WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Saturday, September 05, 2009

CFZ PRESS NEWS

At the moment we are doing our best to streamline our sales procedures for CFZ Press, and we have every intention of opening another online shop.

So yesterday Max Blake and I were moseying around the pricing data on the CFZ books, when - to our horror - we discovered the answer to a conundrum that has bothered me for years.

Why is it, I wondered, that such flagship titles of ours such as Dragons: More than a Myth? and my personal favourite of all the books I have, Monster of the Mere, have sold hardly at all in the United States and Canada.


Surely the U.S. and U.K. markets are not that different? After all, our other books sell pretty well consistently in both markets. Well, now we know the answer.

Five of our titles:

Dragons, More Than a Myth by Richard Freeman
Monster of the Mere and Only Fools and Goatsuckers by me
and
Fragrant Harbours: Distant Rivers and Granfer's Bible stories by my late father, have never been available in America.

How could this have happened?



Back during the summer of 2005 when these books were released in perfect bound format, we didn't know what we were doing; at least not to the extent that we do today. We were also looking after my dying father, who was being quite difficult for much of the time, and I was juggling doing all this with juggling a long-distance relationship with my lovely fiancee Corinna over in Lincolnshire.

There was a lot of stress going on, and basically Mark and I (and I cannot remember which of us did it; and I am not pointing fingers four years later anyhow) screwed up and only released the books in the UK.

Never mind, cos all this is about to change.

In early October all three books, at a special low price, will be available in the USA for the first time, and will hopefully sell like the proverbial hotcackes, and in one fell swoop both the CFZ's and the global economy will be cured.

Well, one can dream, can't one?













3 comments:

KarenMarie said...

Well, I, for one Jon,(being a continually broke and hopeless bibliophile) am very much looking forward to having these books available. And here I thought you all just thought us woefully undereducated people in the 'colonies' just didn't deserve to read those books! (a little smile here)

Jon Downes said...

My dear. I am quite shocked at your statement. Educating Colonials is an important part of our remit LOLOL

KarenMarie said...

Touche Jon...if not you who would dare....was Nick implanted here as a spy or correspondent? Or perhaps in resplendent British tradition as merely an 'observer'? (I do adore his books also...ya'll tread where no one dares tread nowadays...sense and sensibility ...no one seems to possess it anymore...sigh...