Me in "The World Book of Knowledge" (?)
| By hannes @ 22:29 | [ Social ] |
Saturday I got a letter from the "American Biographical Institute"[1], a company in Raleigh/US, seemingly producing and selling large and expensive encyclopediae.
They wrote I'd been chosen as one of 500 personalities for inclusion in the 2005 edition of their "World Book of Knowledge".
Alright, I'm rather credulous by nature, but heck, who would want the biography of a random 22-year old in an encyclopedia a the cost of $795 USD? This does indeed very much look like the scheme of the publishing house Belbo, Casaubon and Diotallevi, the heroes in Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", work for.. publishing esoteric books at their authors' own expense.
If everybody included in their book buys one (and what's such an important mention worth if you can't show it off), they probably make a pretty good profit.
But then I googled a bit. "american-biographical-institute" yields several thousand hits. If we look closer at some of them we find rather strange entries like that hypnotist or His Excellency Alhagi Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh(!), but also many less exotic personalities.
And they really print and sell books, "5000 Personalities of the World" for example.
So.. I'm not really sure about this. They say I was recommended by someone, they had my private address[2] and they really seem to publish books, not only collecting personal data or performing rip-offs on innocent authors.
Anyway, looks like their business modell -whatever it is- is profitable enough to send snail-mail out into the wide world. Amazing.
So if you know more about that institute/company, please let me know!
Oh, and let me close this posting with a quote from that letter:
[1] Right, there's no website.
[2] Ok.. it's public after all
They wrote I'd been chosen as one of 500 personalities for inclusion in the 2005 edition of their "World Book of Knowledge".
Alright, I'm rather credulous by nature, but heck, who would want the biography of a random 22-year old in an encyclopedia a the cost of $795 USD? This does indeed very much look like the scheme of the publishing house Belbo, Casaubon and Diotallevi, the heroes in Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", work for.. publishing esoteric books at their authors' own expense.
If everybody included in their book buys one (and what's such an important mention worth if you can't show it off), they probably make a pretty good profit.
But then I googled a bit. "american-biographical-institute" yields several thousand hits. If we look closer at some of them we find rather strange entries like that hypnotist or His Excellency Alhagi Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh(!), but also many less exotic personalities.
And they really print and sell books, "5000 Personalities of the World" for example.
So.. I'm not really sure about this. They say I was recommended by someone, they had my private address[2] and they really seem to publish books, not only collecting personal data or performing rip-offs on innocent authors.
Anyway, looks like their business modell -whatever it is- is profitable enough to send snail-mail out into the wide world. Amazing.
So if you know more about that institute/company, please let me know!
Oh, and let me close this posting with a quote from that letter:
»I admire your accomplishments and dedication to improving the lives of others«.Gosh! :-)
[1] Right, there's no website.
[2] Ok.. it's public after all
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