lulu’s price was the best by far (without having to commit to a large minimum on sales, which could have left us in the red).

Fra paolo, you’re right.  I was hoping that the division graph would communicate the shape of the Expos’ season better than my words could.  In general, the better teams got more commentary, so naturally that hurt the Expos.  And I wanted to really get a meaningful rip on Selig and Brochu in, so that cut how much baseball talk I could get in.

Blame it on my word limit.  :-) I’d have loved to write more about each of the 5 teams.

So does Lulu pocket a smaller profit from sales of the e-book?  How are they involved in that process?

Steve, are you kind of saying that the publisher takes a bigger profit from sales of the physical book?

As Vinay says, the publisher has far greater expenses on each sale of the physical book than they do on each sale of the e-book.  It may well be the case that they realize a larger $ profit, but a smaller % profit, on the printed product as compared to the soft copy.

So does Lulu pocket a smaller profit from sales of the e-book? How are they involved in that process?

Well, I don’t know what their cost structure is, so I really don’t know kind of profit they make on each.  Also, their fixed costs (running a web site, employing a staff, etc.) are non-trivial.

I’m guessing that it’s as Steve says, where they make a larger absolute profit, but much lower percentage profit, on printed books.

Apart from my Expos-phile sentiments, the annual is an excellent effort, with many interesting articles, and will be a very handy help for my Diamond Mind league.

Good luck guys!  Hope you make a mint.

fra paolo—interested in joining another DMB league or two?  I can send you details if you are.

I’ve convinced a producer or two at my workplace to pick one up - people who influence the mainstream will be reading your material.  I am sure that it represents the “sabermetric” thinking that this board can have very well.

Well, I have scrolled through the book for the first time.

This is clearly going to be an excellent research reference book.  The 170 pages worth of data will be an invaluable resource for me.  Much as I have stockpiled Elias’ books and the STATS Scoreboards for just such data-mining, Studes and gang have laid out data that is just dreamy.

The two things I spent the most time on the first scroll through were Robert Dudek’s work on defensive analysis based on time of ball in flight.  Dale Stephenson would kiss you if he knew about it - and I plan on letting him know.

(oh, that FB pitchers get people out with FBs is an Elias thing - I have proposed that the Rockies need FB pitchers for years)

and the college baseball piece by Craig Burley.

Burley’s college work is fantastic.  I was shocked to see how highly rated so many players local to me were and I didn’t go see them.  That is an exellent piece.

Here’s the first review - wow, is it a great book.  It looks like it will replace the STATS Scoreboard *and* Player Profiles in one book. 

The book is so good, I plan to send out recommendations to people (non-BTFers) because it is so good - not because of who the authors are.

Oh, guys, the word “American” is misspelled on page 130.  When you fix that, add me as an editor.

Oh, guys, the word “American” is misspelled on page 130. When you fix that, add me as an editor.

Heh.  At least it’s after page 123.

Heh. At least it’s after page 123.

/inside joke

Well, I’ll simply guess that’s where Tamer’s “editing” part ended.

Oh, guys, the word “American” is misspelled on page 130. When you fix that, add me as an editor.

Dang!  Dang, dang, dang!  You have no idea how much that upsets me.  I’m so anal-retentive that I even paid my daughter to edit articles, cause I was sure I was missing stuff.  She found two or three things per page, even after Greg and I had reviewed them.  Proving, of course, that anal-retentiveness is genetic.

I didn’t give her the stats section, though.  Her eyes would have clouded over.  No one to blame but myself.  Well, maybe Burley…

Seriously, thanks for the wonderful comments, Chris.  Can we quote you in our marketing material?  :)

This is clearly going to be an excellent research reference book.

Yes, that just screams additional sales...to a bunch of dorks!

Ooooh—can we quote <i>that<i>?

This is more along the lines of what I was thinking:

Wow, is it a great book.  Studes...is just dreamy.

I didn’t realize your name had two n’s.

(oh, that’s studes, not Larry).

Burley’s college stuff was very interesting.  At any point, is Craig comparing his ratings to the draft?  Is Beane (or Ricciardi) taking guys who don’t have the flashiest college stats in deference to quality of opponent?  Or better, are they overlooking scouting calls - like the ECU 5’7” kid - and taking them anyway?

Chris,

Robert Dudek actually has a slightly more sophisticated “prospect ranking” for college players than my straight run-based performance measures.  We’re going to try to get together this offseason (the college season starts in January) and refine a rating system a little more.  At least, that’s the plan.

Four teams really stood out, to me, as emphasizing performance in their 2004 draft selections.  In order of performance emphasis from highest to lowest, those were Oakland, Boston, St. Louis, and Toronto.  There may be others; I didn’t look atevery team’s draft in detail as I had been meaning to.

Interestingly, with DePodesta gone, the A’s have turned even more than before to a purely performance-based drafting philosophy.

The little ECU senior, Ryan Jones, got drafted in the 22nd round by the A’s and promptly crapped out; his contract was invalidated as there were some arguments over surgery and rehab (Jones moved from CF to DH this year with a pretty severe elbowe injury, which was why he was drafted low… that and 5-7 may in fact be a generous height for him).  Jones apparently wasn’t keen on going through extensive rehab for the elbow.

I’m so anal-retentive that I even paid my daughter to edit articles, cause I was sure I was missing stuff.

Man, do I feel like a sucker.  But, then again, how come her name isn’t in the book?  Ha ... got her there.

Thanks, Craig.

I’m looking forward to Dudek’s report.

Just tore open the packaging on mine, and it looks great. I’m looking forward to catching up with it on my upcoming vacation.

Congratulations on publishing the annual.

Mine better arrive on Monday or else I’m going to have 4 boring flights and a long 6 hour carride.

Anyone know the ETA for Amazon? I don’t quite trust anyone in my family to order anything off the Internet that isn’t Amazon.

Of course, if a technically abled Primate felt like buying it for me as an Olive Branch gesture in the sprit of Christmas (cough, kevin, cough) I wouldn’t be opposed to that

I received my copy yesterday, and so far it’s terrific.  I love the pitcher/batter outcomes.  It will be very interesting to see how much of those categories correlate from year to year.