View Full Version : Why I Started Rolenta Press
rolenta
05-14-2005, 09:36 PM
I just found this letter from Prima:
Prima Letter (www.rolentapress.com/Prima.jpg)
As you probably know, Prima published Steve Kent's 'Ultimate History of Video Games' in 2001.
Wavelflack
05-14-2005, 11:07 PM
Maybe you needed more errors and misattributed quotes?
LOL It was their loss. Good book (the Pheonix one)! Never read the other one...
SoulBlazer
05-14-2005, 11:24 PM
I hope that was'nt a knock on EITHER Herman's or Kent's book -- both are EXCELENT and have very few errors.
Wavelflack
05-14-2005, 11:29 PM
That was a knock on Kent's book, which IS a good read if you don't mind sorting out the errors. Have you actually read "The First Quarter"? Perhaps it was fixed for it's re-release as "The Ultimate Book.."(etc.), but the original was a playground for mistakes.
SoulBlazer
05-14-2005, 11:31 PM
No, I never read "The First Quarter". I did'nt even know about the book until I saw "The Ultimate History of Video Games" one day last year at my local Barnes and Noble. After that I picked up several other gaming books, including Herman's "Phoenix". Honestly, I only saw a few errors in both books. Herman's is more typogrphical stuff (things the printer did) as compared to a few small mistakes with facts in Kent's book. But both are excelent resources and are great reads with plenty of information and hard facts.
Neither book has been updated in a while, though -- both of them stop in mid 2001, before the launch of the XBox and GameCube. I know Lenoard has a new version due out at the end of the year. Not sure if Kent's book is getting a new version.
Wavelflack
05-14-2005, 11:35 PM
Well, "The First Quarter" was the original incarnation of Kent's book, which was published in spite of the magnitude of technical, grammatical, and formatting errors.
SoulBlazer
05-14-2005, 11:38 PM
Get back to me when you read "Ultimate History" with what you notice and I'll compare notes with you. Willing to do it for "Phoenix" and anything else as well. ;)
Bringing this back on topic, I'm not surprsied Prima sent a rejection letter. They were a smaller company then and probaly did'nt believe a book on the history of the video game industry -- which was only 20 years old at the time -- would sell.
Herman, do you have records on how many copies of your book you've sold over the years?
Zadoc
05-14-2005, 11:41 PM
Steve Kent's reporting is full of incorrect information. I've talked to him about it before. He's really a pretty nice guy, he just needs to do more fact checking.
Umm..his FIRST name is Leonard, last name Herman.