Now I Am Officially Mad.

Dear friends, at last I have joined the club of those who actually find it worth their time to correspond with large corporations. Herewith my first effort at the "customer sulking" genre. Faithfully yours, E.

Dear Eileen at B....,

In response to your mail about pricing, I must say that I find your choice of investing in Europe questionable, especially in the present economic juncture. More so in light of the fact that you are raising the prices, thus expecting us - customers (or fellow b...erati as you oddly call us) - to shoulder the bill. Much as I am in favour of companies paying their taxes, as we do, I don't see why I should rejoice in paying them for you, in Europe or anywhere else.

Your prices were never cheap, actually they are as high as can be. If you compare them to the prices of other books on the market, the printing cost to the author is so high that there is no room for profit. People simply wouldn't buy a digitally printed book at a higher price than what they are used to pay for ordinary books.

Modern technology has enabled everyone to become one's own publisher, which is great. It also means that it is possible to produce a single book at a relatively low cost, and on this fact you have thrived placing the price as high as you could. If your recent moves do not reduce costs, but rather increase them affecting the price, then by all means you shouldn't have made them.

As a result of the present recession negotiations are harder than ever and a constant bargain hunt is on. Probably many of your cherished fellows will be now pushed to look around for other sources, winning that natural laziness that goes for "customer loyalty".

Let me end with a constructive suggestion: wouldn't it be better to improve the software further, maybe add new formats to the options, and do what it takes to keep the prices as they were? That would make a positive statement, a good signal of goodwill quite different from yet another of those "we are sorry to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our blah blah..." that we get far too many of lately.

If you'll do that, we'll order.

Best regards,


Emilio Brizzi