[scribus] How long to ship manual from FLES?

[Ron Deen]

From my personal standpoint:

I have been working and enjoying the work that the folks of Scribus have put 
together.
No matter how much I like the release of a book, for me it was foremost a 
pleasant way to sponsor this fantastic project and I would consider it bad to 
let the revenue and hopefully profit for the creative minds that work on 
Scribus go to waiste on shipping cost just to make the delivery.

I live in the Europe and if that will take a few more weeks to deliver but you 
will be able to make some money in the end, I'll wait.

Secondly, communications from FLESbooks I have received until was very good 
and clear. They have been very open about the issues they have ran into. If 
they just wanted to take the money and run, they should not have bothered to 
inform me (and apparently others) but they bother.

Just my 2cents worth.

Still hope it will be a great book though.

Regards

Ron
On Sunday 1 February 2009 08:43:20 Christoph Schäfer wrote:
> In addition to what others already wrote:
>
> As one of those who are responsible for the manual, let me state this:
>
> 1) From our side (Scribus documentation team, layouter, proofreaders) there
> was only a small delay which wouldn't have made much difference in terms of
> printing and shipping because of the holidays.
>
> 2) FLES Books and Benjamin Goodger have been and continue to be 100 %
> reliable, cooperative and flexible partners. There's absolutely no reason
> to be disappointed about their work and their dedication, quite the
> contrary!
>
> 3) FLES Books has a contract with a printer, and the latter failed to live
> up to the contract several times, mostly due to a Byzantine buraucracy in
> connection with what appears to be sheer incompetence. First, we/FLES Books
> have been guaranteed to be able to print in the UK and the USA. Once we
> delivered the PDFs to the printer, it turned out that due to a minor
> bureaucratic error on the side of the printer, we could only use the UK
> plant, which means that shipping costs will skyrocket, thus diminishing the
> revenues for the Scribus project and FLES Books. Next, after delivering the
> customer list as requested by the printer, an account manager invented
> reason after reason as to why the order could not be fulfilled -- again:
> bureaucracy gone mad and red tape all over the place. At the same time,
> they didn't accept a retraction of orders from customers who asked for a
> refund. So we and FLES Books are essentially caught between a rock and a
> hard place. Moreover, the printer refuses to tell us when the books will
> finally be shipped. Please believe us that we're as upset as many of you,
> to say the least. I really don't think that we will allow the next edition
> to be handled by this printer, especially if one considers that the company
> received money in advance to set up this job.
>
> On behalf of the Scribus development and documentation teams, I offer our
> sincere apologies. For all those who ordered the book and can't wait to
> have a look at it, please send me a PM. I'll then send you a download link
> for a PDF file.
>
> Christoph