Joe Navarro book, Nov 7th

[Mason Malmuth]

When I say our authors get about five times as much, that means that in general the author recieves about five times as much in real dollars. Part of the reason for this is that we simply pay out at a much higher rate, part of the reason is that Two Plus Two books do command a top price, and part of the reason is that Two Plus Two books have very good sales.

We do target our royalty rate to our wholesale price, not retail as some other publishers do, and the exact royalty varies from book to book depending on the author(s) and how we project the book to sell. We do this because it gives us a little more flexibility in our sales.

As for the price of our books, most readers consider them a bargain due to the wealth of information they contain, and this is information that is specific, accurate, and detailed. But it has never been our goal to make every penny we can (even though we have made a lot). So we do share the revenue with our authors and everyone of them will tell you that we are very generous (and we intend to continue this tradition).

We also strive, and have worked on it for years, to get our books to snap shut very quickly. In fact, I have had many meetings with our printer trying to improve the ability for our books to snap back and shut very quickly once you let go of them. The reason for this is to reduce damage on the book shelves. Sometimes people will open a book, and then quickly shove it back to the spot on the shelf where they found it without making sure that the book is completely closed. So we try to help them as much as possible. This ability has a lot to do with exactly how our books are bound, and the fact that we use the far more expensive, and much higher quality PUR glue which is far stronger than standard hot melt and much more flexible. (It is also much more difficult to apply and there aren't many printers/binders who can handle it.) Since our books are also very thick, they have a lot of pages and we use #70 paper of the highest quality we can purchase, doing this reduces the number of book returns, and we now get very few damaged books returned.

As for the person who I've known for 25 years, I can only think of two candidates. One is certainly not a friend, and hasn't been for a very long time. The other is someone I know, but not very well.

Finally, as for us being a self-publisher, I certainly started that way, and from those small beginnings, we have now grown into a very large company. We have massive distribution and we now have significant international reach with many of our books now being translated into foreign languages. But most important of all, we couldn't have done this if we didn't have and insisted on having a superior product. Those standards will never change, and it's why we reject the vast majority of manuscripts and proposals that we receive.

But you already know all of this, for if it wasn't the case, you wouldn't be here posting.

MM

[Mason Malmuth]

You're certainly right about Phil Hellmuth. I should have said good books.

MM

[adios]

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By the way, speaking of poker magazines, you might want to read the review of our book in the September issue of Cardplayer. Then take two aspirins and write me in the morning. LOL!

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Cmon, Cardplayer? Puhleeze.

You know what's funny about your posts in this thread is that you're basically stating that Mason has an over inflated opinion about the relevance of this site regarding sales of poker books but you're here posting defending your books. If this site has little relevance to sales why are you here defending your book? Put another way why waste your time on an irrelevant site that has little influence on the sale of poker books?

I'm old enough to remember the articles you wrote for Gambling Times and they sure weren't about playing poker or even the psychology related to it.

[adios]

Mason I'm old enough to remember the articles he wrote in Gambling Times. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw he was posting here was the recollection of the silly stuff he wrote about money mangement including doing so at playing -EV games like craps.

[scorer]

i can't resist, navarro the fbi couldnt find bin laden so he wrote a book. Makes sense to me

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi adios:

I remember that stuff too. In fact, I still have most of it since I have a nearly complete collection of Gambling Times magazines. If we were to post some of these money mangement schemes I'm sure it would generate a lot of laughs.

What's interesting, is that if you go back 20-to-25 years and look at the gambling literature, you'll see a lot of this money management stuff, and that includes many old gambling books from a variety of authors and publishers. But David and I (and even Mike Caro) began to point out how this stuff was fallicious and had absolutely no value and most of it stopped.

Also, and this is for all our posters, money management was something different from bankroll management which is important. Money management usually meant things like quitting after you had lost part of your winnings back, or seperating part of your winnings from your bankroll so that you couldn't lose it. Somehow, it was suppose to help you beat negative expectation games, and as you know, it doesn't work that way.

Best wishes,
Mason

[tyboy74]

mkarlins

Does it matter if any one of 2+2 most recent books hit #1 on the best-seller list or not. The last time I checked I dont think "I'm all in" and the other crap phil hellmuth book got to #1 either. In fact I think most people who post here at 2+2 and any one with any poker knowledge would agree that any of the poker books that you have written or co-author is not even close in quality and teaching to any of Sklansky's or Harrington's book. In addition, does it really matter what paper the publisher used. I dont care if Sklansky's book such as theory of poker or No-Limit of Hold'em theory and practice were published on tissues and cost $50 I will still buy it because it is simply the best poker text out there on the market. And the information I gain from 2+2 books and have applied to my poker game have far pay for all the books that I have brought from them. So the next time you decide to make a useless post here at 2+2 I suggest that you go and try to write a half decent poker instead of critizing other publisher's use of poor paper quality.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi tyboy74:

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So the next time you decide to make a useless post here at 2+2 I suggest that you go and try to write a half decent poker instead of critizing other publisher's use of poor paper quality.

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But we don't use poor paper. In fact, the paper quality we use has been far superior to what Karlins' publisher has used until just recently. I did notice that Arnold Snyder's new book, which was recently released, was done on the type of paper that Karlins describes, but it is still not as good as the paper we use.

Best wishes,
Mason

[tyboy74]

Hey Mason I own most of 2+2 popular titles including all 3 parts of Poker Essay. In my last post I am not stating that 2+2 books have bad paper quality becuase all my 2+2 books never have any blinding problems or anything. I just took offense to Karlin's assessment of 2+2 book by stating that they are not worth the price and etc. Again keep up the good work, I love the site and magazine articles and can't wait for the new upcoming 2+2 books to hit the stores!

[benfranklin]

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I did feel I had an opinion which I attempted to state in a reasonable manner.

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Your initial post clearly said that the opinion of a WSOP bracelet winner should be given more weight than the opinion of a poster that you were not familiar with. That is not a reasonable statement, particularly given the WSOP players you named.

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Each reader of these messages is wise and skilled enough to draw their own conclusions as to which "side" has made the best case.

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There are a number of issues here, and there may or may not be "sides" involved.

1. As to the book, most of us will wait for the book before choosing "sides" as to its value. This discussion is not about the book.

2. As to your posts, I feel confident in saying that your remarks about the abiities of bracelet winners, your citing those particular players as authorities, and your high opinion of Hellmuth's work have severely damaged any credibility with the majority of posters here.

3. As to who pays what royalties, few here care. All that people here are interested in is the results, the end product. A few of us are familiar with the arcane practices of the publishing industry, and the many different methods of calculating royalties, and we don't care either.

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Not to mention the cream of the poker world publishes with us and not with him.

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This is not clear, but I assume that you are quoting Avery Cardoza here, rather than saying that you are involved with that company.

For those not familiar with Cardoza Publishing, here is the poker book page from their website: Poker Books.

Anyone offering that catalog as the cream of the poker world has destroyed any semblance of credibility.



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Avery Cardoza, a publisher with far more credentials that Mr. Malmuth will ever have.

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The only credentials most of us here are interested in is the content of poker books published by these gentlemen. Around here, with a few exceptions, Cardoza's credentials are those of a marginal publisher, putting out mediocre content and trying to capitalize on the poker boom.