Dear Mister Bezos, I heard that you got all mad at Macmillan over electronic book pricing, or something like that, and last weekend you made all of Macmillan's titles disappear from your store. Then I heard they came back, and I thought everything was okay. But they're not back, not really. I can only get books by guys like my friends Brandon Sanderson and John Scalzi through third-party sellers. This makes me sad, because you still sell my books, and I used to think it was so awesome that somebody could put my comics in a shopping cart alongside cool-awesome science fiction and fantasy from Tor (a Macmillan imprint.) I still get a little thrill when I think that maybe some Amazon shopper will open a box with a Robert Jordan book in it, and it will be sitting on top of The Tub of Happiness. Today I took down all the ads I run for you guys. My fans might think this is a big sacrifice, but I should tell them it's really not. It's pizza-money. I'll still let you sell my books, though. Making you click all those buttons on your big database would just be spiteful. Besides, I figure that's why it's taking you so long to get all my friends' books back in your store -- too many database buttons! I guess you should have patented that "one-click" thingy so it works inside your giant fortress! Anyway, I hope you're not mad at my friends the authors. They didn't do anything wrong, I swear. And please let me know when you're done being mad at Macmillan, and Tor, and the rest of those publisher people. Then I'll click my database buttons and make your ads come back, and everybody can be happy and be friends and buy stuff from you. --Howard ps. those shirts I bought from you were not shiny enough. I'm sending them back.
