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Yes, you're over-reacting. Your post sounds spiteful, and your threat of bad publicity sounds more like revenge than warning your fellow consumers. The way I see it, it would've been nice of them to give you a free MEAP copy, but it was well within their rights to refuse. Similarly, it's well within your rights to write a nasty blog post about how Manning is a bunch of meanies, but it'd be nice if you let it go, admitted that you made a mistake and got on with your life. It doesn't seem to me like there's anything to be gained by taking the low road here, even if you feel that it would be fair.

I have a story that starts similarly to yours, but ends very differently. I discovered "The Joy of Clojure" from a post here on HN, and after some consideration, I decided to pre-order. I was familiar with Amazon, but not with Manning, so I checked them out a little. I read their page about MEAPs and preview releases and really liked what I saw, so I pre-ordered the e-book copy from them directly, got my MEAP copy immediately and started reading. Since then, I've purchased/pre-ordered a half dozen other titles from them (frequently on steep discount thanks to their daily deals and newsletter sales) and they've become my go-to publisher for tech e-books when O'Reilly doesn't have what I'm looking for. I can't help but feel that my life would be ever-so-slightly poorer if I had had a bad experience with them right off the bat and decided to avoid them in the future.

Regardless of which path you decide to take, I hope that you enjoy reading the book. As someone who's fairly new to Clojure and functional programming, I've found it to be a great way to get deeper into the language as well as expand my horizons by exploring concepts like laziness and immutability that I don't see often enough as a Python programmer. Happy reading!

You gave a significant chunk of their profit to Amazon; it would be nice if they still gave you the PDF (which is the bonus for ordering directly from them), but not doing so is just "not nice", not rage-worthy. If you really wanted it, you could have cancelled your Amazon order and placed your order with manning...

The thing is, on joyofclojure.com, it says:

"[...]The Joy of Clojure can now be pre-ordered, which gives you access to the entire book as a PDF now, plus other formats including the printed book once they're available."

Which is misleading because you only get the pdf if it get pre-ordered FROM MANNING.

And, yes, you are right that I give a part of their profit to amazon, but I still give them money.

Maybe you are right that it is just "not nice" and not rage-worthy. Still, I don't like the idea of a company being "not nice" to someone giving them money.

Yes, that should be worded clearer. But, there's still a way for you to get the advance PDF and Manning to get what they expected in return: you can still cancel your Amazon order and order from Manning instead.

Problem solved. If you don't want to do that, then you're over-reacting.

It doesn't say anything about the PDF on the Amazon page, not that that's an excuse for Manning to be rude. Was it really an "FU" or just a polite "no"?

It looks like the page has been amended to say "The Joy of Clojure can now be pre-ordered from Manning".

"You gave a significant chunk of their profit to Amazon" Are you implying this gives Manning reason for the disdain they showed him? From the rough translation it seems disdainful. He/she is a customer regardless of whatever vehicle (Amazon) he/she uses.

Personally, they should work with you to remedy this situation through various steps. The first should be try to cancel your amazon order and place it through Manning. If that doesn't work, then ...

You have every right to be angry at your bad customer service experience.

It's definitely high up on the "not nice" scale, because sending him the PDF would cost them a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents. Not sending him the PDF has probably cost them at least one book sale.

It's not about the PDF copy having zero marginal cost. Manning is a business that is trying to offer an incentive for customers to buy direct from them. Are you suggesting that they destroy their own value add?

Also, I seriously doubt that Manning responded to d0m's request by literally saying:

"Fu, it's your problem, next time buy it at manning, not amazon"

Pronounced "F-U" and not "foo".

The moment you twist someone's wording to sound that aggressive, you're overreacting.

I don't know if I would consider emailing a PDF to a customer who made an honest mistake "destroying your value add".

I've given some paid members on setformarriage.com free lifetime accounts because they were consistently forwarding us emails from the spam profiles that made it through our filters. I think the value of overall goodwill to the customers is probably worth it.

The March 14 google cache of JoyofClojure.com says "can be preordered [link to the Manning preorder page with explanation of MEAP], which gives you access to the entire book as a PDF now".

The current page has been amended to say "can now be pre-ordered from Manning [link to the same MEAP purchase page], which gives you access to the entire book as a PDF now".

It looks like you helped them solve the "user reads about the preorder bonus and then chooses not to click on the nearby purchase link; instead bounces to Amazon, buys the book for half price, and then comes back asking for the PDF later" edge case.

They could certainly have just given you a copy of the PDF though. Probably not worth the hassle for Manning to argue the point.

The book hasn't been released yet. You can cancel your Amazon order without penalty until it enters the shipping process.

Sounds like Manning just lost the opportunity to win a customer for life. In fact, they chose to lose him for life. Go Amazon!

If you get on Manning's email list, you'll get a steady stream of discount codes and never have to spend full price.

There's a 35% off code on the website (which is very broken in Firefox).. does it get better than that?

EDIT: Hmm, it only applies to the e-book only version.

Yes. On a typical day there's a new 50% discount on ebook and ebook+print, of up to 3 different but related titles. On Christmas, there was 50% on all purchases. Then a couple days later was $15 off on all.

As with many commodities, you can simply pass until the price is sufficiently low. Unless you really want the thing immediately.

I'd have to see their actual email before I decide whether you are over-reacting. If they actually wrote "Fu, it's your problem, etc." then no you aren't over-reacting at all. I very much doubt that I would summarize their email the same way, however.

Honestly, I don't think you're over-reacting. Book publishers don't touch customers very often and their behavior here was pretty poor. Not sure if this is the only good Clojure book around, but if not, I'd consider just cancelling and buying a different one.

If it is the only good Clojure book, then I guess you're just kind of stuck. I would probably just stick with the Amazon purchase then because it would feel like every additional dollar to Manning, I would't feel comfortable with. And you probably could get someone to donate their PDF to you.

...but you saved a lot by ordering it on amazon: 45 (manning)-26(amazon)=$19 savings. Is the pdf worth $19?

Considering that it's $34.99 when purchased alone, just maybe?

Had the same happening with Pragmatic Programmers.

I must admit that I would not think too badly about somebody who decided to torrent a PDF of a hardcover book he owns.

Thinking about it, maybe publishers could give out PDFs if there was a good way to prove ownership of the paper edition? If you ordered through Manning, they know you bought it, if you order through Amazon, they don't.

And a funny fact:

For both of my comments, the score keep oscillating from +5 to -4. Which doesn't talk a lot because, if it continues like that, at the end, I will probably only have ~1 which won't give any clues about the opinion on HN-users. (i.e. people don't care about it vs half agree / half disagree!)

I am guessing that this is because you are off-topic, writing about the publisher which doesn't seem to be the topic of the OP.

Upvote/downvote isn't meant to be agree/disagree, but rather something like insightful/irrelevant.

Amazon just told me my pre-order was cancelled because the book was discontinued by the publisher. There must be some kind of misunderstanding?

I am in Germany, so ordering from Amazon seemed to be the fastest and cheapest way to get the book. But now I'm considering ordering from Manning.