Worst Book Ever, Huh?

I ran across a Google ad in my gmail today.
It claimed that The Cat's Meow: The Annotated Version by David Parker is "The Worst Novel Ever" and "So bad it'll make you cry".
Here's one review:
"Why is David Parker so hard on himself? The Cat's Meow isn't a bad novel, really. Which is not to say that his annotations, in which he mercilessly derides himself for poor plotting and writing choices, aren't hilarious. They are..." 
I probably won't check it out, but it does look kind of neat. I might check it out if I can get it for a couple of bucks used at a used book store or thrift shop.
Here's the Amazon page.

I would posit, however, that the worst novel ever, intended to be the worst novel ever and written by a number of good authors plus a computer was Atlanta Nights, authored pseudonamously by Travis Tea. 
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia entry:
"Atlanta Nights is a collaborative novel created by a group of science fiction and fantasy authors, with the express purpose of producing a bad piece of work of unpublishable quality to test whether publishing firm PublishAmerica would still accept it.[1] It was accepted, but after the hoax was revealed, the publisher withdrew its offer.[2]

The primary purpose of the exercise was to test PublishAmerica's claims to be a "traditional publisher" which would only accept high-quality manuscripts. Critics have long claimed that PublishAmerica is actually a vanity press which pays no special attention to the sales potential of the books they publish since most of their revenue comes from the authors rather than book buyers. PublishAmerica had previously made some highly derogatory public remarks about science fiction and fantasy writers, because many of their critics came from those communities; those derogatory remarks have influenced the decision to make such a public test of PublishAmerica's claims."
Wiki article here.

That really doesn't do it justice.
A sample does it better justice:
"Richard didn't have as sweet a personality as Andrew but then few men did but he was very well-built. He had the shoulders of a water buffalo and the waist of a ferret. He was reddened by his many sporting activities which he managed to keep up within addition to his busy job as a stock broker, and that reminded Irene of safari hunters and virile construction workers which contracted quite sexily to his suit-and-tie demeanor. Irene was considering coming onto him but he was older than Henry was when he died even though he hadn't died of natural causes but he was dead and Richard would die too someday. . . ."
— from Chapter 25 of Atlanta Nights"

Here's the author's website where you can discuss the book, order it, or buy neat merchandise.
Humorously, while most books can be had used for less than a dollar, this book currently doesn't sell for less than $6.90 used on Amazon. Go figure.

Alibris Coupons: 10% Off On $50 or $100, Good Till December 4 2009

$5 off of $50: 
NEW

$10 off of $100
MOON

Remember to sign up with Ebates, and use them before you shop at Alibris.
That way you can get your 10% off, and get 3% off of the resulting bill.

Bookseller Pricing FAIL!

This post shows you what happens when you don't do currency conversion properly.
The seller in question is themeirinca.
Notice the following item, found on Amazon.ca, online seller to the Frozen North.

Okay. Nice fashion book. Probably a bunch of neat pictures. Not cheap, though.
Cheapest way to get one from Amazon.ca  is direct from Amazon, at CDN$ 109.62.
Let's notice the below listing:

















That's right, 17,697 Canadian smackeroos.
Or, for those of you wanting to convert into other currencies, I scooped some values from the Wolframalpha website, which I highly reccomend.


JPY | yen 1.492 million  (Japanese yen)
EUR | euro 11380  (euros)
GBP | sterling 10470  (British pounds)
CNY | yuan 114700  (Chinese yuan)
MXN | $ 222900  (Mexican pesos)

This raises the question of exactly how these guys got this currency conversion that far wrong.
Anyone who could work that out is either better at math than me or travels a lot more.
If you'd like to look at their feedback, it's here:
www.amazon.ca/seller/themeirinca
One wonders how long they'll stay in business with 67% positive feedback.

Feedback 30 days 90 days 365 days Lifetime Positive 40% 67% 67% 67% Neutral 40% 22% 22% 22% Negative 20% 11% 11% 11% Count 5 9 9 9 What do these mean?

That's all for now. Catch you guys later.

PS- Check out their Amazon.ca price for the book with ISBN 1416024506, the 18th Ed of The Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics.

Bad Bookseller! No Cookie! College Books Direct

Today, our NO COOKIE! winner is Collegebooksdirect.

I ordered two copies of Hall's Economics, 4th Edition hardcover, USA edition for students.

Today, I received the books, complete with a bunch of extra stickers.

Why don't I show you what they looked like?

Front Cover On Arrival

Rear Cover On Arrival

Now, when you see a bunch of used book stickers on the cover, 90% of the time that means there's something up.

Typically you're looking at some kind of free copy.

When textbook "salesmen" visit a college campus, they hand "free" copies of the books out to professors so that they can review the books and consider them for adoption in their next class on the book's topic.

In most cases, these free copies have been specially printed to discourage resale.

Frequently one will see "Instructor's Edition" printed on the front and/or back covers. The ISBN printed on the bottom right corner of the rear cover is generally a special ISBN that has been assigned to the rear Instructor's Edition only; regular copies bear a similar but different number, generally with a difference in the final two digits.

Thomson Southwestern sometimes makes statements on the covers like "NOT FOR SALE: This textbook has been provided free for an instructor to consider for classroom use. Selling free examination copies contributes to higher prices of textbooks for students."

Knowing all of the above, I proceeded to peel the stickers off of these books.

Let's take a look at the bare books! Some residue remains; these stickers are not made to be easily removed, and I probably spent 10 minutes stripping them off.

Front Cover, After Sticker Removal

Rear Cover, After Sticker Removal

There you go. My suspicions were correct.

Let's note that this condition was NOT properly disclaimed.

Here's the description:

Text may contain some highlighting.

Below is a screenshot of the description.

For the record, I ordered this on the Alibris.com website.

Now, Alibris *does* permit teacher's editions, but they need to be disclaimed as such.

Thus, our "No Cookie" goes out to Collegebooksdirect, who really ought to have known better. It's not like they're new to the textbook scene, being nearly 15 years old.

Trivia question for the readers:

What's the oldest instructor's edition you've ever seen?

Anyone?

Feel free to share!

12/24/2009 Update: I noticed a couple of hits from an IP associated with College Books Direct. In case you're reading this, here's a kind word or two: You guys are generally way cooler about returns than 90% of sellers, and your customer service is head and tails above every other large textbook seller I've ever dealt with. I'd give you a Good Bookseller! Cookie For You! on that basis, but here at Bad Bookseller, No Cookie, I only have No Cookies! to hand out. I initially left your name out of my post, but put it in later to illustrate a point for one of my friends.

Another No Cookie For Half

Okay, not only do you let flawed listings through, Half, but you refuse to remove them even when I report them. Twice.

Notice this listing:

0721602401

9780721602400

Textbook of Medical Physiology: With STUDENT CONSULT Online Access

$23.00

punktux

EBOOK/ELECTRONIC version of Textbook Of Medical Physiology

Come on guys, it's not like it's a wrong version, this is an actual illegal electronic copy.

Anyone want to contact Saunders, the publisher?

On Amazon, You Seem To Be Able To Get Away With Listing The Illegal Import Of The Old Edition On The New Edition's Product Page!

The Bad Bookseller of the day is Amazon's 'turkishboy'.

Not him listing not only an older edition of the book, but also an edition that's not actually permitted for sale in the US.

Sometimes I wonder if these folks don't do this to mess with the automatic repricers that some larger dealers use.

Some nefarious types use unattractive copies of books to "bait" down the prices of legitimate booksellers.

0324422695 9780324422696

Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card)

VG

$56.01

turkishboy

11th Edition International Softcover. Content 90\% similar to 12th Edition Hardcover. Differences: Some End of Chapter Problems. Mini-Cases are exactly identical. Text in pristine condition. Cover only slightly worn. With CD and Subscription.

Definitions:

For what an "International Student Edition" is, go here:

http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Textbooks/international-editions.shtml?cm_ven=ggl&cm_cat=us-content&cm_pla=internationaleditions&cm_ite=international%20edition&afsrc=1&gclid=CMys85mJiZ0CFeRL5QodSQmSag

For what an "automatic repricer" is, go here:

http://whiteunicornbooks.pbworks.com/Repricing

Finally, if you're a seller and thinking about using a repricing service, I reccomend "Repriceit". Their "smart repricing" isn't perfect, but it's the best option available to someone who doesn't want to move to a fancy listing service or write custom perl scripts to do it.

Their site is here:

http://www.repriceit.com/

Alibris Coupon: $3 off on $30

I've decided to broaden my focus and include shopping tips for the savvy book consumer.

Folks, if you buy books online you owe it to yourself to check out the Alibris website.

Alibris is a bookselling/media venue with a large number of third-party sellers listing their stock on it, much like you might see on Amazon's Marketplace. Alibris itself is a bookseller, and sells some books from its own stock.

The following coupon is good through September 30, 2009:

LAPPE - $3 off $30+

If you need 3 $30 items, slap 'em in your cart and enter this coupon at checkout. You'll get the items in my example for $27 plus shipping.

If the items are from the same seller, you get a discount on shipping, which is better than what Amazon does, where you can order 10 books from the same seller and wind up paying $39.90 in shipping.

Another trick I suggest is to sign up with "Ebates". This site will give you 3% cashback on each purchase you make through them with Alibris, so in my above example you'd get back 90 cents.

This knocks your product cost on your $30 purchase down to $26.10, at which point you just got 13% off on your purchase.

That's a good deal in anyone's book!