Hungarian Fighter Colours

Don't worry. Romanian Fighter Colours used to have the same sales here in Romania compared to worldwide!

That's very strange and hard to understand.

Gen. Dénes

I am sure comparing to worldwide in Hungary the sales will be also limited. For instance, I think, in France this book will have more sales than Hungary, maybe even in Poland!

Hungarian Fighter colours vol. 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbzAS5-mZpM&feature=youtu.be

Do you have insider information for the financial report of the publishing houses ?
Otherwise, how can one individual estimate what's going on in books selling business in a country that's not too small, even though it is not big either ?

This post has been edited by Florin on December 08, 2013 03:25 am

Florin, I sell this book in Romania as a BMP reseller. Too far I sold one book!!! Maybe other peopple buy this book from the internet, but as MMP reseller I can tell you how this thing goes for me. Best regards!

Florin, you can start a "survey" with your own buying habits.
How many aviation books do you buy every year?
Have you ever bought any book announced on this forum?
Have you bought this book on Hungarian Camouflage?
I can concur with Horia (also as a writer, translator, researcher, as well as retailer). Romanian interest in aviation books is quite limited.
Radu

My regards to Horia and Radu - I accept their comments and their concealed critics.
The only thing I have to say: Only the Romanian interest ?
This can be compared only if there would be data available for sold books with specific subject, per nation, per 100, or 1000, or 100,000 people.
With the risk of being accused of drifting the topic, what are people interested in today? Twitter? Facebook ? Linkedin ?
The last concert of Miley Cirus or of her equivalents in Eastern Europe ?

This post has been edited by Florin on December 08, 2013 05:15 pm

Florin, I sell worldwide through an online store. I know exactky how many customers I have in Romania. Numbers don't lie.

It is very simple. You ARE Romanian. Do you buy aviation books? This is not about "sa se faca" or "sa se dea". You are the "target audience". You are it! Do you have this book? If not, why not? There is your answer. Asking "why are Romanians not buying books" should start with each one of us, Romanians. There are no "them Romanians" vs "us Romanians".

I bought this book and I also bought one as a gift for a friend. I bought it because I like the subject, I like Denes' s books and he deserves my support. I also want to support the publisher because they published books on Romanian subjects in the past and plan more for the future.

You must keep in mind that aviation literature is a niche subject. Print runs number thousands and sometimes even hundreds. They are not million-sellers. Every book is an investment.

Radu

Florin, Radu is telling the truth and he had more experince regarding selling on the internet. Regardin the numbers, per nation/capita etc etc you will never see something like this, this is another story. If you want to support the publisher start buying some books!

The following is not an excuse, is a fact.
I noticed that I don't have time to read the non-engineering books I had already acquired for my library, and as result in the last few years I bought only few non-engineering books.
An engineer in America is simply a white collar slave: Few times I left at 10:30 PM an office that in theory is closing at 5:30 PM. Leaving at 8:30 PM is more often. And for once it was at 12:05 AM (technically, next day). In previous companies I had to work until the morning of next day for projects with dement deadlines - not weekly, but anyway.
Non paid overtime for engineers is the normality in America. The same goes with the fact that people in consulting and design companies are not enlisted in unions.
Living in America make it easier to understand why once upon a time people dreamed about Communism (It does not matter to extend now the difference between dreams and reality). I am telling you that the speed of developing a project is two-three times faster than it was 13...14 years ago. The CADD software becomes more and more complex, very few people know everything about a certain software (now input the fact that I am using several of them), and these tools that were created to help already started to be more of a burden.
The standard practice here is that people just rush to do something, quite often with no much thinking into it, and plenty of mistakes result from this. If you are discovering these mistakes, you need additional time to figure out what is going on and to make the others understand what is going on. The sooner the deadlines ordered by managements, the more mistakes are out there. The root of the problem is that the government protection of the rights of the working people is much weaker in America than in Western Europe.

Did it occur to you that when people buy "the best that money can buy", that "the best" is made in Western Europe or Japan, but not in America ?
* * * * *
Well, one day I will retire, right? And I should have time to read all my books.
The problem is that that day is still far from now, and meanwhile I will have to move my belongings at least once, if not more than once. When moving, I have enough to worry about to add to that other few boxes with unread books.

This post has been edited by Florin on December 09, 2013 03:51 am

The best (and only way) to keep publishing business up and running is to buy the books (in printed, or nowadays in electronic form). I also bought and will buy Radu's all books, no matter if I have room on my shelves or not (I actually do not, as I have over 5000 books, 90% aviation and history related. I posted here a photo about my book shelves about a year ago).

Publishers are not charities, they work for profit. Therefore, if a certain topic is not profitable, they won't print books about it, no matter how appealing the topic may be for a handful of people. Its a very hard job convincing publishers to print a niche title (like Hungarian Fighter Colours), not to mention that it ended up a two-volume tome, which they eventually reluctantly swallowed (not because of the quality of the manuscript, but because of the significant financial risk they took). Making this venture profitable is the key to further similar titles (for them, Hungarian and Rumanian aviation history is the same area, same risk).

Pressing the 'like' button on Facebook does not help. Pressing the 'buy' button does.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 09, 2013 07:02 am

Florin,
It is an excuse, your excuse, but an excuse nevertheless. Romanians who do not buy aviation books will find their excuse also: lack of time, lack of money, children, they prefer to spend the money on cigarettes or drink instead, they prefer to buy a "mobil de fitze cu megapixeli" (whoever heard of "carte de aviatie de fitze?"), could not care less, illegal downloads, etc.
I was only pointing out a truth: for whatever reason or excuse, Romanians do not purchase aviation books. The aviation publishers left in Romania are struggling to make ends meet despite all the great efforts. Publishing is a business, and profit from sales is the lifeblood of any business. No sale now? No future books!
I buy at least one book every month, but I often buy more. Every time a book is announced here, I buy it. Last month I bought 24 books at the IPMS modelworld in Telford. I have a library room with over 3000 titles and I am running out of space.
Radu

Vol. 2 is available as of today:

http://mmpbooks.biz/shop2/product.php?productid=17668

Free shipping worldwide (by the Publisher's store, see link above).

It contains 20 more pages than vol. 1 (incl. a complete air victory claims list by fighter and attack pilots).

Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on January 20, 2014 01:52 pm