Saturday, June 15, 2013

Responding to the Reviews

Dialogue Please
"They" say you are not supposed to respond to reviews, positive or negative.  "They" are usually wrong.  At the risk of rubbing someone the wrong way, here goes.

"Best guide out there." "First strategic book." "Well worth the money."
These were the objectives.  These are the objectives.  These will be the objectives. I priced the book for the everyday reader, well below its financial value, well below the price of other books that "explain" Medicare. I wrote it with scenarios to illustrate the effects, both intended and unintended. If you want to accept risk on your own, I am not against this. You may have good reason, and it isn't my role to tell you what to do. My role in this discussion is to lay out the choices clearly, so that you are not surprised by the results of the risks that you unintentionally take, if and when they occur. I wrote this book to help a senior (and his/her family) avoid the consequences that he/she did not intend, or did not understand in advance.

"Preachy"
This is a description that I did not expect. If anything, I haven't even come close to describing what can happen if you ignore the information in the book.  Let me put it simply: bankruptcy is a real possibility if you leave Medicare alone unchecked, become ill, and require extensive medical treatment with prescriptions. If you live alone, with no family, then that may be fine since you will be the only person to experience the consequences. For the remainder, it is now your vocation to know Medicare.  Period.  My part of this covenant? I guarantee that a reader will recover the price of the book, every year.  Send me the book back, and I will donate the copy to a group that will benefit, and I will refund your money.  Myself.

"Not Much New"
If you are experienced in Medicare matters, and have knowledge of all the options, and can compare them side-by-side, with family scenarios in mind, then you are right.  This book is not for you.  The preface to the book is "I know everything there is to know about Medicare. Said by no one."  If you are that 0.01%, then send me the book back, and I will donate the copy to a group that will benefit, and I will refund your money.  Myself.


"Don't Buy the Kindle Version"
You need to read the beginning of the book.  It is quite clear: I advised readers to READ THE GLOSSARY FIRST. It is a fact of life that there is specialized language in every profession or practice. Ask a lawyer, ask a physician, ask a plumber: jargon is everywhere. The reviewer does admit that the terms are explained. When technology improves on ebooks generally, you will be able to click on a word, and up will come the definition from the glossary. We are not there yet. We will be in the future.


"Incomplete"
I cannot comment on certain practices in certain states. I should not comment on services by governmental agencies, or groups funded by the government.  If you didn't see the news at all over the past two weeks, the government is watching, to put it mildly. Kidding aside, this is not a political book with political aims. For that you can read the Obamacare Survival Guide.  Most importantly: even when rules apply, you can get inconsistent answers from governmental agencies. I have dealt with the situation on behalf of my professional clients, and it takes a long time and persistence to undo this type of situation. The book only comments on the most blatant cases. This is intentional. If you believe that there is an omission that could benefit future readers, email me please!

Help me
If I knew then what I know now about book publishing, Maximize Your Medicare would not exist at all, for better or worse. Indiegogo is a platform for crowdsourcing, and is used to raise money to be used for objectives.  My objective? Overcome hurdles inherent in book distribution. You most likely found the book on amazon.com or at your local library. In other words, there are many, many others out there that require this information, and I need to reach them.  And I need your help. $10,000 sounds like a lot, and it is. Candidly, it is about 50% of what is required to do the job correctly. That is how high the barriers to entry are for a single book. There is a very low probability of recovering this amount, given that it is as $10 book, and there are middlemen everywhere.  So, if you found the book helpful, or acknowledge that there are countless others that would benefit, please help me by clicking on the widget below.

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