First Amazon Customer Review… clarifying some points.

I don’t normally make it a habit to visit my own Amazon book pages but when I do, I always look to see if I got some feedback and today, I did! On September 3rd, I got my first book review and although they liked to book, they didn’t like the license on it so I’m posting my answer here to clarify the issue as it will also come up when I release my third volume very shortly.

1.0 out of 5 stars Nice picture book, but ultimately useless without further purchases, September 3, 2011
By K. Braat
This review is from: WoodMarvels.com, Volume 2: Laser Cutting Plans (Paperback)

This book is excellent if you want to look at the designs, but per the terms and usage imposed by the author, you are told to go to his website and then order each plan file and purchase one plan file per cut you want to make.

From the Woodmarvels website FAQ “For each and every copy of the model that you cut using YOUR tool(s), you must buy a license from WoodMarvels.com, even if they are to be given as a present. So if your child wants two Medieval Castles, then you need to buy the EPS/DXF/PDF file twice.”

This absolutely defeats the purpose of buying a pattern book, with the author stating you are not allowed to use the patterns in the book, without expending more funds even for personal use. Even the commercial use requires a yearly site license and an expense per model cut.

My advise to anyone interested in the book, is to just look at the models on the web and skip this book completely. If you want the model, you still have to buy a license from him even if you bought the book.

My reply:

Hi K. Braat, I’m Jon, the author of the book and I’d like to just clarify a few things you mentioned.

1) If you buy the book, you don’t need to re-purchase a PDF of the models you see in the book if you want to make one copy, if you want multiples, you are right though. If you want to model, you don’t need to buy another license, you automatically get one personal production license when you bought the book (for each model found in the book).

2) You are free to try to make your own DXF, EPS files from the patterns found in the book scaled to match your wood thickness, but as those cannot be included in the book – it’s easier to just buy them from the site. These are offered due to high demand when I started the site (many people didn’t want to invest the time making their own so I offered it as an add-on).

The purpose of the book is to save you hundreds of dollars vs buying individual PDFs from my website and it’s also meant as an educational resource to show people how to make 3D wooden toys using just a flat board and to illustrate how such a model would fit together (hence the building process).

Production licenses have been an ongoing thing with me, but I have to be fair to myself, designers on my site and distributors… I still think the book is a remarkable value for what it is. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me through the site.

Jon

Founder of WoodMarvels.com

Why post this on my blog?

I think the customer raised some rather good points that I’m all to happy to clarify – I have a bad habit of assuming people understand what I write and make the same assumptions as me regarding what I leave out. As a result of this, I’ll be updating the description on the Amazon page (and on the WoodMarvels.com pages) where these books can be found so this issue is resolved and clarified.

Slight deviations away from just plans

My first book was JUST PLANS and my second is by far better in every way but again, JUST PLANS but in my third, I took a slight deviation to explain the idea behind the model and the design process that occurs… I’ll be doing this even more extensively in future volumes as I realize I must provide additional value in a book that isn’t found on the site unless you enjoy reading through this blog. So, more great plans but a few less with more practical applications for the first time and experienced designer, shop owner or student. That being said, if I never wrote books, I wouldn’t have any of this incremental improvement which is a big reason why I spend so much time making each volume exponentially better in every way than the previous one… looking back, in book format, makes you realize what you can do to improve on the next time!

I enjoy feedback, especially negative as it tells me where the holes to be plugged are found!