1. Alpaca Fur Weaving in Peru
2. Alpacas in the Conquest of the Americas
3. Alpacas: Devil Beasts of the Rainforest
4. Reconsidering the Peruvian-Bolivian Alpaca War, 1898-1902
Those look like possibilities. I email the publisher using the link listed
for “Contact Us” and ask about examination copies.
One week later I get a terse reply “Those are not Medium
Press titles.”
WTF???? I
double-check the website. Yep, they’re all listed on Medium Press’s site.
I think it’s time to contact another publisher. Big Honking Press has fewer books for upper
division classes in my area, but their salesguy has been very helpful in the
past, and, as a result, I’m using some of their texts this semester. Sorry Medium Press. Maybe your sales staff
should learn what books you actually offer.
Ah, the left hand photo placement! One of the best fuck yous to the moderators and their rules.
ReplyDeleteActually I just like left-hand graphics. 8-)
DeleteOh, one of the chief sticking points in mod-land. It's just harder to read a post when a left hand graphic is up. It's not me, it's not Cal. It's just physics or design or something. I've read about it. I try to cajole and encourage posters not to do it, but some do it for their own reasons.
ReplyDeleteI've given up. If I ever close the page down, it'll be because of the left hand graphics.
Or because someone complains that the text isn't black enough, which was about a 4 email exchange the other day with someone.
"More black," someone kept emailing me. "Check to make sure it's not set to 90% black. It seems 90% black to me."
Mother may I.
Put me down for dark, dark charcoal gray. You can change it at your earliest convenience.
DeleteWhat? seriously? How did I miss the "please make the text more black" request in the Real Goddamned Mail?
DeleteNot sure about the left-hand placement, but I like the alpaca.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I've interacted with some very competent textbook sales reps, some seem to be flummoxed by any transaction that doesn't involve you responding enthusiastically to their mass email pushing a text for your class (often one that has nothing to do with the class and its aims). In a couple of cases, I've had to engage in prolonged email exchanges explaining why a particular text was, in fact, potentially appropriate for my upper-level writing class (and why the generic freshman-comp text the rep thought I should want was emphatically not). Some are also extremely distressed/flummoxed by my refusal to use a reader, and/or don't want to send me a desk copy because I'm not currently using what they consider an equivalent text. Basically, I'm a conduit to a market segment, and when I fail to perform as planned, I mess up the system. The reactions, of course, make me even less likely to participate in the system at all. The same seems to be true of my students, who really, really don't want to hand over their money to textbook publishers (which, of course, is frustrating when I do want them to buy a text that I think is worthwhile).
I always think alpacas look like they have two people inside them.
ReplyDeleteYou're confused with the cow from Top Secret. Happens more often than you think.
DeleteSo glad to see a reference to Top Secret!
DeleteI always think alpacas look incomplete -- they're half of a Pushmipullyu.
Another book rep was in with a book display that consisted 12 books thrown on a table.
ReplyDelete"Ummmm," I say, "That's the 4th edition. We use the 5th edition."
"I don't have one of those."
"And," I say, "The 6th edition is due soon."
"Is it?"
"By the way," I say as I leave, "You might want to take the shrink wrap off the books so people can look at them."
"But then they wouldn't be display copies."
You should have beaten him bloody with the heaviest shink-wrapped book while screaming "THEY'RE NOT ONLY GOOD DISPLAY COPIES, ASSHOLE!"
DeleteThere is only one thing lower and in possession of less integrity than a textbook publisher, and that's a defense contractor. Politicians are a step up!
ReplyDeleteI had something similar happen when I requested the "OUR COMPANY'S Anthology of Hamster Texts" and was told "We don't publish that." I asked if someone else was publishing it under their name because a colleague had the anthology and I wanted my own copy... When I sent the rep the link from THEIR website, they claimed it wouldn't open. What???
ReplyDeleteI don't like the orange. It's like 50% brown.
ReplyDeleteThat alpaca is pretty. Around my hometown they look so scraggly. I'd hug that one.
ReplyDelete