Screwed by Tor again...

[starrigger]

Originally Posted by slayda

I find it interesting, now that the "free ebook giveaway" is over that they don't even have those ebooks for sell at their site. We know they have them converted & obviously have the digital rights to them since they gave them away but are they for sell? Don't think so. Wonder why.

I have no inside info, but the answer to this seems clear to me: If they're working to set up distribution through Baen Books, why would they invest in the infrastructure to sell a small number of book through their own website? I'm sure it's not a trivial matter given that it would just be an interim thing. (That's probably why they're going through Baen in the first place.) Isn't it better that they put their resources into finalizing the Baen system and converting all those other books into ebook format so that they can be released as soon as possible?

This all takes time and manpower.

And before you say, let them hire more people, I'm putting in a prior claim for them to hire more people to process authors' contracts and royalties faster. :)

[Robotech_Master]

The essential points are:

Tor made their free e-books available with somewhat hazily-worded boilerplates from which people could infer (especially if they only skimmed) that "stories, art, [...] and more" might include further e-book versions of the stories. Did Tor mean to give that impression? Probably not, but they did not do anything to dissuade it, either.

Many of the books Tor picked were first-of-series books. I imagine they did it this way intentionally based on the boost in print sales Baen has reported for all books in series that had their first book or two available in their Free Library. (Let's be fair here; a lot of what Eric Flint has said about Baen's use of e-books gives the solid impression that e-books are first, foremost, and in fact almost entirely valueless except as a promotional tool for print books. I always tended to pooh-pooh people who were upset by this over on the E-Book Mailing List, but now I'm starting to see their point of view.) Not only would the samples draw people to their website, they would also sell more print books. One can easily imagine the executives at Tor going, "Oooh, bonus!"

In so doing, Tor did not think about the people who prefer (or indeed physiologically or geographically require) e-books over print books. Many of these people, based on the unclear nature of the boilerplates, the fact that most of the books were first-in-series, and the fact that Baen's Free Library serves to promote its Webscriptions sales as well as its print books, inferred that Tor would immediately be selling the further e-books from this new site. If it was jumping to a conclusion, it was a lot closer to hopping a curb than pole-vaulting.

Having concluded that Tor would have the other books available, these people went ahead and read these first volumes, and in some cases got hooked. It was only after they had invested their time and themselves in the books that they learned there would be no (legal) way to get the sequels in their preferred (or required) electronic formats after all, quite probably for months.

The complainers were not upset at "being given free e-books." That is what pnh would like people to think, because it allows him to trivialize their concerns. The complainers were upset at being victims of—if not a cheat, a misunderstanding.

Just as there is an expression among Linux-haters that "Linux is only free if your time has no value," those free e-books are only "free" if your time to read them, and the portion of yourself you invest in caring about the outcome of the story, have no value.

Now, for the people who don't care about print vs. electronic, or who prefer print (and make no mistake, the vast majority of readers will fall into one of those two categories), that's no problem. They'll go to their libraries or bookstores and read the rest.

For people who are physiologically or geographically unable to get print books, this is not an acceptable solution. If they had known ahead of time, these people would not have invested their time or care in those books, at least until the sequels were available. Having done so, they feel they have been suckered, so they go to the site to complain about it.

What they should have gotten in response from any firm that cared about customer service—whether someone's job title has "customer service" in it or not, they should darned well be trained in and practice it in any contacts with potential customers!—would have been a polite apology and explanation (I wrote out an example in one of my posts in the thread). It never hurts to apologize (except in circumstances where it would open you to legal action, of course), and it has been known for literally thousands of years that "a gentle word turneth away wrath." (Whether you agree with the religious tenets of the Good Book or not, you have to admit there are some keen observations of human nature in there.) If they had swallowed their insistence that they were not at fault and apologized anyway, it would have taken a lot of the wind out of the sails of the people who were angry. (It doesn't cost anything but ego to apologize. However, some people's egos are more precious to them than gold.)

But what they got instead was Torie's denial ("If anyone misled you, it wasn't us") and pnh's scornful bemusement, which in turn got the complainers' danders up, which in turn made the Tor reps even angrier, so we ended up with some posters asking the same question repeatedly when they already knew the answer, and the Tor representatives snapping, and people willfully choosing to misunderstand each other ("Look! They're complaining about getting free stuff!") and talking past each other.

That's human nature at work. If more people understood it, there might be fewer flamewars.

[evilrooster]

The clash of assumptions goes deeper than you seem to have figured out.

You're still looking at the interactions with Tor.com as though it is a commercial site, and you are the customers, and Tor is a supplier. This means that you (customers) are always right, and can pretty much take any tone you like with Tor representatives (CSR's), because it's their job to satisfy you.

But if Tor.com is a blog or a community site, then the balance of power is a little different. The tone that commenters take on a site, particularly in its early days, has an effect on the nature of the conversations that go on there. And a moderator is perfectly entitled to call people on their tone, and shut down threads that are getting repetitive and ill-tempered.

So if you're wondering why Torie and PNH weren't endlessly patient with you, that is why. They were acting as moderators, not CSR's. Whether or not you think it's a sales site, they do not.

I'm sure you'll jump all over this comment and decide that I am wrong and you are right; that is the nature of an insular community. I expect slayda will decide I'm pursuing Nate, considering their previous comments, for instance.

Or you may decide that the way that they acted as moderators wasn't appropriate, which would at least be a more accurate area in which to opine.

But if you're wondering why the conversation went the way it did, well, that's why. It's probably a waste of my time to post here, but I thought I'd at least give it a shot.

(I am not in any way affiliated with Tor; I post to Tor.com because I know PNH from another context, and he asked if I would like to.)

[Taylor514ce]

Welcome to MobileRead, and thanks for the interesting observation.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by evilrooster

T

You're still looking at the interactions with Tor.com as though it is a commercial site, and you are the customers, and Tor is a supplier. This means that you (customers) are always right, and can pretty much take any tone you like with Tor representatives (CSR's), because it's their job to satisfy you.

Yes, sadly, their use (with permission) of the Tor brand name, and the link to Tor Books, did and still does tend to make the site look as though it is an affiliated site. Since this is not the case (something they should really consider placing in large bold type somewhere on the site), you are correct that their tone can be whatever they wish to make it.

However, if they are planning to use Tor's brand name, then Tor Books should think long and hard before allowing them to continue to do so. For myself, the attitude of PNH and Tor (the blogsite) has completely, totally, and probably forever turned me off of Tor books.

Is that fair?? Hell no ... but if PNH wants to laugh at me or anyone else for being put off by a tease that offered first in a series books - with no chance of getting other books in the series (unless it was in a pbook), and then later in the same post state that all books in a series really should be made available .... and then if Torie wants to state there is no affiliation at all between Tor and Tor Books, while PNH states that .... well, yes Tor does use the Tor brand name with permission .... well, guess what, they both lose all credibility with me.

Now that we've established that PNH and Torie have no credibility (with me anyway) ... and that Tor.com and Tor Books have nothing to offer me personally, well, the argument is really over for me. I don't need or want the free books (knowing that the additional books in the series will not be available), so those have been deleted, I don't care for the tone over at Tor.com ... so I won't bother to go back there, and since I'm not purchasing anymore pbooks Tor Books will no longer be on my reading list.

I'd rather purchase ebooks from a company that creates and promotes ebooks then get any number of "free" ebooks from a company or site that is trying to con me into purchasing more pbooks.

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

The essential points are:

Very well discussed by the way. Karma going your way.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by evilrooster

I'm sure you'll jump all over this comment and decide that I am wrong and you are right; that is the nature of an insular community. I expect slayda will decide I'm pursuing Nate, considering their previous comments, for instance.

Welcome and don't worry about getting jumped all over -- even if it occurs, it is only meant in the spirit of debate-disagreement, and nothing more. One of the best things about MobileRead is its tolerance of loudly voiced opinions and that today's disagreers are tomorrow's agreers, albeit lilely on a different topic. Pitch right in -- it is always good to get another perspective, even if it turns our to be the perspective of a minority of one, and the MR community welcomes it.

[Robotech_Master]

So Tor is not actually a business?

So the discussion in question was not actually about something that business was doing, that affected its potential customers?

So Torie and pnh do not, visibly and obviously, work for that business, and they are not assumed to represent that business in their public statements?

So their public behavior does not reflect upon that business?

Or are you saying that it's all right for people who work for business to insult their customers because "it's a blog"?

If my employer—a logistics firm who handles shipments for a number of important companies, including some on the Fortune 500—was to start a blog, and one of our customers were to post a complaint about the way we handled one of their shipments on it, and our president totally slagged him off, how much business do you think we would have after that? Do you think that our customers would laugh and slap their sides and say, "Oh, those wacky bloggers"?

There's a thing called professionalism. It's what you should have if you are a public spokesman for a business in any capacity, whether it's "just a blog" or not. Rightly or wrongly, whether you mean it or not, customers and potential customers will be influenced by what you say and the way you are seen to act, particularly when it is concerning a matter directly related to the behavior of your company.

If the topic in question had been a list of the last top ten nifty books pnh had read, or some goings-on at the ComicCon entirely unrelated to Tor, things might be different. But this was a question directly about Tor's business practices, brought up in the blog entry because there was apparently no other way to get a response from anyone who worked at Tor. In that context, you'd darned well better be speaking officially, blog or no blog, because you've been asked an official question.

And if one or two of the people making the complaints were a bit over-the-top, that only shows they are really passionate about the issue (with the typical social skills, or lack thereof, of the sort of chronic bookworm who should by rights be Tor's best customer). A polite apology would not only have addressed the issue, it would have "moderated" the discussion (as Torie is supposed to be a moderator) in the truest definition of the word, by not giving the over-the-toppers further provocation.

Regardless of whether or not Tor's representatives acted poorly, if you can't even see why we believe they acted poorly then there's probably no point in discussing it further.

[evilrooster]

Yep, thought so. Two welcomes (thank you, but at this point it doesn't look like my kind of place), two rehashes of previous outrage.

I can see why you think they acted poorly. I never said otherwise. Can you see why they didn't want everybody having the sort of gripe session you're running here on their blog?

Perhaps the customers of the blog are the ones who don't want to listen to the grumbling, but rather to more pleasant conversation? Does the bouncer worry about lost revenue from the brawlers he ejects, or from the people who then get to enjoy their evening? (Not that I am accusing anyone of brawling; that was an analogy. But a querulous tone directed at the moderation team doesn't actually make for a very pleasant community.)

[carld]

>I'm sure you'll jump all over this comment and decide that I am wrong and you are right

Not wrong exactly, but definitely condescending.

[Robotech_Master]

Originally Posted by evilrooster

Perhaps the customers of the blog are the ones who don't want to listen to the grumbling, but rather to more pleasant conversation?

I sure hope Tor is happy with the amount of revenue the "customers of the blog" bring in after it's driven away the people who might otherwise have bought its books.

[Robotech_Master]

Post-script: Look, I don't know if you noticed, but this is only my fifth post here, and only my fourth relating to this topic. I don't feel like I have any sort of stake in this community yet, nor do I feel insulted on behalf of Nate or Taylor that Tor should dare to have a hissy at them. I'm not one of the "us" in the "us against them."

What upsets me is how much Tor is blackening its own eyes. As a customer service professional, it offends me to the core that any business should seemingly care so little about its own self-image that it allows its employees—fairly high-ranking employees at that—to drive away its core customers. It's like fingernails against a blackboard, or off-key notes to someone with perfect pitch.

I want Tor's e-book program to succeed, so that Tor and Baen become the model for other publishers and they get rid of their useless DRM. But for that that to happen, they have to sell well—and it seems like Tor's employees are being its own worst enemy in that respect.

[Taylor514ce]

Originally Posted by evilrooster

Yep, thought so. Two welcomes (thank you, but at this point it doesn't look like my kind of place), two rehashes of previous outrage.

Well, you pretty much had to expect some re-hashing, just by participating in the thread.

But just as the "ebooks" thread is one (well, two) threads over at TOR, amidst a whole lot of other content, the "TOR" thread here is really a tiny part of the site.

I may have lit the match, but I'm not fanning the flame.

[evilrooster]

Robotech Master,

I did notice. But I think you'll fit right in here.

(By which I actually do mean that you share a lot of interests and passions with the community. Comfort in the local tone is important, too, but nothing beats caring about the content.)

I, however, am not in a convenient time zone to continue this conversation at present. I'm certain you can discuss my perceived condescension, and fundamental wrongness, in my absence. I'll check back in later to see how it's going.

[evilrooster]

Taylor514ce:

Yes, I did expect this.

I suspect it's why only one other person that I recognize from Tor.com is here, and why I am the only one to even try to explain the other side of the conversation here.

Do you think this is a good introduction to your community for people who have followed the links from Tor.com? Do you want them as members? Does good community or good customer service only go one way?

[carld]

>I'm certain you can discuss my perceived condescension

I'm sorry, I left out needlessly abrasive.