Comments on: Please take Dear Author’s ebook/reader survey

By: borax99 (AlainC.)

borax99 (AlainC.) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:29:32 +0000

I hope the survey results will be forwarded to the greedy publishers !!!!!!!!!!!

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:21:11 +0000

Apologies — I said there was no place to enter your contact information; I guess I’d forgotten having entered my e-mail address. Or was that field added after the survey went live?

By: Dhamu

Dhamu — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:50:25 +0000

The auto-filled responses definitely seemed designed to skew results. The whole survey had the tone many have, with multiple choices that don’t cover all the options, incorrect assumptions, and more. Really, before someone writes a survey, there should be discussion to see what the questions should be. Then the designer would see much of the stuff that would otherwise be wrong or missed.

By: mel sherman

mel sherman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:41:52 +0000

Wow. I’m actually pretty disturbed. Many of the price questions, the “too high” or “cost too much” boxes were auto-filled, so although it let me change the auto-answer, if I’d been going too fast, I’d have easily missed.

I’d think that was an accident, except most of the other questions were NOT auto-filled.

That’s a huge problem with the survey, which has no general feedback form, either, and I’m really angry right now, because I very much feel like I just got push-polled.

By: Lisa Spangenberg

Lisa Spangenberg — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:25:56 +0000

I’d love to take the survey.

It won’t let me, probably because another person in my household took it and has the same IP because we use the WiFi router.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:39:48 +0000

@Heidi – no, I appreciate the critical input. Without it, there is no way to improve.

By: Heidi Cautrell

Heidi Cautrell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:23:29 +0000

I didn’t actually fill out the ones that didn’t have a “not applicable” option, but there were many that were already filled in with the first option anyway. Not trying to start anything, I think this survey is a great start. I just wanted to point something out that struck me as odd. Good luck!

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:16:54 +0000

@Heidi and @Rich – We certainly don’t believe that the survey taker is a pirate which is why all those questions are optional.

Thanks for your input. We plan to run surveys in the future and will certainly be more clear in other surveys.

By: Heidi Cautrell

Heidi Cautrell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:01:20 +0000

I filled out the survey but I was a bit dismayed that some of the questions were assuming things that weren’t true. I’ve never read an e-book, yet some of the options just assume that I have and don’t have an option to say that I have not. Along with that, I’m going to agree with Rich Adin and complain about some of the questions just assuming the survey taker is a pirate.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:43:21 +0000

We asked only for the email address and not for contact information because we didn’t want to collect personal information that wouldn’t be necessary.

We will use the email address to contact the winner. Perhaps we should make that clearer in the instructions.

@hapalochlaena if you email me at jane at dearauthor.com, I will pull up the entries and see if yours is complete.

By: Rich Adin

Rich Adin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:20:14 +0000

I took the survey but I have to agree with Dan that it is very poorly written. The rating section missed a neutral option and the questions about piracy were really rigged. After saying I had not stripped DRM or shared an ebook, the next question was asked assuming that I in fact had been a pirate. Sarah and crew could have used a good editor .

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:18:24 +0000

Yes, there is no place to enter your contact info to be entered in any drawing. The survey is interesting but it appears to have been “rushed out the door.” For example, there is one page that asks you to rate the importance of different factors, but the wording is unclear as your choices for answering are “agree”, “disagree”, etc. — not the proper wording for rating something’s importance.

By: hapalochlaena

hapalochlaena — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:16:39 +0000

They do ask for your email address on the very first page of the survey.

By: GJN

GJN — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:28:34 +0000

Good luck, Jane and Sarah! Publishers need to know more about readers’ eBook experiences

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:12:06 +0000

No place do they ask for your name or e-mail address before or after submitting the survey so how would you win anything? I did not mind filling it out because I feel strongly about e-books but I did resent being promised the possibility of winning something and then have it not be true.