[phillipgessert]

I think the reason the prophylactic approach often doesn't work is because many folks are sort of headstrong and just think they know better. Not necessarily "you are wrong" but maybe "I actually don't need this info." I do think it's a little strange that when something doesn't work, they don't at least try to follow the instructions. Though there is a slight childish pleasure in being able to say, "what happened when you tried the approach I mentioned?"

For me it seems like the majority of the time spent is in clearing up what exactly I'm being asked, because the verbatim request usually doesn't reveal much:

I downloaded it and... (actually viewed it in browser)
I downloaded it but couldn't save it... (??? likely same as above)
I opened it and... (no mention of what that means)
I opened it in Kindle and... (doubleclicked and it opened in iBooks) and of course
I couldn't open the file. (end of message)

...leading to an awful lot of back-and-forth just to get to square one. The worst is that I'm obviously never 100% sure there's not a legit problem being reported, so I spend a fair bit of time double-checking only to discover later that it's because they've attempted to review the file using their microwave.

In any case, OP it sounds like you want to avoid Amazon because the book(s) are so specific to your circle, but there are lots of books like that on Amazon. Folks publish family histories, etc. all the time, that have no interest to anyone outside of the family. And I'm sure you wouldn't have to dig far to find even more esoteric things like personal manifestos and the like. I would think it would be relatively harmless to let Amazon deal with all this, because outside of your circle I would think folks would just disregard it.