Providing Feedback to an Alum

So an alum from the business school that I attended recently wrote a book on private markets investing. I bought the electronic version of the book and was quite disappointed by it. When I found out that the author was an alum of my school (albeit 17 years earlier than me!), I decided to find him on LinkedIn and sent him the following message:

Hi, I recently purchased your book and am almost through it. Its clear that there’s a lot of work that went into it, but I wanted to share areas where I thought the book could have done much better. I noticed you’re a fellow alum and so I am sure you won’t mind me sharing this:

  • the quality and aesthics of tables that appear on the kindle version are just awfully bad.

  • You go over too many topics (many of which are so complex in nature) but you don’t dive into details, provide enough real-life (or mathematical) examples to illustrate your point. This book just serves as a “check-list” of sorts.

Frankly, I was expecting a guide of a similar quality / read as Moyer’s distressed debt book. If there’s an updated version, sincerely hope your first-time purchasers would be automatically eligible to avail that. Best wishes...

Was I too harsh with the guy??

8 Comments
 

Well I’d imagine that if you’re writing something for the world to see, you’d be comfortable digesting feedback. Otherwise why bother. Plus I paid 50 bucks for that crap.

When I sent it, I didn’t think anything of it but he didn’t respond to me (though checked my LinkedIn a couple of times lol)

 
Most Helpful
"Analyst 2"Was I too harsh with the guy??

No, but you embarrassed yourself.

Imagine getting a critical LinkedIn message from some kid who is entitled enough to expect a free copy of an "updated version" of your book because said kid isn't adequately enthused with your current version.

This is some clownish shit.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

LOL at the comments above. He responded:

Hi x thanks for reaching out and for your interesting comments. re 1, I will inform [The Publisher] re 2, my goal (and target audience) are students / professionals who want a comprehensive view of what "making a deal" entails. The risk of a broad approach is of course - as you correctly point out - to be a bit superficial sometimes. 2nd version might include real life cases (although they might form a separate publication) but will definitely include pe and pd 2.0 and special topics such as spacs and permanent capital Thanks for taking time to share your valuable comments

 

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