Now that we are speaking in the more civilized tone befitting a face-to-face conversation, I’ll share my real frustration here. I like reading on my Kindle. I’m a little conflicted about it, because one of my favorite pastimes when getting to know new friends and acquaintances is examining their bookshelves. And there’s something resonant about going to the bookshelf and rereading a favorite passage that physically reflects calling on memory and experience, which is most certainly missing when thumbing through the home menu of a Kindle. I’m not denying the shortcomings. But the portability and convenience makes reading more accessible to me in more situations. Plus, the balance of studies show that e-books are end-to-end more resource efficient than paper books, which is a great side benefit.

In the past, the book industry has taken pains to make books available on the same date to all readers, retailers, and in multiple media (including audio). With big bestsellers, even more effort was made getting the books in everybody’s hands at the same time. Some of this was to build hype, but there was also an element of fairness embedded here. Even if you lived in Fairbanks, Alaska or only listened to audiobooks, you wouldn’t miss out on the latest YA vampire sensation or pirate romance novel when the breathless Entertainment Weekly review came out.

Apparently, FSG/Macmillan and some other publishers have been/are experimenting with the notion that those principles of fairness don’t apply to e-books. They seem to be proposing that an e-book is more like a paperback format that can be released later and at a lower price – totally ignoring the many avid readers who prefer to read on their Kindles for convenience, the ability to increase the text size to large print, or whatever else.

So that puts me as a reader in the position of wanting to support a humorous, talented, albeit D-list author like you and enjoy your overwhelmingly critically acclaimed book, which was written about my favorite pastimes. However, it’s not available in my preferred format, and in fact, I have no idea when it will be available. Moreover, I have no better way to express my frustration and displeasure than to delay buying the book and post the review I posted on Amazon. Obviously, these are imperfect solutions, which is why I proposed cutting out the middle man and all the corporate shenanigans.

If I were you, I would have fatigued long ago of talking about this, so I’ll leave it at that. I’ll most certainly give Oblomov a second look, and I wish you a whole pile of steaming American-style literary success. You clearly deserve it, but only the good parts.

Sincerely,
T.Mercer