The book: S Programming
Mike Meyer writes:
-----Original Message----- From: Michael M. Meyer [mailto:mikem at salter-point.com] Sent: Monday, 1 January 2001 7:58 To: Andrew Criswell Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] The book: S Programming The Synopsis on Amazon.co.uk seems to refer to the book "Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus, but otherwise these are the same two books. The US price of 59.95 converts to about 40.16 UK pounds (using a recent exchange rate). Thus, except for the cost of mailing, it would seem that the US price is slightly better. I would suggest you explore the shipping options (both price and delivery time) for the two sites and make a choice based on that. My guess is that the US site will have a slightly lower shipping price and slightly faster delivery.
I hate to mention this now, but for some odd reason before Christmas amazon.com had S Programming on a special price of ... US$17.98, a 70% reduction on the normal price. I was quite depressed about it at the time but now it is back to its normal (= exhorbitant) price I don't feel quite so bad! I kept an eye on it while it was at its low price and its rank shot up from around the 50000 mark to about the 5000 mark, so they must have shifted a few before Christmas. That's my reason for mentioning this: if anyone is thinking about buying it now (a) kick yourself for missing the 18 buck price, and (b) get in quickly since supply is probably getting a bit low. It is now back down to the 22000s and sliding so I suspect things are (not surprisingly!) slowing down a bit. I agree entirely with Brian that trying to get the message across either to publishers or online booksellers is a totally futile business. I speak from bitter experience as well. While I am on the Amazon business, I have to say the reviews are not always the most sensitive and perceptive around, too. The first one for S Prog says, in effect, "I was looking for an introductory book on this subject. This is not one and does not claim to be one. Nevertheless I went ahead and bought it anyway and, you know what, I found it very tough going... Therefore it's crap. Buy something else." I loved it. I can't work out why so many customers did not find it useful... :-)
You (or perhaps Brian Ripley or Bill Venables) might want to contact Amazon.co.uk and suggest that they correct their catalog. Unfortunately, I don't have much influence on these matters.
No one has much influence on these matters. What you are observing is the purest form of random process this side of quantum physics. My best wishes to everyone for a happy new year. Bill. -- Bill Venables, CSIRO/CMIS Environmetrics Project Email: Bill.Venables at cmis.csiro.au Phone: +61 7 3826 7251 Fax: +61 7 3826 7304 Postal: PO Box 120, Cleveland, Qld 4163, AUSTRALIA -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._