Nice to be appreciated

I'm a member of a number of online groups devoted to various aspects of electronic publishing, but I probably post the most over in the Yahoo! Groups Fictionwise group, which is over here.

Today, this popped up in my email box:

Rob, I'm not writing to tell you how much I love or hate any of your work; millions of readers do that every day, I am sure. Yes, I am a fan, but I am writing to you to thank you for taking the time to put so much into the Fictionwise group. As an avid e-book reader, I appreciate your working so hard to share your information and experiences with others. You have gone far beyond the level of, "Here, this is what you have to do and then you can read my book." You interact with the other members in a way that keeps people talking about topics and still solves specific problems for individual readers. I wonder how many other authors who operate at your level take the time to help their readers learn how to do the equivalent of open the book, turn it right side up, turn the page and begin reading!

I feel that what you are doing would be the equal of Keith Richards telling 13 year old boys how to tune their guitars to open g, drop the low e string, bar the strings at the fifth fret, put your second finger below it and strum. When I think of all the messages you have posted about ebook readers, formatting issues, publishers' practices, etc. it staggers my poor ole mind. OK, now that I have rambled on, here is my message to you: Thank you, Robert Sawyer. Please keep writing thought-provoking books, and keep on helping us idiots enjoy reading those books.

Well, what a nice way to begin the day! My reply:

Thank you!

I got my start in the online world back in 1987 on CompuServe helping others use WordStar (then, a popular word-processing program). And I just love, love, love the notion of ebooks -- and want the industry to succeed. So -- thanks!

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site