Thank you for letter and the comments. I don't mind telling you about where my company is and the challenges I face in trying to compete. Until I can establish volume sales, I'm not making any money either. The current lot of books are at a slight loss. Because I don't have a large budget to write that off against, I just chalk that up as a loss. Since you have learned about the book and have passed along the information to your instructor, that is part of a marketing plan that I do have in place. (I am constantly revising my website. You might want to check the "Earn Cash" part.) If you "sell" my book to your instructor and your instructor adopts it for the class (25+ books), I'll give you a bonus of $200. The advantage this gives me is that I don't have to give anything away up front, I don't have to pay someone to sell the book, I don't have to do much of anything (not really). After a sale is made, I will have some profit, and I would return it to anyone who made the referral. 

 

There is always that pig in a poke aspect of buying something new. On the one hand, I have to ask students to just buy the book. This is what I am working on to make that less onerous. It is my objective to continue to provide insights to what the book does, how it works, and why it can help you. Yesterday, I put up a flash link for a part on resonance structures. Right now, it doesn't have any commentary with it. But, if you look at it, you would see that it shows how systematic I have made resonance. Rather than trying to create a big variety of structures, which is what I had at first, I changed this back to an organized series. Because of the similarity, it will be too simplistic (as if that is a bad thing for organic chemistry?). Yet, when the same problems are repeated in the next parts, it increases in difficulty. My objective is to teach you how to draw resonance structures (so I want you to succeed), and I want a model that you can look back on if you are confused at a later point. 

 

That is one aspect. A few weeks ago, Adobe has started a program in which authorship of .pdf files can be controlled. This is also one of my book objectives. Frankly, I think organic chemistry is best learned at the end of a pencil. When I was in college, I knew that I learned more in writing flash cards that the value of the cards themselves. If you want to learn how to drive to someone's house, if you drive, you will know so much better than if you ride in the same car or if you read the directions. This is just a reflection on how our brains work. So, I want students to draw the mechanisms. I wanted the book to lay flat so they could photocopy a page and repeat it. I have had students tell me they made 15 photocopies of a mechanism in order to learn/memorize it. (I used five mechanism problems per exam in my class. I used exactly the problems from my book so students were highly motivated to memorize those five.) I would like to market the .pdf file also. It would be easier for me also. However, if you could pirate the .pdf file, there goes my book. So, that hadn't been one of the options, yet. (There was a way I could do this, but it would take $2,500 per year up front.) Adobe will let me distribute the .pdf file of the book, I can allow printing the file, I can expire it, update it, and control it. That is one of my objectives. That is the most likely avenue I can provide. 

 

The third is a company called "Click&Buy". They will let me sell the book as individual reactions at a modest price. So lets say, the the ketalization/hydrolysis reaction, I could make that reaction available in all four parts for $1. That would be cheaper than any tutors students could get. If you bought one and liked it, you might be inclined to buy others or to buy the book itself. Right now, the is still in the future, but I am working on it. 

 

I have put a link into my website for direct sales through PayPal. While it isn't a slick as I would have liked, it is something there. 

 

I am also working on a textbook concordance. If you have the book, which problems should you do? I would like to have a concordance in which I list exactly which problems match with different chapters in a textbook. I want to make it easier for students and instructors to find relevant reactions. I have the chapter content for Carey in a notebook, I just need to go through it, and link it to my book (one of my tasks for today). 

 

Regards,

PW