Concert Book Due October

A FREE pocket calender! I can't believe it. Thank you Joe. This is great news. A real pocket-calender. You buy a cheap-production book for an extremely high price BUT you will get a pocket-calender! FOR FREE that is! Get this book. It will be sold out before anybody bought it. And then .. you won't get the free pocket-calender. And therefore your life will never bee the same.

I see the book on various sites, you know what I don`t see?? Not a word about the contents...

Very happy that I've sold my car just to get this release..

Well if a pocket calender doesnt entise you to buy this,then nothing will,what more do want? What you want prices that arent high as hect and you want info on what the contents are,geesh you people are hard to make happy, and know my life will be altered im sure because im not buying this,but we all make choices! (Im kidding of course)

It almost seems like Joe thinks that just announcing "I have another book coming out" will be enough to have everyone clamouring to buy it. Sorry, Joe, not these days. And not at these prices. Although the free pocket calendar is very tempting...

I constantly see books by this guy up for sale but as to how much? Always way, way over priced. I can't afford his work now that I'm retired. Be nice if this guy wasn't so money hungry. What gets me is I'm from the states and this guy miraculously has all the good Elvis photos. Hmmm. What's wrong with this picture? Where did this guy Tunzi get this stuff to begin with? Try the USA.

Once I hungered for those Tunzi-books photo-documenting certain periods or concerts. Looking back at these books I get a bit disappointed (apart from Elvis Sessions of course). Basicly all books are collections of b/w pictures in a in soft-cover. A "leaflet". Some pictures are sensational and good, but it is easy to loose the sense of magic of one spectacular photo when you browse through a whole book full of similar photos. I am lucky to be a subscriber of the Flaming Star magazine from Norway which is always full of incredible (often new) photos in full colour and on glossy paper. Almost 70 pages four times a year for half the price of a Tunzi book. That's value for your money for you! And in a magazine you don't get bored because there are only 2-3 pictures of the same concert and you can fully enjoy these. One year later you may have another from the same concert. The aspect of excitement and surprise is always there. The best concert book ever in my opinion is "The Concert Years" by Stein Erik Skar. Hard to beat that one.

I'm also a subscriber of the Norwegian Flaming Star magazine. It's probably the best looking Elvis fanzine around these days. But I know that much of the costs by producing this fan magazine are covered by the Norwegian fan club president, Paal Granlund. And I'm not sure thet he actually gets all his expenses covered by doing this. Paal has both the personal financial muscle - and the kindness to do this. Allthough I agree that Joe Tunzi's books are a bit expensive, however, I do not think he deserves the kind of slandering and ridicule some of you guys are putting out. Joe makes his living by producing Elvis books that have a very limited market, just as the CD's on the Follow That Dream label. These objects are only bought by the few thousand hard-core fans. Besides, Tunzi himself does not come by these pictures for free. He has to buy them himself before he can reprint them. I honestly don't think any of us know how much he earns on each product, but no person becomes a millionaire by selling, say 2 000 books at US$50.00, especially when they has to cover all the production costs on the same budget. I would suggest that each one of us makes up our individual minds to wether we want to buy Tunzi's books, the next FTD releases or any other new Elvis release. Frankly, I think it some of these never ending "Oh, US$40.00 is way to expensive" whining is quite childish. If certain products are out of your budget, then just don't buy it. It's really as easy as that. Alternatively, get of your butts, join forces and make great, high quality - and cheap Elvis books yourselves. Naaah, I guess it's easier staying on the sideline criticizing the few people actually doing the hard work finding unpublished pictures, taking personal financial risk and producing new Elvis books. Are we really better of if these people stop doing this? Honestly? "Be careful for what you ask. Because you might get exactly what you wish for."

I have to agree with what Hans is saying here, these books will not be produced in high quantities and they are aimed at the collectors market. I have a few of the JAT books and I think that the quality of the is quite high and in answer to Smile, how can you get bored of looking at Elvis in these books or in any book for that matter. From the looks of it this book may contain some fantastic photo's and I am looking forward to it's release so the fans out there that want to buy it can enjoy them.

Hear, hear...

I agree with Hans Ottos point, don't get me wrong. I respect the effort Tunzi and others (including Pål Granlund, Ger Rijff a.o.) have done over the years and I don't want them to stop. The pictures he has provided to books, official CD's are very appreciated. I remember seeing the picture of Elvis with the sigar in the Burbank studio for the first time. Wow! Keep up the good work:-) But sometimes some constructive criticism is right. As long as it is constructive that is! And I must be honest to say that I personally have been disappointed by some of the Tunzi books, and became afraid to buy others due to the steep price. We are in our right to ask: "What do we get for our money?" So a little bit more insight in the product, more than the front-page, would have been very welcome. The front page on this one looks very promising by the way, but you can't judge a book by it's cover...

When Tunzi started to release books they were 23 Euros. After a couple of releases the price doubled suddenly and the pictures became cheaper in print. I have Tunzi books where there are only 50 % clear photos. The rest is blurry stuff. And they became even more expensive and for some releases you had to pay as much as 65 Euros! That's when I stopped buying his stuff. When he realized that this rip-off didn't work he lowered the prices again and now we are back to 50 Dollars and less again. But I never trusted him again and so I avoided his releases. So, the comments here may sound rediculous but for me there's a story behind them.

I must chime in. I agree with most, that the books are too expensive and the photos are not always 100% clear. But kudos to '68 at 40', prob the best Tunzi book ever. I highy recommend it because a) the text is by Steve Binder not Tunzi and is actually a fabulous read and b) the pictures of Elvis (all color!) are at his absolute peak and he really was never to be seen this way again, a combo of the 50's & late 60's look. Plus it was an historic event. I will pass up the concert book. Jumpsuit photos are not my thing.

The old if you dont like it dont buy it theory,how about making the price to were more fans can get them,or is that what the Elvis world has become,look what i got and you dont,quality doesnt give you an excuse to have such high prices, these books are not the only example of inflated prices,yes Ftd falls into the same catorgory,i guess im somwhat amazed,people will pay such prices for pictures,Elvis still making big books for people thats for sure,as for the insults on people being quiet on what they think,that would kinda defeat the purpose of giving your opinion wouldnt it?

There are lots of sides to this story. I fully understand some fans thinking that Tunzi's books are overpriced and indeed some of them have been. But it is a dwindling market he's catering to and only diehards buy his books anyway. Even if they were half the price they wouldn't appeal to the general public - nor the "I'm a huge Elvis fan" kind of fan who only collects plates and fridge magnets anyway. Tunzi's books are for a very specialised market and the price of them is reflected in the fact that they have to be pretty limited in their print run. If he prints more (in an attempt to bring down the price) and they don't sell - then there won't be any more books. I'm not a huge fan of Tunzi's work but credit where it's due and the '68 At 40' book was stunning. As someone else pointed out here, there's no mention of the actual content of this forthcoming 'Concert' book, but it'll have to be exceptional if he's to outdo his '68 book. And I can't see a jumpsuited Elvis beating the black leather Elvis. No, no, no.