Book published on Second Life

[MargieG]

Hi everyone,

We (Margieg and Clara Coates) just want to let those of you who participated in our research and sl community generally that we have now turned our research into a book that has just been published. It is available as a digital download and will be released as a physical book next month.  It is titled Living and Dying in a Virtual World: Digital Kinships, Nostalgia, and Mourning in Second Life. Big big thanks to everyone who participated and is the link to the book:

https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319760988

[Garnet Psaltery]

You might want to check the Community Guidelines, specifically the part which says :-

• Spamming, Solicitation and Advertising: Spamming is not allowed. This includes aggressive self-promotion. No advertising or promotion of specific Second Life merchants, Marketplace listings, products, or services, unless the forum area is specifically for the buying or selling of Second Life products or services, for example, a “for sale” or “wanted” forum. Do not reference other websites offering any product or service.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Garnet Psaltery

[MoiraKathleen]

I think that this is completing the circle (as well as thanking those that participated) of a request for research last Fall: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/412692-objects-of-the-dead/.

We do tend to have some skepticism here in the forums regarding research requests (and about veiled advertising),  but because it's about the completion of something that some of the forum members participated in, I don't see this it in quite the same light as blatant advertising or promotion.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

I am very much glad to see someone come back and give a follow-up to their previous survey work.  Too often folks claim to be doing a survey for one reason or another and nothing ever comes of it.  While this might be advertising, the overall follow-up is nice.

[LittleMe Jewell]

@MargieG - Your link gives me a 'Page not found' error.

Also, I'm assuming the electronic copy must be purchased -- thus I personally think you should send a free copy to everyone that gave you info that you used in the book. (if you have not yet done so).

[MoiraKathleen]

After getting the 'page not found' error, I searched for it by title.  The page that came up from the search results had #aboutBook appended directly to the end of the link posted above.

[Callum Meriman]

Thanks for coming back to share the fruition of your work!

[sirhc DeSantis]

Makes a nice change to see a result, so thanks to the OP for letting us know, although 54 Euros is a bit steep for me I'm afraid

[Phil Deakins]

54 euros? That's £48! For a book? No thank you. I'd want a year's premium membership thrown in for that

Edited September 11, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[LittleMe Jewell]

Just now, Phil Deakins said:

54 euros? That's £48! For a book? No thank you.

Wow, that is US $62.59.  Pretty sure I've never paid that much for any of my large hard-bound books even.

[MoiraKathleen]

There are books that I've paid that much or more for.  Some college textbooks come to mind,  and also other special interest / narrow focus books that have been of sufficient interest to me to pay that type of money.

[PhantomPixel]

Wahhhhhhhh 54 euros, I read the example pages and il be honest I can't say that it really captured my attention. I paid less than that for "scripting your world" back in 2008 and that was a how to guide for EVERYTHING SL coding at the time.

[Dakota Linden]

Congratulations!

Sorry you are getting flack over the cost of the book.  I guess too many people are too used to getting stuff for free, or cheap, because hey "internet"! 

It is nice to see that everything has come together on your research project and you were able to ship an end product!  

Edited September 12, 2018 by Dakota Linden
typos, why did it have to be a typo!

[Garnet Psaltery]

Well, since a Linden stepped in, I have to assume this topic was fine after all.  Presumably the difference is that this is a book about Second Life.

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Dakota Linden said:

I guess too many people are too used to getting stuff for free, or cheap, because hey "internet"! 

It's not that. It's that even large/thick hard-back books by top writers cost less than half of the OP's book. I'm confident that, at their height of popularity, Harry Potter books cost less than half the price when first published.

[Ethan Paslong]

2 hours ago, Dakota Linden said:

Sorry you are getting flack over the cost of the book.  I guess too many people are too used to getting stuff for free, or cheap, because hey "internet"!

hope you don't mind i mildly disagree with you, and would like to add that 54 euro's is 3 quarters of a years subscription to SL ... and a lot of people in the EU who have basic jobs have less to spend on food weekly than 54 whole euro's. So yes it's a quite high price.

In this light i think your remark about being used to get things for free or cheap isn't very nice.

[Garnet Psaltery]

6 minutes ago, Ethan Paslong said:

hope you don't mind i mildly disagree with you, and would like to add that 54 euro's is 3 quarters of a years subscription to SL ... and a lot of people in the EU who have basic jobs have less to spend on food weekly than 54 whole euro's. So yes it's a quite high price.

In this light i think your remark about being used to get things for free or cheap isn't very nice.

I'm in England, and on a pension.  £48 is at the top end of my weekly shopping bill.  Just a little context here for the benefit of the well-off.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Garnet Psaltery

[Ethan Paslong]

20 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Wow, that is US $62.59.  Pretty sure I've never paid that much for any of my large hard-bound books even.

to be precise if i read well you get the E book for that...

printed is € 69.54 = $ 80.82

Edited September 12, 2018 by Ethan Paslong

[Phil Deakins]

WOW!

[Skell Dagger]

Palgrave Macmillan is an academic publisher. That would explain the elevated cost over and above what one would have paid for an edition of Harry Potter. I recall spending over £70 on Molecular Biology of The Cell  by Alberts et al. when I needed it for my degree and couldn't locate a used copy. In fact, I spent a bloody fortune on textbooks back then

ETA: Just noticed that's the price for an ebook version. I would be prepared to pay that cost for a print copy, but it is a bit steep for a digital version.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[sirhc DeSantis]

I should qualify. For that money I have been more than happy to pay for an actual physical book. I have shelves full of them. Had the link provided a physical book ( that might be a bit of a hard thought for you youngsters ) then the ephemeral version would be a bonus.

Looking over at my Horowitz and Hill (hardbound, cost me 25 quid in '85) and my original Proceeds on the Study of Complexity ( Santa Fe ) ... and I still get one academic imprint a year. And yep they cost.

And as I have hit the thing where the at symbol does not work @ Dakota: It is not about us 'internet' types expecting things to be free, it is about some of us reacting to the cost of academics having their work published. This has been an 'issue' since I was in Uni. The Paleolithic era in my case.

@Dakota Linden

[Tari Landar]

3 hours ago, Dakota Linden said:

Congratulations!

Sorry you are getting flack over the cost of the book.  I guess too many people are too used to getting stuff for free, or cheap, because hey "internet"! 

It is nice to see that everything has come together on your research project and you were able to ship an end product!  

Well that was an unnecessary jab, that makes no sense at all.

Umm, no, paying (or wanting to pay) less than $60 for an  e-BOOK(not even in print), doesn't mean we're cheap or want it for free..I mean, seriously, wth was that?

I'll pay (and have, like most, lol) that and more for my physical textbooks for school, I'll pay that and more for books we need to add to our curriculum for my kids' schooling. I won't pay that for an electronic version of a book designed to be a source of entertainment, which utilizes information from various different residents who will receive absolutely none of the funds collected from said book sales. That doesn't make me cheap, it makes me reasonable, fiscally responsible, and intelligent enough to understand the monetary value of things-and how well they fit into my budget  

If you want to pay $60+ for an electronic book, have at it, I won't judge ya, it's your budget, not mine

 

[MoiraKathleen]

It's been awhile (years) since I've purchased professional books from academic publishers.  I do know that many of them I purchased were between $50 USD and $100 USD for physical books (most soft-bound and not hard-cover).  I was glad I had Professional Development funds from my employer for purchasing work related books.  There might not have been many offered as e-books when I buying that type of book, but I do remember getting several as e-books, and while the e-book was at a discounted price from the physical book, it was not a large discount.   I just looked on Amazon to refresh my memory on prices for the types of books I used to buy, and many are still in that upper prices range. 

Reading the chapter excerpts for this book, it does not look like a book for entertainment for the casual reader.  It appears to me to be a book directed more to students of sociology or to other sociology researchers. So, for the type of book this is, published by an academic publisher, I wasn't surprised at the price.

Edited September 12, 2018 by moirakathleen
added another thought

[Orwar]

21 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Wow, that is US $62.59.  Pretty sure I've never paid that much for any of my large hard-bound books even.

   That'll get you... 40-45 minutes of a hand bookbinder's time, over here. Before VAT. The price for a French style binding is somewhere around $300 for a 'regular' sized book - before gilding, materials and VAT. But hey, I've seen colleagues having commissions land at $66,800 too. Happy it wasn't me tooling that hunk of madness. But it was pretty.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Ethan Paslong said:

to be precise if i read well you get the E book for that...

printed is € 69.54 = $ 80.82

I was trying to compare that much of a price for an E-book to the price of physical books when I don't even come close to paying that for any physical hard-back book that I own.

 

41 minutes ago, Orwar said:

22 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Wow, that is US $62.59.  Pretty sure I've never paid that much for any of my large hard-bound books even.

   That'll get you... 40-45 minutes of a hand bookbinder's time, over here. Before VAT. The price for a French style binding is somewhere around $300 for a 'regular' sized book - before gilding, materials and VAT. But hey, I've seen colleagues having commissions land at $66,800 too. Happy it wasn't me tooling that hunk of madness. But it was pretty.

Yeah, but none of my hard-bound books are hand bound.  And I highly doubt that when the physical version of this book comes out it will be hand bound.

 

While a physical book of educational nature might justify that cost - since I know I paid higher for some of my college books - I'm not sure if an E-version justifies that price.  Then again, I've never priced E-version educational books before, so what do I know.