Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of Amazon opinions, I think you have to be at least a little impressed by a certain small press that abstains from using the retail giant.
I had never heard of Perfect Day Publishing until I read about one of its products, Love is Not Constantly Wondering If You Are Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life, in a Slate article. From the description, I knew immediately I would buy the book. What I didn't know was that I would get a personalized email letting me know my order would be delayed because they needed to print more books. I also didn't know I'd get another personalized email explaining how they had to hand-weigh the packages in the shipment so they might have made a mistake on the postage to the tune of -20 cents. I didn't know when the book arrived, my address would be hand-written, or that I would also receive a stapled copy of A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation, written by a 7th grader.
All of these unknowns made my experience with the publisher so much richer and more enjoyable. I mean, I know personalized emails are not hard to create, but the care with which the sender appeared to have put together the mail merge meant something to me. The constant updates, the free accompanying literature--those meant something, too. Maybe it's just because it's a novelty these days to get anything other than exactly what you paid for. Maybe I'm just a sucker for originality. Whatever the reason, Michael Heald over at Perfect Day is doing something right in my book.
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