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There’s a lot of excitement about Indi Young’s new book, Practical Empathy. In fact, hundreds of you pre-ordered it, and were looking forward to having their paperback ship today.
I got my copy last night, just ahead of you. I opened the package. Looked great—and I love that cover!
Thumbed through it. First chapter: cool, there’s one of Brad Colbow’s wonderful illustrations!
On to Chapter Two…
Uh oh. Four does not equal Two. What happened to Chapters Two and Three?
And look, another Chapter Four. I mean, it’s a great chapter, but come on…
Argh. You can judge a book by its cover, but it’s what’s inside that counts.So here’s the situation: it looks like our normally reliable printer missed something. And, sadly, thousands of unsellable copies are now sitting in four warehouses in three countries on two continents. It will likely take some weeks to reprint the book, restock them, and ship paperback versions of Practical Empathy to you.
If you already pre-ordered the book, I’m very, very sorry for this situation. Here’s what we’ll do:
- We’ll make the ebook versions (PDF, ePub, and MOBI formats) downloadable from your account today. Unfortunately, this is a manual process, but your copy will be downloadable before the day is out.
- We’ll also email you a code to download another of our titles for free. It’s the least we can do.
- And we’ll let you know when we have an ETA for sending you the paperback.
If you haven’t ordered the book yet, but want to, we have some good news: We’ll keep Practical Empathy available for pre-order until we can actually ship paperbacks. That means the 30% discount will continue for now.If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us. We feel terrible about this situation, and are trying our best to fix it.
In the meantime, I’m looking to move to Australia.
—Lou Rosenfeld
A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day
Posted on | 13 comments
13 Responses to “A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day”
SpunkyGidget
some days are like that. cute kid.
Unanticipated delays on shipping Practical Empathy | Rosenfeld Media
[…] Sorry to bear bad news, but Practical Empathy—which was to ship today—is apparently the victim of a printing SNAFU. Here’s the situation, and what we’re doing to address it. […]
indi young
Aw … such a nice write-up, Lou. Pretty much exactly how I experiennced it with the copy I received. We juat have to chuckle about the process of converting ideas into physical objects … everyone runs into this kind of thing. At least the electronic version is available to read. 🙂
Jonathon
Amazing accountability and empathy. This should be the standard that everyone strives for. Thanks so much, Lou.
Colleen Newvine
Some things are out of your control, but you’re giving great customer service while you cope with the kind of screw up that happens to all of us once in a while.
Louis Rosenfeld
Thanks all. It’s been a long day indeed. I’m holing up in a cafe now for some quiet time. True heroes are my staff, Karen Corbett and Elaine Matthias, for sailing us through these rough seas.
Neil
So, sorry to hear! I ordered an ebook only version – when will this be available to download? Thanks!
Louis Rosenfeld
Neil: depends on whether you’d ordered it before January 8. Can you let us know? info@prod.rm.gfolkdev.net
Louis Rosenfeld
Great news! We’ve ferreted out the misprints, and there are enough good ones that we’re set to start shipping copies today. HUZZAH!
Peak empathy? No, Practical Empathy! | Rosenfeld Media
[…] Given that Indi Young and I first began discussing her new book idea many, many years ago, Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work was a marathon in the making. Even the last mile proved to be full of unexpected (and unpleasant) challenges. […]
Kelly Goto
Amazing story. Reminds me of a blue line stage for a multi-million dollar print job I managed to thwart at 4:00 AM and get the plates redone! CONGRATS to Indi and to Lou for getting Empathy out into the world. Nothing like experiencing it before preaching it!
“You hear about how many fourth quarter comebacks that a guy has and I think it means a guy screwed up in the first three quarters.” – Peyton Manning, Record-breaking NFL Quarterback
Cheers to the touchdown! 😉
The People Project | Rosenfeld Media
[…] to behave, it’s much more complicated, and even a little painful. It means publicly admitting when stuff goes wrong, and occasionally acknowledging your own ignorance or […]
Josephine Giaimo
Yes, stuff happens. It’s more about how one responds. As a wise person would say–life is messy, very messy.