Remember back in February when I talked about getting a rather spam-ish email from the owner of Diesel eBooks? Well, he emailed me again tonight:
Robert,
I’m Scott Redford, owner of Diesel eBooks. You have a nice website and we hope you will use it to announce where your ebooks can be found. Please take a moment and paste the below “My latest Diesel eBook” link to your website. Your readers will be grateful (so will we), for when ”clicked”, it will take you to your most recent book at our web store. Please see for yourself by clicking on the below link or pasting the URL in your browser:
http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239
Paste this code on your website to show the above link to your readers:
<a href=”http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/index.php?page=item&id=SW00000026239” alt=”Diesel eBook Store”>My latest Diesel eBook</a>
You can also send your readers to a tailored listing of your eBooks at our store using the below code.
<a href=”http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/author/Swartwood,%20Robert/results/10-Default/1.html“ alt=”Diesel eBook Store”>See me at Diesel eBook Store</a>
Also, don’t forget to click the “like” button underneath your cover on your diesel book page. Get your friends and fans to click as well. More clicks equals more exposure for you. It takes just a second and this will automatically put your title on Facebook for everybody to see. Never know – you may go viral.
Our authors tell us that linking to their titles increases their sales so please take a few moments to past the code and start promoting. If you need help just let me know.
If you would like a small Diesel logo graphic for your link you can find one here: http://affiliates.diesel-ebooks.com/datafiles/uploaded/promo/1/still_image_small_1_Diesel-eBook-Logo-No-background_124.png
Give me a quick email back on your decision if you can… and keep up the good work.
Scott
Diesel eBook Store 1202 Peachtree Blvd Richmond VA 23226 804-201-4162
Word for word what was sent to me a few months back. And if you remember the exchange I had with Scott, he got sorta testy. So I thought I'd try to test the waters again:
Hi Scott,
Is there some way I can unsubscribe from these automated emails?
Thanks,
Robert
His response, seven minutes later:
Not automated. I'm the real deal, Robert.
Yes, of course you are, I thought, and sent this:
You may very well be the real deal, Scott, but you sent me the same email back in February, which was odd because at the time none of my ebooks were even available in your store. In fact, what's even odder is that some of them now are, which is strange as I never authorized Smashwords to distribute them to your store. So obviously Smashwords went and distributed them anyway without my permission. One ebook, in fact, I had unpublished over a year ago but still it seemed to go through.
Anyway, you also sent me an email in April which was meant, I suppose, for Raymond Nye, so he probably never did receive your initial response.
Best,
Robert
And, just like last time I called him out on his spammy email, he never responded. (And yes, in April he did send me an email intended for Mr. Nye, and I was tempted to reply with something stupid but just ignored the email completely.)
I still don't know what to think about the Diesel eBookstore. It's not a bad looking store compared to some. Definitely more appealing than Smashwords itself, but it basically does the same thing. It's an unnecessary middleman. If you have a Kindle, you buy your ebooks through Amazon. If you have a Nook, you buy through Barnes & Noble. If you have a Kobo reader, you buy through the Kobo store. If you have a Sony reader ...
You get the point.
But Diesel? There is no Diesel ereader. It's just a website that sells different formats of ebooks (and I can't even imagine their prices are that competitive) and is, according to their website header, world famous. Also, from their "about" page:
Finally, you may be surprised to hear that we don’t view eBooks as our core business. Yes, we sell them by the boatload. That’s the product. Our real business, however, is to provide a fun, positive, engaging customer experience. That’s what we strive for. That’s what we hopefully deliver.
So how do they intend to survive against the major corporations like Amazon and Barnes & Noble? Superb customer service, apparently. So superb, in fact, that its owner spams authors with automated emails and then claims that they're not automated.
Uh-huh, sure.
Keep up the good work.
UPDATE: At 9:32 a.m. Scott Redford replied with this simple note: "okay, sorry about the duplicate emails." That's at least something, but still, it doesn't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling in my belly.