Letter to McMillan

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by fugazied

Can you please change that to a petition so we can all sign it
It is a sad state of affairs when e-book consumers not only put up with poor quality conversions and ridiculous DRM but they want us to pau $15 for the privilege.

Providing they graciously grant you the privilege to actually even buy the book...

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by gshoe

Hi,

I am new to this forum and a recently new owner of the Nook. I just thought I would share an email I sent to McMillan this morning. It would not be a bad idea for other concerned folks to do the same. Thanks!

Excellent letter, Greg!

[Seli]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Good for you and Welcome!

From PC World:

"Publishers are Shortsighted"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/18876...ice_fight.html

It might help if he could actually get his facts straight. But if this article is anything to go on he has not been paying attention to what is going on. Or he just decided to write a one-sided article.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Providing they graciously grant you the privilege to actually even buy the book...

Touché

[gshoe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sure, but I just think it detracts from the impact of the letter to get such a basic thing wrong. It's always a good idea to do a little bit of research before writing to a company, if you want to maximize the impact of what you're saying. Eg, find out the name of the CEO of the company and address the letter to him or her personally rather than send it to "the company" where, for all you know, it's being opened by someone in the mail-room. Macmillan's CEO is called "John Sargent".

Harry,

I simply sent an email. It was to customer service. I am sure you will be able to sleep a bit better knowing that I did not use the company name anywhere in my email. I only misspelled it here. I am so glad you caught that for me and enabled this thread to live two lives. One having to do with the original subject, the other having to do with how perfect you are. Congratulations.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by gshoe

Harry,

I simply sent an email. It was to customer service. I am sure you will be able to sleep a bit better knowing that I did not use the company name anywhere in my email. I only misspelled it here. I am so glad you caught that for me and enabled this thread to live two lives. One having to do with the original subject, the other having to do with how perfect you are. Congratulations.

I'm sorry - how does trying to offer helpful advice on how to get a complaint letter noticed by the people who can actually do something about it make someone "perfect"? If you don't want the advice, that's fine with me - just ignore it - but perhaps someone else may benefit from it.

[m-reader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm sorry - how does trying to offer helpful advice on how to get a complaint letter noticed by the people who can actually do something about it make someone "perfect"? If you don't want the advice, that's fine with me - just ignore it - but perhaps someone else may benefit from it.

Hmm. Sorry to butt in, but from an outsider's point of view I can see how the poster might have been a wee bit irked by your comment - it did sound a bit patronising. Although you had the best of intentions it may have not been seen in that way. Maybe if you added another sentence or two describing your intent this wouldn't have been the case (IMHO).

[dragonbone]

Originally Posted by gshoe

Harry,

I simply sent an email. It was to customer service. I am sure you will be able to sleep a bit better knowing that I did not use the company name anywhere in my email. I only misspelled it here. I am so glad you caught that for me and enabled this thread to live two lives. One having to do with the original subject, the other having to do with how perfect you are. Congratulations.

Why do you make personal comments to someone who is trying to help you? Correct spelling is of the utmost importance in a formal letter.
Also.... a formal letter doesn't start with 'hello' and doesn't end with 'best regards'...
Just saying .

[Mare of Earth]

I loved your email sending ideas, so I added my efforts as well.:

Dear Sir/Madam:
Your ebook pricing already sucked, even with Amazon.com essentially selling your ebooks at a loss in order to sell them at all. Your new pricing scheme sucks even more. I have been an avid follower of several authors who publish under your imprints for most of my life - with your newer, more ridiculous price gouging scheme, I am now officially refraining from purchasing ANY books from ANY authors published under your imprint - there are more than enough publishers in the world with reasonable, sensible pricing schemes to keep up with my 2-4 books per day reading habits. I am sure Samhain Publishing and Baen will both appreciate the increased business your decision will send their way.
So, congratulations. You have lost my business until you have a more reasonable ebook pricing policy.
Also, of the ebooks published by your companies that I have previously purchased, your proofreading left much to be desired.
(My Name)
Avid Reader

[gshoe]

Harry,

I apologize for the flippant reference. I know you were just trying to be helpful.

Greg

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Seli

It might help if he could actually get his facts straight. But if this article is anything to go on he has not been paying attention to what is going on. Or he just decided to write a one-sided article.

Yep.

Any article where the author states publishers should lower their prices because other peoples' costs have dropped is automatically suspect.

[JerseyBiker]

Originally Posted by dragonbone

Also.... a formal letter doesn't start with 'hello' and doesn't end with 'best regards'...
Just saying .

All consumers are not necessarily experts at writing formal letters. I think it's important for the recipient of the letter to realize that the concerns are coming from ordinary people and not necessarily professionals in the business. I learned that from working with organizations that encourage citizens to write to their Legislators.

~eddie

[SCION]

Originally Posted by JerseyBiker

All consumers are not necessarily experts at writing formal letters. I think it's important for the recipient of the letter to realize that the concerns are coming from ordinary people and not necessarily professionals in the business. I learned that from working with organizations that encourage citizens to write to their Legislators.

~eddie

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by JerseyBiker

All consumers are not necessarily experts at writing formal letters. I think it's important for the recipient of the letter to realize that the concerns are coming from ordinary people and not necessarily professionals in the business. I learned that from working with organizations that encourage citizens to write to their Legislators.

~eddie

And one of the things learned by organizations that receive those letters is how to recognize-and ignore-them. One of the most common ways being the similar wording (particularly openings & closings). If you want communications to be truly effective, simply provide names & addresses and encourage the people to write their own letters, in their own words. The more you recommend what they say (even if it's "this will make your letter more effective") the more easily the recipient will recognize it as "just another organized protest letter". The best chance you'll get for a good result from that (IMO) is if the recipient at least counts the number of letters. The odds of the recipient actually reading them (other than the first one or two) is nil. Unless they differ enough to defy classification without reading them first.

[Duiker]

I can't believe I'm getting involved in this part of the thread but just because someone doesn't write a 'formal' letter or they make a few spelling mistakes doesn't make their money any less valuable. They're still a paying customer and should be heard if they have a complaint. You think when the folks over at MacMillan say to the CEO "we've had thousand of complaints from our customers" the CEO replies "yeah well how many of them had spelling mistakes and weren't formal letters?"