I received an e-mail today that said, "I know from your website that you have a new DVD out but I've looked on amazon and it's not there. Can you let me know when it will be in stock?"
Oops. It seems my it's-only-available-through-my-website message isn't getting through. (I shouldn't be surprised. I still get at least one e-mail a week asking me if Are You Dave Gorman? will ever be released and that's been out for years.)
I think people read the words and think I'm probably trying to shill them or something. Maybe they think that buying it through my site would be my preferred method... but it's not that, it really isn't. The DVD won't be in shops. It won't be on amazon either. I was offered a deal by one of the big distributors but I decided to see if this was viable instead. After all, I'm not seeking world domination - I just want the people who want it to be able to find it. So it's distributed by recordstore.co.uk and you can get it on their site - which is exactly the same as getting it from davegormanstore.com
The thing is... I don't mind e-mails like that. It's easy to reply explaining where it can be got. But it obviously makes me wonder how many other people have made the same search elsewhere and given up without sending an e-mail. Which inevitably leads to a post like this. I reckon if significant numbers of people are only getting half the message it must mean the message isn't clear enough.
But then, to everyone who has already got the message perfectly well, a post like this looks like shouting. No doubt I'll now get e-mails from people saying, "we know... give it a rest." To those people, my apologies.
Am I sounding paranoid yet?
Hey... here's a preview clip. The third and final one, I think. It does have some swearing in it, mind, so careful who you watch it with:
I'm not trying to persuade everyone in the whole world to buy it - I don't want to get Peter Kay's Mum a greenhouse. But it would be nice if enough people bought it to make it viable to do more in the future.
17 comments:
Genius dave
Dave - You are the genius!! now i know exactly what to buy my Mrs for her birthday, Jase
Thanks for making the DVD region 0 as well - so that "colonials" can enjoy it to. ...unless you're planning to bring your stand up tour down under?
@Margo that's another good reason for doing it this way to be honest. For some reason, the major distributors only ever seem to do them with one region setting.
No plans to head down under with a show. No plans not to either as it happens... but I doubt it'll happen.
I remember seeing this routine on I think it was the stand up show on BBC tv years ago.
Remember the final word being something like - there you go, that's my act, it's a bit odd but at least I have a routine nobody's going to steal.
I was delighted when you pulled the routine out when I came to see you in Nottingham. Making maths funny - true Genius there sir ^^
Dave, just a quick observation. When you go to davegormanstore.com there's nowhere on the page that actually tells you how much the DVD costs until you add it to your basket. Now, that's either a very sneaky marketing ploy that assumes that as we've gone to the trouble of adding it to our basket we'll probably go the whole hog and buy it; or, it's a small oversight!
Made no difference to me, I was buying it anyway, but it seems a tad unusual.
Duly ordered.
Also, thank you for the reminder to check that you are aware of/have read Alex's Adventures in Numberland...
There is an interesting bit on Perfect/Sociable numbers (which made me think of you) as well as one way of answering your blog post on Values (I know, rather slow on the uptake here):
"It could be argued, in fact, that the invention of probability was the root cause of the decline, over the last few centuries of superstition and religion. If unpredictable events obey mathematical laws, there is no need to have them explained by deities. The secularization of the world is usually associated with thinkers such as Darwin and Nietzsche, yet quite possible the man who set the ball rolling was Girolamo Cardano."
@Stuart: that's a valid observation and I'll pass it on. Like I say, davegormanstore.com was built by them.
@barefoot Wanderer: yep, I did do it on that show years ago. Thing is, that was just before I gave up doing stand up in favour of the narrative shows. So I never toured it. When I announced this last tour I was stunned by the number of e-mails from people asking me to do it... so I threw it in. It helped set up a couple of things in new routines too.
@Katherine I like that line of thinking... I'll look it up.
@Stuart: there you go... I e-mailed them today about it (you're not the only one to have pointed it out) and they've changed the page already. Thanks!
I can understand why the reviewer finds it odd that the dvd can only be bought from a limited places. We know you dont wish to take over the world Dave and thats a lot of the appeal with you as a writer/comedian/presenter. But having the dvd only available from the places it is means that we cant look around the internet trying to find the best price possible. People dont like paying full price for dvd's and nobody does. But having your dvd on limited release means it has to be purchased at full price which goes against my dvd buying instinct. Isnt doing this going to open up your dvd to more chance of illegal download? Either way I look forward to buying it.
Martika.
@Martika: you're right you can't shop around for better prices. But if I'd gone with the major distributor it would have had a higher cover price to begin with. As it is, it's £14.99. If it was done through the major it would be £19.99. And you might be able to find it with £5 off. Same difference.
I hope people don't upload it for others. I'm taking a gamble doing it this way, I hope most people would respect that.
I'm really regretting not coming to see this tour now Dave!
(Similar experiences with Universities though I stuck it out to some sort of conclusion, albeit not a useful one)
Was there a decision not to use Amazon's fulfilment services, or was that not an option?
Would have gotten you an Amazon listing and seeming a more robust web hosting.
* http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/features-benefits/
@RenThrays: the decision was to try and do things a bit different and not use the major distributors. It makes it cheaper - which we've passed on with the cover price. But the site selling it is still a decent, respected retailer - so there didn't seem to be any need to look for other solutions - their web hosting has handled Oasis album launches etc.
Seems we got very unlucky in that davegormanstore.com ended up being hosted on a borked server or something. But it's been costly. I don't know how many people it took to break the server each time but most of them didn't go back to try again... people don't.
Unfortunately, doing it this way has meant that a fault like that has been costly because it's cut off the only line of supply from the only source of direct advertising - so to speak.
But most importantly, it's fixed now.
@Dave
Yeah, very unfortunate. Fingers crossed. Had my share of diagnosing borked servers and its not fun.
@RenThraysk: it's been moved to some kind of enormo-server now... I'm promised the problem is 100% fixed.
How on earth do you remember all that?! I forget where I've left my spectacles when they're still on my face! ;o)
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