Dear
EPublisher:
Thank you
for your interest in my first novel Please
Stand By. I do appreciate your notes, support and eagerness to get it into
the www. ether. However, your enthusiasm has been a deciding factor in my
pulling the manuscript from your epublishing company.
I can hear
the sighs of disappointment from my legions of fans. I can hear the accusations
about denying the public my humourous insights, searing imagery and complex characterization.
How dare I be so selfish.
Ah, yes, I
can hear them, as I tap a spoon against my tea cup. The roar is deafening.
The simple
fact is -- I don't read ebooks.
Not only
that, I don't have a smart phone and I don't have cable or satellite TV. I have
a phone that was given to me in 1994. It has an oversized keypad because it is
a phone for the visually impaired. It plugs in to the wall.
I can go
down the list.
I am not
anti-technology, far from it. I am not a Luddite. I am a Luddite-light perhaps.
That's a better term than cheapskate.
So I realized -- why would I have my novel published
as an ebook when I don't read them?
You also told me I had to get on Twitter,
PinInterest and Facebook. This caused many sleepless nights. I joined Facebook in July
2013 at your insistence. Call me a late adopter. I use it reluctantly, as
a promotional depot. I hate the thought of bothering people with
"notifications" and feel guilty when I don't respond to personal
requests for online friendship. The less time I sit and stare at a computer
screen, the happier I am. Maybe If I am ever "liking" a beheading on Facebook, I'll be more open to using Twitter and PinInterest.
Which leads me to the main reason I have decided to
put my manuscript on hold with your company.
Crowdsourcing.
We were going to put an Indiegogo campaign together
for me to ask people to pre-order my book. I wrote a funny script and lined up an excellent cinematographer to shoot it.
And then I pulled the plug. So close.
Cancer researchers use crowdsouring. NGOs use
crowdsourcing to raise funds for typhoon victims. Writers who are social media
darlings use crowdsourcing.
I could not in good conscience go electronic
cap-in-hand. Even to friends and family. Especially
to friends and family. This is a first novel, not a cure for Alzheimer's
(although it has been said I am a clever writer). Can't do it. Even if it, as
you say, "pre-ordering".
So where does that leave Please Stand By?
Exactly where it was a year ago, under a stack of
paper on the bottom book shelf in my office and as a Word document. It may stay
there indefinitely. Or I may work up the nerve again and send it to small
Canadian publishing houses. And I do mean houses, there is one around the block
from where I live.
Thank you very much for tolerating my infernal
unwillingness and knuckle-cracking. I am confident you have moved on at lightening speed to the next fortunate writer.
I remain,
Carolyn Bennett writer/comic
