At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, “I wanted to hit her.”
via At BookExpo This Year, the Talk Was of eBooks – NYTimes.com. (Emphasis mine)
OK, listen folks… if you’re an author and you want readers one thing you shouldn’t do is trash-talk your readers. The thing is… I’ve never heard of this person and the odds of me having ever read his books were vanishingly small before this incident… now they’re zero.
If you’re in sales, and authors are in sales if they try and make their living selling their books, saying you want to hit a potential customer is stupid. I suspect the elitist accusation that was made is a case of pot & kettle… or outright grandstanding for an attention starved individual looking for some sensationalist press.
Face
** I typically only link to amazon books I would recommend. I don’t recommend these books at all. I don’t recommend anything by this author who is obviously an attention starved arteest, but I did want to link to the digital editions of his works. If somebody wants to shop from there I’d happily take a buck or two from them, but I’d rather have donations here so I can get me some kindle love! 
The At BookExpo This Year, author wants to hit a reader? by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Remember when George Lucas said none of his films would ever be available on DVD for some messed up reason? It was an odd blunder by a man whose career and fortune has been built around having the foresight to see upcoming trends and invest in them years before anyone else does.
Honestly I don’t see why someone would call someone else elitist just because that person happens to have a shiny new toy they enjoy. Would a person be elitist for having a video Ipod, a large TV, a high end computer?
I remember meeting an author once who told me he went to too many book signings by other authors where not many people showed, and the author just left. Then he told me it’s just unprofessional and he would never do that. The person who showed up may have driven three or four hours to get there because he’s that big of a fan, or he may have changed his whole schedule in order to have the chance to meet you.
I’ve also heard of writers insulting fans who ask ‘stupid’ questions, like “Where did you come up with the idea for such-and-such”. As a writer it does seem like a stupid question, and it’s one that’ll get asked over and over again. But then a writer should be prepared for the question, because they know it will always be asked, and always have an answer to it ready.
And it’s not really a stupid question, it’s just one most writers aren’t prepared to properly answer. The ideas do come from somewhere after all. And I’ve also noticed that the best writers can not only answer these questions politely, but their answers are typically insightful.
Unfortunatly most artists, especially the writers and poets, don’t consider their fans, until they’re wondering why they don’t have them or why they don’t support them with sales.
I checked out this guys poetry. http://www.slipstreampress.org/horses.html
His verse doesn’t scan. Actually I did think the Haikus had some merit. And ‘I Would Steal Horses’ does some interesting things structurally. But it also does some very stupid things structurally, and the poem, as a whole, is marred by numerous instances of sentiments that seem amateurish, and the poem lacks the depth necessary to promote it to that highest level of poetry. All in all an okay poem to use as filler in a larger collection, but hardly something strong enough to stand as a centerpiece to a book.
Is he sporting a mullet in the picture on the link you aim me at?
Did you just cause me to click my way through to a mullet sighting?
I may never forgive you.
/7 I’ve got ape drape,
yes I do
They’re giving it to everyone,
that means you.
You can go to Riverside
and get one too.
Then you’ll have ape drape,
like I do /7
The Vandals have a whole song about Mullets.
/7 I’ve got a mullet,
yes I do
They’re giving it to everyone,
that means you.
You can go to Hoboken
and get one too.
Then you’ll have a mullet,
like I do /7
Dude’s a nutter, I’m thinking. Or something was taken way out of context.
I’d never want to hit someone based on the device they’re carrying — there are just too many other good reasons to want to hit someone… Well, except for those smug MacBook carriers. I might want to hit them on general principle…
It just keeps getting better. The author responded and the response came through his publisher who is getting e-mails and complaints… the author clarified, “I should have said Man… Obviously I wouldn’t want to go around hitting women.”
Uhm… OK. So hitting random readers is OK so long as they’ve got outies rather than innies. *sigh*
(I paraphrased)
On his blog he’s finally decided he would consent to meet with amazon and let some of his works be put out on the kindle… HE’S ALREADY DOING THIS!
Publicity stunt pure & simple. No more links from me to him.
I think it’s funny he’s calling people elitist when he obviously is the snob.