Today, January 28th, is the day four new Quality Chess books are available on Forward Chess.
The new books are: Chess Structures – A Grandmaster Guide by Mauricio Flores Rios, Grandmaster Repertoire – 1.e4 vs The Sicilian I by Parimarjan Negi, and Kotronias on the King’s Indian Mar del Plata Volume I and Volume II.
The physical books have a publication date of a week from today – February 4th. This will probably be our standard schedule from now on – the ebooks arriving one week before the physical books. It makes sense to me, as you can zap an ebook around the world faster than a paper one. And ebooks don’t cause the sort of problems our distributor in Poland faced today when several very heavy pallets of books arrived on a truck, but with no hydraulic lift to unload them. They managed, somehow.
I have download the books.
10 points on a scale of 10 points!!
Very impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Would it be likely that the websales from the QC website ship tomorrow or Friday?
Chess structures bought.
Already read the first chapter on isonalis (now I’m just reading the book, afterwards I plan to do serious work on it). Quite happy with it. Having a defeat for Carlsen in it is quite a feat 😛
Kudos.
BTW, I have a question for Jacob or/and John. Out of curiosity, is there any book(s) you have published which made you specially happy, be it because it sold well above expectations or just because you think it is specially good even if the general opinion is not that?
For example, Ntirlis book about the Tarrasch with Jacob I guess was a risky venue, as Ntirlis was an unknown author w/o a title to back him up. I own that book and I’m quite happy with it, and just for that reason I bought the french one too.
It would be interesting to know which books were disappointments, maybe because the sells were low or because the overall quality of the book was not up to par. But I imagine it would spell only trouble if you were to answer that question, hence I only ask for you to focus on the unexpected good results.
@Gilchrist is a Legend
Websales going out Thursday, Friday and Monday – it depends on a few things, including where they are sent from. But they are always sent as soon as possible.
I bought Chess Structures mainly because it has a new aproach to the teaching of chess strategy. As individuals learn subjects better in different ways I think those new aproaches to teaching chess material could be something the publisher might incourage the authours to do.
But it’s very nice that Quality Chess has embraced Mauricio Flores Rios idea. Seeing the excerpt I think this will turn up to be a great book.
To John Shaw or Jacob Aagaard,
Can ask you to comment on whether QualityChess will go back over older books to have them published in the ForwardChess app? It appears you are trying to do ebook versions with your future books. It isn’t obvious whether you are intending to do this with your back catalogue.
I’m particularly asking in relation to the 9 Yusupov Build/Boost/Evolution books and the Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis
I really would like to see Chess Structures – A Grandmaster Guide by Mauricio Flores Rios on Amazon’s Kindle Store Please.
@PeterHB
Hi Peter,
Our plans for our back catalogue on Forward Chess are not fixed, but the Yusupov series is very unlikely to ever be on FC, even if we wanted it to be.
Frankly, there has to be some financial calculation in deciding whether to put more of the back catalogue on Forward Chess – will they sell enough as ebooks to make it worth the time and money to convert them?
In general, we are concentrating on putting new books on Forward Chess, though Volume 1 of Kotronias’s King’s Indian Series (the one on the Fianchetto System) will be our next on FC, probably next month. That means the KID series will appear on FC out of sequence – 2 and 3 together, followed by 1 – but that is not a major issue.
Then our next on FC might be Petrov’s “The Modern Benoni”. After that, I cannot say for sure.
@rigao
A few difficult questions, but I will start with the one you wisely suggested I should avoid. Two ‘disappointments’ were ‘True Lies in Chess’ and ‘Tactimania’. Both received great reviews and I was very happy with them, but both sold disappointingly. Why the low sales? Maybe ‘True Lies’ was too thin at 168 pages, and my guess for ‘Tactimania’ is that the cover design, while fun, misled some people into thinking it was a book for children, which is not the case at all.
@John Shaw
Hi John, thanks for responding. I ordered all four hardcovers in one order, I imagine that this could weigh quite a bit. Are the books going to come in one big Royal Mail printed papers parcel, or a big box? Or split up? This is the first time that I ordered so many at one time as a websale. Cheers.
When Will negi 3 published? Before summer or
@rigao
We do not discuss business information on the blog. But recently we were very happy with Pump up Your Rating and Judit’s books – because of the high quality :-).
@James
As long as Amazon demands that the book has to cost $9.99 or less, this is impossible…
I agree Tacticmania is a great book. I use it right now to put the woodpecker method into practise 🙂
Maybe “true lies” is a good book – but the book title itself makes me think I cannot take it serious
This may have been discussed/resolved before, but as an owner of many of the physical books, is there any plan to somehow offer the e-versions at a discounted price? I would gladly buy both (physical for studying at the board, ebook for travel) – but not pay full price for both. Everyone would benefit if this was possible (QC gets more cash for same book, FC gets an ebook purchase from someone who already owns the physical book, and the reader who gets two ways to read the book)
Maybe this can be achieved by sending in-app promo codes after the physical version has been purchased? http://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/15/developers-promo-codes-in-app-purchase/
GM Aagaard:
Any news on the FROM SCRATCH series that you mentioned a few months ago?
I had envisioned it as a whole series of books that looked at a topic from beginner to GM level with a multitude of problems for the reader to solve, with titles such as PINS FROM SCRATCH, FORKS FROM SCRATCH, etc. There would be lots of explanation as in the excellent CHESS TACTICS FROM SCRATCH.
Thanks.
@Bryan
Bryan,
We actually got very excited when we saw this last May. Unfortunately, almost 9 months later, it is still no more than rumors. There is no in-app promo codes capability at the moment. It is very frustrating as it makes difficult the most “basic” things like giving copies of a book to reviewers.
Congratulations with another very positive review by Sadler in NIC Magazine! He likes both The Modern Tiger and The Secret Life of Bad Bishops a lot. I’m currently studying The Modern Tiger myself and I couldn’t agree more – it’s absolutely brilliant and quite inspiring!
@Gilchrist is a Legend
Hi GiaL,
Thanks for your order! Sadly we cannot send today, so it should be Monday. It will likely to be two packages each of two books, sent by Airmail. Padded packages with lots of bubble wrap inside generally ensures the books arrive in perfect condition.
Chess Structures by MFL is a great book . Good job ! Maybe 22(a) structure should have deserved more examples .
@Pinpon
Big book. Could have been bigger, but we would have been totally in the hole…
@John Shaw
If you want commercial success: “Drawing with the London System” seems to be a good idea! 😉 Or: “How to play the same opening with White and Black your whole life!”
Maybe the next step is very big e-books ?
I think it is only a matter of time ( but i have of course not the FC data )
@Pinpon
No!
I see that Lars Schandorff’s Caro-Kann is not available on Forward Chess. Are there any plans to add it to available titles? Thanks.