Re: [glosalist] Buying Glosa Books

At 05:21 PM 7/16/03 -0000, Paul Easton wrote:

In the Internet age I find the recent discussion about how to purchase Glosa books strange. There are so many ways in which selling the books from England to buyers in other contries could be accomplished without sending cash in the mail or paying exhorbinant bank fees for international money orders.

Two options, which I have personally used, are Paypal and Amazon Marketplace.

** Hi Paul and others in the Glosa moiety, I write in English for haste. Main Prob: Our centralised authority connection is weak:- i. Wendy Ashby is not online, and is limited somewhat by arthritis, and small income. ii. If the GEO charity holds the money to set up a very small bookstore, it could be used to set up an Internet-based branch office probably in America. iii. A slightly more affluent Glosalist subscriber might volunteer to hold stock; or Glosa-pe in different countries could hold very small stocks to service local purchase orders. iv. I will eventually be able to find cash for a book collection, but imagine that a trustee in the US would need to physically hold the books. v. Wendy will get a letter from me with the net sale idea, and I will ask her for suggestions. vi. A Glosalist Co-operative could be formed with contributors in different countries, each receiving regular statements of developments. Once established it, should prove self-funding.

Paypal http://www.paypal.com/ allows you to easily set up an account that will allow you to accept credit card payments. It is used commonly by vendors at Ebay, for example, but is also an inexpensive way to establish secure on-line ordering from a personal Web-page. Paypal makes money by taking a small commission from every sale, but for small businesses and personal use, it is well worth it.

** Personally, I tried setting up a Paypal account, but kept getting the website run-around, so scrubbed the idea. Nowadays, I buy directly from vendors, and have been successful using a Debit VISA account.

Amazon’s vendor accounts work in a similar way. Go to http://www.amazon.com/ and click on the “Sell Your Stuff” button near the top of the page.

** I will certainly try this to see if it works in Australia.

Glosa’s publisher should really set up an Amazon account to simplify and modernize the ordering process. It is simple and cheap to do.

** If Amazon works for me, it could be adapted for a ‘non-profit co-operative’ to sell Glosa books anywhere. I do not think we have any commercial booksellers in the Glosalist group.

If I thought that there was enough interest, I might consider buying Glosa materials in bulk and selling them through my Amazon account or on one of my Web pages at a mark-up sufficient to cover my costs, but I am hesitant to invest much money purchasing boxes of books if they are likely to gather dust in a closet.

** This is an unknown. However, it might depend on us. Were the Glosalist a fun place to be, more would subscribe. So, with Gary’s and Sid’s stories, and probably a Glosa Ezine coming out regularly - between hard-copy editions of Plu Glosa Nota - demonstrations of Glosa in action is likely to stimulate more interest.

&& And, I must say that our present catalogue is rather short. The present publications list comprises three books:- Glosa 1000 - wordlist Glosa 6000 Dictionary 18 Steps to Fluency in Euroglosa

An audio-cassette collection could be made up fairly quickly, with hardcopy version of the spoken words; and, for the Unconnected, 3.5in Floppy Disks of website contents and the Glosa Internet Dictionary ccould be made available for the cost of the blank disks and the postage.

However, the list is still in need of enlarging.  We still lack a Desktop Publishing version of a Glosa Learners' Dictionary; also, more easy-reading material ought to be available.  We could set up a publishing committee, with Wendy ex-officio: by agreeing on some form of standardisation, and an editing process, such a committee would ensure that each person holding published materials was happy to promote the entire catalogue.

If there are any Glosa enthusiasts in New York City, perhaps we could discuss pooling funds to help distribute materials in the United States.

** Gary Miller has already mooted such a development, and I imagine that you, Paul, would become involved if the planning seemed professional. My guess is that Marcel would carry a small stock of publications in Germany, and I would do the same in Australia. The concept of “distributed publishing” comes to mind, with experienced Glosa-pe in the various countries wishing to lend support to the distributtion system .. especially when more publications in a wider range of national languages are generated.

If necessary, and it probably would be, I could set up another List, possibly called <glosa-publica@yahoogroups.com>, as a place to discuss the development of the publication network plus expansion of the catalogue.

NOTE: At present, there is no profit to be made from publishing Glosa titles - except for what Wendy gets for items sold through the GEO charity. BUT, when Glosa goes global there will be a publishing business set up - unfortunately too late to benefit Ron Clark. This possibility is of no significance to us now, and no time should be wasted in discussing it. HOWEVER, anyone writing, and retaining the copyright of, instructional materials for Glosa might be doing themselves and the world a favour. The analogy is the difference between the immediate income of the members of a pop band, and the long-term royalties collected by the person who writes the band’s songs. Shorter stories written in Glosa will probably be donated to the Glosa Education Organisation, as I seem to remember my three children’s stories were; but, a longer labour, such as the preparing of learning materials - aimed at a world readership - might not.

  In simple terms the above statement is called a CARROT.  Up to now, the only instructional material is the _18 Steps to Fluency in Euroglosa_; The Glosa Internet Dictionary (GID) is the only major work that has been produced outside of Richmond, Middlesex, and thus, not associated with the GEO.
  When will the Glosa group produce more books of instruction and of readings?  If Glosa is ever to be ready for global adoption, somebody has to write these things!  How will they be rewarded?  Is reward necessary to stimulate production?
  At what stage in its development, prior to the language's being launched worldwide, will Glosa need to acquire a business plan?  For a start, I would imagine that a <glosa-publika@yahoogroups.com> Mailing List would need to allow attachments, so that pictorial material, which was intended for inclusion in instructional publications, could be discussed by the proposed publishing committee.  

  Perhaps I am saying it is time for us to consider moving on from an amateur organisation to a more professional one.

Saluta,

Robin Gaskell