eBooks: Testing Customer Support

By J. Knight

I had just finished the latest in Dame Margaret Thursington's excellent "Murder in the Garden" series of mysteries, E is for Exfoliation, and was anxious to try out the ePublisher's new hotline for customer support.

The ePublisher, Thursington Press, takes a new yet timeless approach to the issue of digital rights management. Rather than using elaborate encryption schemes to protect its author's work, Thursington Press follows the software model of building added value into the purchased product that is unavailable to eBook pirates.

After downloading, registering and reading E is for Exfoliation I made a telephone call to the customer support line. The line is available only to authorized purchasers of E is for Exfoliation and other Thursington Press eBooks.

I was on hold from mid-May to sometime in early June (I forget the exact dates) but eventually I reached my personal customer support technician. She verified my registration and asked how she could help me.

"I just have a couple of questions," I said. "First, I was confused by the character 'Skippy' who kept popping up rather annoyingly in the middle of scenes offering to explain the action to me."

"Did you have a question about Skippy," she asked, "or is this purely a complaint?"

"Well, both, I guess," I said. "The character is so inconsistent with Dame Thursington's prior work that I have to wonder...."

"Added later," she said, "as an attempt to make the work more interactive. Skippy's not proving to be as popular as we'd hoped. Death threats, actually. Shall I mark you down for one?"

"Yes, please."

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Yes," I said. "There's the matter of the gardener's rake. In chapter two we learn that it's kept in the potting shed, but in chapter eighteen the nurse finds it in the greenhouse. Since this is a fairly valuable clue implicating the gardener in the willful destruction of the pansy bed, I found the inconsistency troubling."

"Dropped paragraph on page eighty," the tech said. "A junior editor deleted the scene where Uncle Paisley sees the rake on the lawn, deems it a hazard and removes it to the greenhouse."

"Ah, that's it then," I said. "But what about the watering can? It was blue on page twelve but described as 'white, decorated with ivy stenciling' on page one-sixteen."

"We've had many people point that out to us," she said. "It's a mistake."

"I see. And what about the reference to the night-blooming jasmine, which was out of season for a location as far north as Slatternly Manor?"

"That was a cheat. We thought readers wouldn't care," she said, "but their standards seem to be higher than our market research indicated."

"Then there's the matter of the species of fox described on page two-oh-one, which is...."

"Extinct, yes, we know. In fact, thanks to feedback from readers like you, we're happy to announce that an extensive update to E is for Exfoliation is now available for sale. As a registered user you're entitled to a 50% discount."

"Hm. You've corrected that fox business?"

"That and four other inconsistencies. We've also added two more red herrings and a demented aunt in the attic, eliminated the overuse of the word 'perfidious' and cleaned up some mixed tenses in the chauffeur's testimony."

"What about Skippy?" I asked.

"Out, totally," she replied, "never to return. Would you like to order your update now?"

Of course I did.

J. Knight is the author of Risen, a supernatural thriller that can be sampled at http://www.atombrain.com.

© 2001 Jan Strnad


About J. Knight
J. Knight is the author of the e-chiller Risen, published by AOL Time Warner Book Group. Risen may be sampled on Knight's website at www.atombrain.com.