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Monday, April 7, 2008

Lulu signed with Amazon (and other matters about my views)

So this means I can't even boycott Amazon.com. This is interesting.

The only information I have on this is through the Lulu.com forums, so here's the URL:

http://www.lulu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90527&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=100

Allow me to announce why I boycott things, and what conditions have to be met when I consider lifting them.

I am an angry young man, at heart, produced by a generation raised on videogames that for the first time allowed a man to shoot another man in the head without harming them in real life. But most of all, I suffer from an anxiety disorder. Put that into perspective, and you understand why it's easy to overreact when there are big corporations possibly looming at me.

I boycott things often, but I give them a chance to redeem themselves. Like Angus & Robinson when they started charging publishers for shelf space, but then apologised. The Bible tells us to love our enemies, even the "holy book" I get my religious inspiration from, William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, gives a message of universal love and forgiveness. That's all very well to say, but I've only known one person ever who can regularly put love and forgiveness into practice, and her rays of sunshine put us all to shame. I speak of course of a Christian girl who is the real thing, and I wish her well in her life.

Even when Germaine Greer called me a "conscientious eccentric", I may have misinterpreted her words as scorn because she usually associates eccentrics with Cambridge dons who wouldn't teach women back in the 1960s. So Germaine, I must forgive you also, because I owe God a few favours for ones he's given me (not just salvation, but a variety of minor miracles such as me not missing public transport, rain delay so I don't get wet before I get home, as well as the simple joys of a party well organised).

Now what happens when corporations irritate me? I boycott them until I get a conformation that they're less evil having heard the voice of the people.

The hardest thing an intellectual man can do is admit that he is wrong about something. I might not agree with everybody, but the silly grudge of my copy of Stephen King's On Writing arriving several months late from Amazon.com is nothing to base a revolution on. And I admit that when I posted my previous blog entry, I did not have all the facts. Nobody in the early days of a blogger frenzy does.

But I stick by one of my old philosophies, which I recall writing down as a boy about to become a man. "If someone can help you become who you want to be, make an agreement with them, though they look villainous, that's what they said about Japanese people, and look how far they've come in the world, they gave us Astro Boy and Iron Chef! When you are small, a big fish may just as quickly befriend you as eat you".

These words may sound silly, but I was a silly young man back then with silly ideals. But the way I look at things changes, ever so slightly, over the years. I am not an Elf, no matter how many Fantasy books I read, I can never be one. Eternal Youth is not what is written in wrinkles on your face, but your actions and glee.

I just hope I don't get in a panic again for quite some time.

- Jacob Martin
AKA Jake Of All Trades

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Amazon.com have gone mad

The hyperlink is not working here. I will have to use a manual URL:

http://www.bloggernews.net/114844

This will not stand.

As a POD (print on demand) author myself, this is trouble. What annoys me most of all is that I once considered it possible that I might sell my books on Amazon.com, but now I don't think that's going to happen.

I'm going to boycott them. The only way you can stop a beast like this is to stop feeding it. I will take my business elsewhere, simple as that. I'm sure Gleebooks in Glebe and Kinokuniya in the Sydney CBD deserve my support more than ever.

- Jacob Martin
AKA Jake Of All Trades