A Problem Curious And Unanticipated

[NOTE: This entry has been updated (1) as of 1:56 PM Eastern on 13 Mar. See below.]

Well, this is a curious problem, and something we never anticipated when we set to writing Volume I of the new Kindle book series The Four Days of Wagner's Ring whose coming publication we've been flogging on S&F's main page for the past couple weeks or so (which flogging has now been transferred to our sidebar).

Here's the book's description as it will be displayed on the book's page on Amazon which description makes clear just who the book's intended reader is:

As the subtitle [A Guide For The Willing But Perplexed] of this four-volume series implies, The Four Days of Wagner's Ring has been written for those intrigued by Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen but feel its complexities too daunting or complicated to undertake on their own, and who have found existing guides to be either too simplistic or so scholarly and/or lengthy as to be almost as daunting as the work it purports to explicate and make clear. The volumes in this series adopt a middle ground that it's hoped readers will find engaging reading and a helpful and illuminating guide through the intricacies of Wagner's great tetralogy.

The curious and unanticipated problem is that we're experiencing some measure of unsureness getting "into the head" of that intended reader and so are having some difficulty in judging whether our approach is really striking the middle ground promised above, or whether we're missing the mark by being not simple enough, or too simple, or condescending, or....

Well, you get the idea.

So, this is a call for so-called focus-group participants. If you meet the description of the above intended reader (or know someone who does) and own a Kindle or, alternatively (but not ideally), have installed on your computer Kindle For PC or Kindle For Mac, do drop us an eMail (or have the aforementioned someone do so) at The Wagner Group and we'll eMail you back a Kindle preview (.mobi) file containing the first few chapters of the book along with instructions on how to transfer it to your Kindle or to the proper Kindle document folder on your computer. (NOTE: Please let us know whether you'll be reading on a Kindle or on Kindle For PC or Kindle For Mac.) What we're looking for in return, of course, are your comments, positive and/or negative, on what you've read. We regret that the only compensation we can offer you for your participation in this focus group is a free copy of Volume I of The Four Days of Wagner's Ring on its publication.

We do look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your attention to this call.

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Update (1:56 PM Eastern on 13 Mar): The focus group is now closed. Thanks to everyone who participated.