This is a discussion on Iowegan's Book within the Gunsmithing forums, part of the Firearm Forum category; good day everyone.
i don't know if i'm posting in the proper forum but please direct me on how to procure Iowegan's Book.
tia...
I'm not speaking for Iowegan and I'm sure he will reply. Not to awful long ago he posted he had some of his manuals left but when they were gone he wouldn't be getting anymore printed. I don't see that post now so he must have removed it and is sold out.
Sorry, I'm sold out of all SA, DA, and MK Series Gun Guides. I had quite a few books in stock because many people that ordered them did not follow through and send payment. Turned out, I took them to a local gun show and sold all of them at a discount.
This last batch of Gun Guides turned out to be a bad experience because I lost quite a bit of money. Being retired, doing the books kept me busy and I enjoyed it but I just can't afford to lose money. So .... I probably won't have more printed and I hope everyone understands.
Would it help if people prepaid? Like a big dummy, I missed out. I would be more than willing to send a money order and then wait until you had enough prepaid orders to do up a batch. Or is the quantity needed to print pretty high. That stinks you did this and ate money. IF this is all a wash, would you be willing to go back to the old electronic version that you would email out for a payment? I know you stated before that you had issues with that, but maybe it could be a last resort if payment was up front.
Would it help if people prepaid? Like a big dummy, I missed out. I would be more than willing to send a money order and then wait until you had enough prepaid orders to do up a batch. Or is the quantity needed to print pretty high. That stinks you did this and ate money. IF this is all a wash, would you be willing to go back to the old electronic version that you would email out for a payment? I know you stated before that you had issues with that, but maybe it could be a last resort if payment was up front.
X2... The people who didn't get a chance to buy shouldn't be punished for other peoples foolish actions...Here's a few options that could serve as solutions to your problem: You can create a personal blog(http://tinyurl.com/copysolution) and only invite people who have paid, you can also disable copy and pasting.. There should be a way to set up a pay per view library too... I hope this helps out a bit or at least gets some ideas going..
Last edited by LoGiiCz; June 17th, 2011 at 11:54 AM.
Gary I hate hearing how you lost money. How people can be like that. If I tell someone I want something I come through. If you decide to do it again do it prepaid. I know you didn't want checks and I can't blame you. If someone does send a check just hold the shipping until the check clears. I really didn't know how you could sell them as cheaply as you were. I'm grateful I got all of your manuals. If you don't get more I can't say I blame you. You had a good thing going to help people with the Ruger's and they ruined it.
You guys that didn't know about the manuals or waited too long you missed a great opportunity of getting book full of all kinds of information.
I don't want to sound like I'm begging here. But I also don't mean to pry. It's hard not to treat Iowegan like the Lord of Ruger here sometimes. The guy is like a fount of knowledge for more than just Ruger and the guides were busting butt hard work to put together, I'm sure. He isn't trying to punish anyone at all. He is just putting a lot of effort into something that it doesn't sound like he is getting any kind of return on and is getting burned out on it. Plus he has had recent health issues. You can only expect so much free will from a guy. I had thought about asking him if he would maybe apprentice out some of the work but then he had his health issues. Even if we missed out, this knowledge flow will come to an end at some point anyways. Now might just be the time.
Maximumbob54, Thanks for your concerns and suggestions. Having never published a document for sale, I must say I learned a lot in the process. First, I solicited comments and suggestions here on the forum concerning format (E-copy or a variety of printed formats). Several people suggested I retain a lawyer to get a "caveat" added to the documents so I would not get sued if someone screwed up their gun. I did that and while I was at the law office, I asked about copyrights. The lawyers highly recommended getting a copyright on each book and the only way to get reasonable protection from illegal copies was to publish the books in "hard copy", so that's what I did. Yes, someone could still scan or copy the books but it would take a lot of time and effort and would not be cost effective. Putting out books in a E-book format (ie: PDF file) would violate my own copyright because once a person has an E-copy, nothing but honesty prevents them from emailing it to their friends. I learned a lot about honesty when I had the IBOKs posted on the forum. It didn't take long and they were all over the Internet. Besides, the customer's cost to print a book would eat up a print cartridge, not to mention paper. Turns out for the customer, it's actually cheaper to have the books printed at a print shop and mailed out than to print them on a normal home quality printer. Based on input from the forum, I decided to go with a spiral bound book on heavy paper with card stock covers .... a little more professional than just sheets of paper from a home computer. This seemed to work out well for most people.
Unless you are a "business" (which I'm not) payment is always an issue. I am not set up for credit cards or Pay Pal and don't want to be so I decided to do it the old fashioned way ... customer sends money, I send books. Again, this worked out pretty good but no doubt a hassle for some people. I asked people to send me an email so I could project how many copies I needed and provide a means to notify them when I received their payment and sent the books out. This worked quite well on the first batches of books but for some reason, there were a lot more emails than payments on this last batch.
My goal for the Gun Guides was to provide an incentive for the Ruger forum and at least break even financially. I do believe the books increased membership and gave our current members a sprout. I priced the Gun Guides about a buck a book over my actual costs to cover hidden expenses such as envelopes, mailing labels, mistakes, trips to the post office, etc. This worked out OK on the first batches but I got caught short on the last batch due to increased parcel post rates and higher printing costs. Besides, I got $146 in bad checks that I have not been able to collect. According to my calculations, I'm about $200 in the hole for all the books I sold and that doesn't count my time or gas expenses. This isn't worth crying about but it sure isn't much of an incentive to continue.
Hey Gary,
I have to admit I have been absent for awhile and am very disturbed and saddened to hear about this problem. The IBOKS are an excellent source of information on the Rugers we love and I wish I had been more observant about purchasing a couple of the hard copies while they were available. I am fortunate to have received the e-file from you, for the SA and DA guns. The printed references I made in the looseleaf binders are ragged edged and dogeared and saved my butt a couple of times during disassembly and tweaking on my Blackhawks.
I hope you are doing well and will continue helping those of us that need a little help now and again. Wish I had your knowledge, and was as open and sharing as you have been in the past. I doubt I would be as tolerant of the misuse of your hardwork or the disrespect shown by some.
Thanks for your help and God bless you and your family.
Jim H.
Seems like Pay Pal would have been a simple solution. I don't know what all was offered in the books, but I'm sure they were a great source of info. I also have no idea how much the books cost, but hell, bump up the price from $1 to $5-10 over your cost and get your money back you lost from the last run. I certainly wouldn't bitch about paying an extra $10 or more to have something helpful brought back. That's just me though.
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