Ä Area: Local ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 3050 Date: 02-21-94 09:08 From: Allen Dietz Read: Yes Replied: No To: All Mark: Subj: CD-ROM Review Opport 1/ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ I came across an opportunity last year to write reviews of CD-ROM software through an outfit located in Milford, Texas. (Milford is between Austin and Dallas, up by Carl's Corner.) Jan Schwenk, the owner of Resource International Publishing has put together a team of writers who review CD-ROM discs. The reviews are sold to major publishers and are included on a disc called the "CD-ROM of CD-ROMs" published by Resource International Publishing. Reviewers get to keep the discs they review, and a prolific reviewer can quickly build an impressive collection of discs. Over the past year, I've reviewed about 50 discs, and have had a number of my reviews published in "CD-ROM Professional" and "CD-ROM World." Because of the success of the project, Jan has more discs coming in than he has reviewers to review them. (Since my involvement in the project, I have been able to get discs to review as fast as I can turn out the reviews.) Jan is actively looking for new reviewers to participate in the project. If you are an excellent writer, have a CD-ROM, and are interested in a way to get published and to build your CD-ROM collection, you might want to take a look at this project. By the way, there is a $100 deposit required to participate. Jan found that some people who initially joined never wrote a review and never returned their discs. The deposit is refundable, and is your assurance that you will return either a review or the disc. To put the deposit in perspective, the discs I have received for review have included MapExpert ($300), Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia ($595), Library of the Future, 2nd Edition ($295), New England Journal of Medicine ($295), Business MarketPlace ($895), and so forth. In all, I've received well over $7,500 in discs for the reviews I've written. If you're interested, here's a description of the project: ---------------------------- Subject: CD-ROM Review Project Date: 13-Dec-93 at 07:42 From: Jan R. Schwenk, 70053,1702 We are ready to re-activate our CD-ROM and CD-ROM hardware review project. However, this time, it will have to be run a bit differently from the way it was last time. Since starting the CD-ROM of CD-ROMs (CoC) project, I have spent $16,390.75 purchasing CD-ROMs which were sent out to reviewers. I had also obtained a substantial number of CD-ROMs from publishers, and sent them out to reviewers. To date, I've paid for approximately one half of the CD-ROMs sent out for review. Mail charges alone have come to over $6,713.78 to mail 1,220 packages. Of the over three hundred plus people that received discs to for review, about half have not returned either the review or the disc(s). Some of the reviews received have been published in magazines (we are trying to compile this list so you will know where your article(s) went). I have received $2,988.00 from the magazines for the reviews printed and the color photo CD-ROMs supplied (which amounted to approximately two thirds of the revenue). Unfortunately, while a magazine publisher may be willing to pay $300 for a single review, the same publisher drops the price to $15-$20 per review when the reviews are supplied in bulk. While we are publishing the reviews on CoC, it is difficult to put a price on what the reviews are worth to the disc (or to the buyer of the disc, more appropriately). Sales of CoC are picking up gradually, but at the rate we are going, it will probably be six months or more before we break even. I am committed to the project and have decided to press on, partly to provide an honest, objective source of information to CD-ROM purchasers (and, hopefully, help improve the breed), and partly due to the fact that a few other publishers that have seen CoC are interested in our authoring software. It appears that there might be a chance to sell or license our software. If you are interested in joining (re-joining?) our project, I ask that you make a deposit of $100 to us via check or credit card. Upon receipt of your deposit, I will inform you what titles we have on hand for review. You may select as many as you like, however, we will ship only one title at a time initially, will invoice it to you at the list price, and will not ship a second title until the review(s) for the first are received here in the proper format. Upon receipt of reviews due within schedule, we will void the first invoice, and will then ship and invoice the second title, and so on. If you do not return a review due against a disc sent within 30 days from the date of our shipment, we will off-set your deposit against the outstanding invoice, and take what ever action we feel is necessary under the circumstances. If you decide to not submit a review against a disc we send you, you may inform us, return the disc, and either ask to be dropped from the program and receive your deposit back, or to receive another disc. Your complete and total payment for the reviews you submit will be the right to retain the disc received from us. That disc will be your property, you may register it, give it away, or sell it. Additionally, we will credit your account at the rate of $0.05 per word, on reviews received from you that are acceptable to us. Depending on the quality of your reviews, we may increase that rate at our discretion. Funds will be accumulated in your account until you have enough to purchase various CD-ROM hardware that we will be offering for review at a later time. If you want to purchase a specific item of hardware that we list, you will receive it, even if we have to go out and purchase it -- that is, hardware will not be a "first come, first served" arrangement. If you write acceptable reviews against discs that we send you, when you accumulate adequate credits in your account, you will be able to get the hardware we list that you want. You will be expected to submit a review on that hardware, however, failure to do so will not jeopardize your standing as a reviewer of discs with us, nor will we off-set against your deposit. The hardware is yours to keep. If, after a reasonable time, you don't find any equipment listed by us that is interesting to you, you may elect to "draw down" your credits in cash. Depending on how prolific a writer you are, and how well you write (we may increase your "word rate"), your account could amount to a significant amount of money. We will be offering hardware at wholesale prices, however, and if you took the cash to buy your own hardware, you would find that your credit will likely go much further within the program than at retail. In any case, credits will probably not be available for draw-down for at least several months, as it may take six or more months for a range of hardware to be listed that you may accept or reject. We will be offering sound, full motion video boards, CD-R, high speed CD-ROM, and so on. We are now preparing a new format for submission of the reviews. Details will be sent upon your entry into the program -- that is, upon receipt of your $100.00 deposit. I want to emphasize that your $100.00 is a deposit. It belongs to you so long as you return acceptable reviews against discs we send you, and it will be returned to you in accordance with the above stated terms. One other thing it will allow us to do is to immediately start the review project again. With the expense of developing CoC, and our authoring tool, and in setting up marketing for CoC, we cannot afford to absorb the kinds of expenses we have incurred in this project in the past. When CoC (or the licensing of our software) becomes profitable, and we are able to do so without straining our finances, we will pay reviewers that have stuck with us for their reviews at rates comparable to current magazine rates. That day may never come in spite of all our efforts. We are working very hard to get to that point, but for the time being, your doing reviews for this project will have to be based on your own reasons, and you will have to accept the disc (and any hardware) as payment in full for all your efforts. Your $100.00 deposit will help us fund this review project >>> Continued to next message * OLX 2.2 * Ä Area: Local ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Msg#: 3051 Date: 02-21-94 09:08 From: Allen Dietz Read: Yes Replied: No To: All Mark: Subj: CD-ROM Review Opport 2/ ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ >>> Continued from previous message for a period of time and will make the difference between our beginning it right now, or waiting until we can afford it. I hope you understand and appreciate our situation, and that this deposit will not be an unbearable burden to you. We look forward to working with you. Your efforts can help us make CoC a success, and, we hope, make some positive impact on the industry as well. IF YOU ARE NOT A CoC REVIEWER AND WOULD LIKE TO BE: Please contact me via internet: jschwenk@delphi.com, CIS: 70053,1702, voice telephone at (817) 582-7373, or FAX: (817) 582-7377. Best Regards Jan Schwenk * OLX 2.2 *