From: Sam Sloan <sloan <at> ISHIPRESS <dot> COM>
Date: 27 may 1998
Subject: Re: Sweet from sour.... (English Shogi Material)-Reply

I am sorry. I did respond to this question before, but Perhaps Mr. Jost
missed it.

The problem is not profitability. We have customers who are very anxious to
buy these books. The problem is that there is a very active person out
there named Hartland Snyder who claims that everything that is his is his
everything that is ours is his too.

If we reprint Shogi for Beginners, Hartland will claim that our stock of
books belongs to him.

We have a backlog of orders for about 500 copies of "Shogi for Beginners".
I checked this last night. In short, we have easily enough orders to at
least break even on reprinting that book.

The problem now is, again, this fraudulent Ishi Web site is advertising the
book. I had somebody call them and the person who answered admitted that
they do not have any copies of the book in stock.

Furthermore, Mr. Fairbairn is unhappy about the fact that he has not been
paid his royalties on the last printing of the book. It is diffcuilt for us
to explain to him or to anybody else that this has nothing to do with us
but that Hartland Snyder stole the money.

Please understand that Richard Bozulich mortgaged his house in Japan to
finance the printings of these books, which he in turn shipped to Ishi (UK)
and Ishi (California). Ishi (UK) owes him more than $100,000 for these
books. He was never paid a pence for them. Ishi (California) owes him
$200,000 for books he shipped to them. His total loss was $300,000 (three
hundred thousand dollars). As a result, the banks foreclosed on his house
and he now lives in a small rented room. He lost his family as well. His
wife divorced him because of this.

Now, Ishi (UK) and Ishi (California), who have been living off the sales of
the books he shipped them, have the audacity to claim that they do not even
owe him the money any more.

Sam Sloan


At 10:53 AM 5/27/98 -0400, George Jost wrote:
>I think the real problem with translating shogi is the lack of
>financial incentive to publish material on the game; at this
>time there are just too few of us! I had the impression that
>most of those who attempted to capture our market
>lost money on Shogi. Go on the otherhand is
>far more profitable; there is no western equivalent and
>the game is traditionally played in SEVERAL asian countries.
>
>I asked Sam Sloan why he does not publish Shogi for Beginners
>and give royalties to the author on the profits from the legitamate
>book. He has not  answered me yet. I don't know if it is a legal
>or a financial matter... Pity I think that other new Shogi players
>should be able to (legally) obtain the book - the effort has
>already been made by Mr. F. We as a list could encourage
>new players to buy the legal copy and the lawsuits if any
>for the illegal copies could continue? Perhaps I am being
>too optimistic. Perhaps the venture may be actually a
>money loser ... publishing a book is not cheap.
> >>> SChazworth <SChazworth <at> AOL <dot> COM> 05/27/98 12:48am >>>
>
>Why are there problems with new authors (preferably from inside of
>Japan, where the legal troubles seem to be negligible) publishing
>translated works into other languages?  This guy sues new authors'
>material as well?
>
>