Buondì.
I’m in the mood for succinct today, so here goes.
Here’s a new Italian word-order exercise on “Imparare una lingua straniera”.
Other recent material is on our ‘New’ page.
And this is your final reminder about the ‘BotW’ (Book of the Week) offer, Cielo libero, which is now half-price at just £3.99, rather than the usual £7.99.
That offer ends on Sunday night some time.
Should you buy it?
Read what other people thought here.
But why are there only three reviews?
Oh, that’s because 99% of people are “sorry, but I don’t leave reviews”.
Yesterday afternoon, it being Thursday and rather hot here in Bologna, I couldn’t find the energy to do anything complex.
So instead I did one of the ‘boring jobs’ that I save for such moments.
I sat at the computer and sent about a million emails (different ones, manually, from my own email account) asking recent ebook buyers to ‘help us out by telling us what they thought’.
Hi, this is Daniel at easyreaders.org.
I’d be really grateful if you would give me some feedback on the ebook you recently received:
INSERT TITLE HERE WITH LINK.
Leaving a ‘star-rating’ (1-5), and perhaps a brief comment, takes just a few seconds.
Your input will help other language learners, as well as being of benefit to our writers and editors.
In case you’ve never done this before, it really is easy and quick! I’ve prepared step-by step instructions.
CLICK THIS LINK to read the reviews left by others and to add your own.
Thanks so much!
Daniel
P.S. If you’ve not finished the ebook yet, why not mark this as ‘unread’ and come back to it when you’re ready?
You see how I personalise it for each different title? It’s not an algorithm doing it but a real person. We still exist, you know.
When something buys something, I make a note of the title and their email address. Then, every few weeks, I’ll send out a PLEA, similar to the one above.
I copy and paste in the book title, add the link, in case people have forgotten what they bought and from where, and even add a link to the actual revews page, that way they can click it to go straight there.
Then I check both links work properly and paste in the buyers’ email addresses, being careful to ensure everyone’s privacy.
It’s a lot of work, but the idea is that only the absolute minimum effort is required from the person I’m hoping will help us out.
Oh, and there are the ‘step-by-step’ instructions, which are written so as to be pretty foolproof.
Finally, there’s the P.S.
If you’ve bought something but have not yet actually looked at it, please don’t write back and tell me that.
It’s a waste of your time, and mine.
Instead, get your act together and make a start, as you presumably intended to do when you made the purchase.
Reading and listening to the first chapter will take you, what, ten minutes max.?
You’ll feel better about having splashed £3.99 on an ebook, and will hopefully learn something and feel inspired to do the second chapter tomorrow.
And when you’ve read/listened to the whole book, and are therefore suffused with feelings of satisfaction and achievement?
THEN write a review.
PLEASE?
PRETTY PLEASE?
I rewrite that draft email every six months or so, but it doesn’t make much difference.
99% of people still don’t leave reviews.
That said, some do.
Click through to our ‘BotW‘, not to buy something, heaven forbid, just to look.
Scroll down the page, paying attention to what on my laptop is the right-hand column (but might be elsewhere on the screen if you’re using a tablet or smartphone.)
You should see what’s called a ‘recent reviews widget’, which basically automatically shows who has recently reviewed what, most recent at the top.
I think of it as an ‘honor roll’ of people who COULD ACTUALLY BE BOTHERED to help us out.
So Christine, Ciel, Phil, John, Mary, John, Meg, Elsa, Julie and all the others – a heartfelt GRAZIE! for caring.
People like you are the reason this site exists.
A lunedì.
Alan K says
Dude, settle! Or however you say that in Swedish.
I’m one of the ones who has bought books from you but have not read the recent ones yet. And I tell you this not to waste your time but to point out that there can be reasons for this which are FAR from not having one’s act together, and not just for me.
The last lot I bought when you had your sale on. Had there not been a sale then I would not have bought them ***at that time*** because I had, and have had, no time to look at most of them in any great detail.
So why did I even buy them then?
One glance at the AUD / GBP exchange rate should tell you that with bells on.
I don’t study Italian any more, as such. I USE it. Leggo i giornali. Gioco a Clozemaster. Guardo Montalbano, senza sottotitoli, se possibile.
When I buy text books like the Italian Workout, or the Easy Readers, it’s not because I have an explicit study schedule in mind. See also, the last article about exams and why you’re studying a language. I cannot abide exams. Exams are speed writing and memory tests, not tests of understanding. The only exam I want to pass is whether I can walk into a bar on the Via del Corso and order breakfast as naturally as I would in Melbourne.
Non studio per la laurea.
Studio per VIVERE in un paese, anche se solo per cinque, forse sei settimane, invece di essere un turista.
I read the textbooks to look at other people’s perspectives on a language and see if there’s anything I might look at differently or missed. I read the easy readers because it’s a slice of real language, often including some vernacular, and because the stories are often interesting in their own right. I do this on cold, rainy weekends when I have time to just relax and enjoy a bit of reading, an opportunity which comes along only slightly more often than the winning Powerball numbers that would give me 89 days to spend a Roma after flying there business class. Not zero, but rare. Very, very, rare.
So while I, and I expect, others in a similar barca, may not jump straight onto them when we buy a bunch of them while the exchange rate powered purchase price is at low tide… we WILL get around to them.
In my case I have written part of a review on one textbook, which I’m certainly not going to submit until I’ve finished the whole thing. It’s generally complementary except for the way “piacere” is explained, which is the way that 95% of Italian teachers explain it and which mi da fastidio. To be fair I’ve only seen ONE guy explain it well, and he did it in about 2 hours worth of YouTube videos which explained every permutation of the verb, so I wasn’t marking that one down too heavily.
Yes, people will forget about it. Probably most people who buy any product will forget about it. It’s not that they couldn’t give a stuff, it’s that life sometimes gets in the way.
And especially for those who stock up during the sales… your expectation of when they get around to using the products may not gel with their time availability of actually doing so.
A dopo!
Daniel says
Yes, fair point about the timing, Alan. And I very much appreciate your support in buying ebooks, and in eventually leaving a review.
But the rant was provoked by an email from someone else, (which I indirectly quoted), who liked the ebook but wrote to tell me that she doesn’t write reviews.
We’re a small business and help sustain people who have few other options.
If I work my arse off to sell, say, 100 copies of something (revenues of about 500 of your funny dollars for a whole week’s work), and then get one review, or none, expect me to be irritated.