Kindle zealots trash bestseller to spite publisher's lack of e version

I have never heard of Linux or OS X users trashing software reviews because there isn't a version for their preferred platform. Thinking about it, the last time I saw this was over the Spore DRM, but that was about the product not the platform.

It is a shame that Amazon doesn't have the Kindle equivalent of the "I would really like a DVD of this" button. I am losing a lot of respect for Amazon's customer support in that they are not dealing with this (allowing their customers to be heard without damaging some poor authors reputation).

Without apologizing for incivility, I own a Kindle and am now experiencing the new sensation of hardware fanboyism. Let me try to convey why: a significant portion of my life is my relationship to the printed word, and the Kindle has totally revolutionized that relationship. I carry it with me everywhere I go. I spend more time on it than I spend on my cell phone, phone, television, and all forms of printed matter combined.

It has changed where I read, it has changed when I read, it has changed how I read, it has changed who I read. It has seriously changed my life more than any electronic gadget since my first cell phone 7 years ago.

There are clouds on the horizon for me, though: the publishers seem to see my Kindle, and by extension me, as a threat to their business models. This displeases me greatly, because I buy and read a lot of books. (Call it a hundred per year... probably more since buying the Kindle.) I feel some sense of -- hmm, I'll put a name to it -- entitlement to be best possible treatment from people trying to sell me books, like the guy who comes in every single Friday to "his" Italian restaurant feels that the head waiter should know his name, have his table ready, and be appropriately apologetic if the kitchen can't do "the usual" today.

Instead of having my table waiting for me, I have been told -- in as many words, literally, by authors who were on my reading list writing to my very own mailbox -- that I am thieving riffraff who should not even be let into this restaurant.

(I mentioned on my blog that if it came to a fight between Amazon, who makes my reading experience awesome, and publishers, who do not make my reading experience awesome, I would back Amazon. That apparently got passed around a group of authors -- oh, ho, Internet. Several of them backed publishers over me. That is the road less traveled in high-end customer service but, hey, whatever. One called me a thief who was stealing her livelihood. I will never read another book of hers. Even recalling this makes me freaking livid.)

Amazon delivers on making me feel special: they have for the last decade always gotten me the books I wanted, when I wanted them, and then after long since cinching my Favorite Company Ever position they released the Kindle. Amazon knows that Jim Butcher has a book coming out this month and that I will want it. Neither Jim Butcher nor his publisher know my name nor care to send me an email saying "Hey Patrick, thanks for reading my last seventeen novels. I have another one coming out this month which you'll want to take a look at." (I understand there are excellent business model reasons why Jim Butcher and his publisher don't know my name. I just, frankly, do not care what their problems are.)