Author Topic: "Quizmaster" Bill Cullen biography available now! (Read 38948 times)

PYLdude · « **Reply #60 on:** July 11, 2013, 02:54:10 AM »

The fact that my email from yesterday has as yet gone unreplied-to is not thrilling me, either.

An update: he did indeed reply to me, thanking me for the feedback and saying he would try to have it taken care of soon.

Form letter?

clemon79 · « **Reply #61 on:** July 11, 2013, 11:25:28 AM »

Form letter?

No, that was pretty much the full text of the note. Dude just dashed off a one-liner, but that\'s more than fine; he acknowledged the issue and that it was important to fix.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #62 on:** July 11, 2013, 12:38:48 PM »

I don\'t think Matt is complaining that we get bits for cheaper, I think he\'s complaining that the BearManor dude (and, yeah, it\'s mostly one dude) is a little sloppy in a suspicious manner with regard to communicating whether his product is actually in stock or not. And I agree that releasing the Kindle version earlier than he ships his actual print orders seems a little stupid from a business standpoint. I\'d have been happy to wait a while if I knew a Kindle version was coming in order for them to maximize early-supporter physical sales.

This exactly. I am literally the earliest of supporters in this case, and now I\'m waiting on the sidelines twiddling my thumbs for what could easily be three weeks from the time I placed my order. E-books should absolutely be cheaper and faster, that\'s their great advantage. I\'m just disappointed that it appears the physical books aren\'t even ready yet. I feel misled.

(Now granted, I\'ve already read the book, or at least a very late draft of it. But they don\'t know that.)

clemon79 · « **Reply #63 on:** July 11, 2013, 01:30:08 PM »

This exactly. I am literally the earliest of supporters in this case, and now I\'m waiting on the sidelines twiddling my thumbs for what could easily be three weeks from the time I placed my order.

Well, if it helps at all, now that I\'ve been told that my problem with the book\'s metadata is going to be addressed, I\'m gonna give it a week or so for it to actually happen, so I don\'t get to read the book yet either.

parliboy · « **Reply #64 on:** July 11, 2013, 05:58:19 PM »

This exactly. I am literally the earliest of supporters in this case, and now I\'m waiting on the sidelines twiddling my thumbs for what could easily be three weeks from the time I placed my order.

If I didn\'t know better, I\'d think you\'d crowdfunded a smart watch.

clemon79 · « **Reply #65 on:** July 11, 2013, 06:54:20 PM »

Hmm, interesting developments. http://www.amazon.com/Quizmaster-Times-Games-Cullen-ebook/dp/B00DUFW49W/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1373582160&sr=8-4&keywords=quizmaster\'>The title is now in correct case on the website, and showed up correctly when I had a sample sent to my iPod. But it\'s still all-capped on my Windows Phone, and the metadata from the sample is still showing up all-capped in Calibre. (Both Kindles are at home so I was unable to check on those.) I\'ll give it a couple more days but I may just have to suck it up or figure out how to hack into the metadata myself.

EDIT: One more important setting I just discovered: If you go to https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage#manageDevices\'>Manage Your Devices on your Amazon Kindle account, then scroll to the bottom, there is a new option for Automatic Book Update, which sounds like it will update books when fixes have been made. So, basically, if anyone other than me was waiting to buy at this point, there\'s no need to \'cuz it\'ll update when it\'s fixed. Buy with confidence! (I just did!)

jage · « **Reply #66 on:** July 11, 2013, 10:13:43 PM »

The Kindle app works very, very well on the smaller iDevices, comparing quite favorably to an actual Kindle, especially if you have good eyesight and don\'t mind reading small text on a small screen. (

It also has at least decent support for Voiceover, which is the text-to-speech program intended for the blind. It\'s under Settings/Accessibility. Then you can have your iPhone just read the book to you.

clemon79 · « **Reply #67 on:** July 11, 2013, 11:42:18 PM »

It also has at least decent support for Voiceover, which is the text-to-speech program intended for the blind. It\'s under Settings/Accessibility. Then you can have your iPhone just read the book to you.

Some of us who can see use it too; it\'s the easiest way to see exactly what percentage of battery is available on an iPod Touch since for some reason Apple has decided that we don\'t get to see that.

TLEberle · « **Reply #68 on:** July 11, 2013, 11:53:56 PM »

Now that\'s some news I can use; thanks for the tip there.

/Learned lots from the book, but what amused me most is how Bill became more curmudgeonly about the state of television and game shows in particular in his waning years. So that means complaining about game shows is acceptable because if The Dean can do it, it must be OK.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #69 on:** July 12, 2013, 12:07:06 AM »

I plan to crack the book open this weekend (in a not so literal manner) but that\'s very interesting. I\'d take late-80s television over what we have any day of the week.

Although it just goes to show that no matter what era we\'re in, there\'s always been complaints about how awful TV has become...even in the 60s.

clemon79 · « **Reply #70 on:** July 12, 2013, 12:12:57 AM »

Now that\'s some news I can use; thanks for the tip there.

That isn\'t a problem on an iPad, tho, is it? It\'s not a a problem on the iPhones because there is a setting you can turn on that shows you directly; for some reason Apple turns that off on the iPods.

(What I do is go into Settings > General > Accessibility and then way at the bottom there is a way to assign what a triple-click of the button does; I set that to Voiceover, Then, when I need to know, I triple-click, then tap the battery icon and it tells me what I need to know, then triple-click again to turn it off.)

TLEberle · « **Reply #71 on:** July 12, 2013, 12:24:13 AM »

The iPad does give a numerical reading. On the Touch the only indication is when you get the 20% or 10% remaining warning.

jage · « **Reply #72 on:** July 12, 2013, 01:09:15 AM »

Now that\'s some news I can use; thanks for the tip there.

That isn\'t a problem on an iPad, tho, is it? It\'s not a a problem on the iPhones because there is a setting you can turn on that shows you directly; for some reason Apple turns that off on the iPods.

(What I do is go into Settings > General > Accessibility and then way at the bottom there is a way to assign what a triple-click of the button does; I set that to Voiceover, Then, when I need to know, I triple-click, then tap the battery icon and it tells me what I need to know, then triple-click again to turn it off.)

You stole the tip right out of my mouth. And sorry, yes of course it\'s Settings/General/Accessibility. I use an Android, where the Kindle app is still lacking for access. But I can read the book on the Kindle PC app thankfully.

BillCullen1 · « **Reply #73 on:** July 12, 2013, 11:53:45 AM »

Since you kids with your fancy technologies threw a bit of a snit over whether this would even come out in e-form in the first place, I want to post my own old-person snit. Instant gratification is a wonderful thing and I get that the e-books are electronically poofed right into your iThings. Still, it will bother me something awful if, by paying substantially more for the physical thing that I have to think still drives the BearManor business model, I have to wait weeks before they actually get around to printing them while the rest of you are electronically enjoying all that Nedeff goodness.

I might very well have been the first person to place a traditional order. That was on July 1, when the website clearly indicated the book was \"in stock\". Now I\'m hearing that the actual publication date is July 17, though the electronic version is available immediately. That\'s not sitting well with me.
I placed my order thorugh Amazon for a physical book. Reading all these entries about all these different electronic devices has left me totally confused about what works best and how they work. I\'m no Luddite, though. E-books are great for some. My wife swears by her Kindle. But simplicity works best for me even if I have to shell out extra and wait a bit longer

I\'m with Carlisle and Matt on this one. Since I have an Amazon account, I will order my actual book copy through them.

irwinsjournal.com · « **Reply #74 on:** July 12, 2013, 02:24:47 PM »

I\'m still biased toward hard copies myself. I have a small collection of autographed books, most of which were personally obtained. (An GS related exception: Chuck Barris. I ordered it through a bookstore in NJ where he was signing his \"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind\").

Any thoughts about offering autographed copies, Adam? I\'d probably spring for one...