Scott W. Michael: what happened to Reef Fishes series?

piercho

piercho

New member
Microcosm lists 3 more volumes to complete the Reef Fishes 8-volume series. The last volume (volume 5) was originally published in 2008. So......any of you fish-heads know what happened to Scott W. Michael? Was his life overcome by events or what? TIA.
 
Scott finished the books years ago; he had everything together for the original 3 volume set over 10 years ago. TFH has held off on publishing the rest of the series for financial reasons; the rumor is that they're not going to publish them at all, which would really be a shame.
 
The next three volumes include fish groups that I would think would spur good demand, at least relative to volume five. Maybe they don't think that they can set a price point high enough to make them profitable. An incomplete set really irritates a compulsive person like myself.

Thanks for responding, I appreciate it.
 
Yes, I check these threads everytime I see one to see if there is any new info. It is too bad that they aren't releasing them, or at least making the info available online for a fee.

I can also understand their delimma from a profit aspect. Having been our club librarian with an excellant library for several years, it is unfortunate that most hobbiest aren't interested in reading and learning. We just don't present enough of a demand to make it worth it to them.
 
piercho said:
The next three volumes include fish groups that I would think would spur good demand, at least relative to volume five. Maybe they don't think that they can set a price point high enough to make them profitable. An incomplete set really irritates a compulsive person like myself.
Click to expand...

I agree both about the annoyance of an incomplete set and about the fact that the groups left would likely have the best selling books of the series. Unfortunately, they just don't seem to think it will be worth it.
 
Writing books, even excellent ones, for a small subset of the general population is not profitable. Especially true when the majority of the small subset does not read.
 
I refer to this series constantly, and own all the other volumes. As much as I enjoy having a book in hand, I thought that the publisher would at least offer the last volumes as e-book editions. I have been coveting the volume on gobies since the series began.
 
Not enough people buying the books for them to print.

Great series, had them all, but they are not hot sellers.

When I worked retail, I would push his pocket guides.

" Here this $20 book will save you hundreds in fish losses"

Yet very few bought them.

The majority of people in and out of this hobby would rather spend $50 on a fish that will probably die, and another $509 replacing it then spending $50 on a book full of great useful information.
 
Jeremy Blaze said:
The majority of people in and out of this hobby would rather spend $50 on a fish that will probably die, and another $509 replacing it then spending $50 on a book full of great useful information.
Click to expand...

Sadly, that is very true. To make it even worse, many stores support this behavior.
 
And now I am in Retail that deals with fish (thankfully not SW!) and you just cannot stop people for doing stupid things with fish.
I am very sorry that we wll not see any more volumes of this excellent series. I own all the published ones & refer to them constantly. While the pocket guides are fine, I like a more in-depth treatment on my favorite fish families.
This is a crying shame! Any chance he could sell the origional drafts to another publisher or buy back the rights to the series?

Sincerely,
Matthew
 
Elysia said:
I refer to this series constantly, and own all the other volumes. As much as I enjoy having a book in hand, I thought that the publisher would at least offer the last volumes as e-book editions. I have been coveting the volume on gobies since the series began.
Click to expand...

Just last month my 8 y/o daughter and I were in PetCo and she begged me to purchase '101 Best Saltwater Fishes' and '101 Best Marine Inverts'. I had no idea that Scott has a multi volume series. The 101 best books have been a great reference for me and am glad that I listened to my daughter on this one.

I'm hoping that the series will be re-released on kindle as I see that the two pocket editions and the 101 best books are currently avaialbe on kindle.

@ piercho: Thanks for brining up this topic. I might not have looked for more of Scott's books otherwise.

Steve
 
The original book base was published as series in former aquarium fish magazine for years in 2000, so searching the old magazines would be ok for the missing books users
 
The books are much more detailed and organized than those articles, and there are tons of species never covered.
 
It seems like these would be good candidates for electronic only sales. There is far less overhead associated, and almost everyone that has a reef tank is going to have a device they could read the books on.
 
Sent a mail and got this reply in minutes:

There is no date set for publication of these titles, which are printed and distributed by our partners at TFH Publications. When they are released, I'm sure you'll see announcements in CORAL Magazine and Tropical Fish Hobbyist.

Thanks,

James
 
It is the best books i have seen
I only have one complaint i can not get the first one in a hard cover
 
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