Ten Things for Those Who SPAM Me
1. Auld Lang Asinine: If you're a publisher who couldn't be bothered to return my agent's phone calls about a submission of mine that you sat on during a year when I was living on ramen noodles and moonlighting as a malldrone in order to pay the rent, it's really not a good idea to SPAM me now with any promo on your new releases. I know you don't understand why, but just trust me on this one.
2. Con Proof: Whatever writer or reader conference you're organizing, running or guesting, the answer is no. To everything. Forever. You can't get me. Not for plane tickets and a free room, not for a speaking fee. Not because you can't get anyone else, not for the good of the industry. Not in a house, not with a mouse. Not here or there, not anywhere. I do not like your conference SPAM. I do not like it, SPAM I am.
3. Friendly Fire: If we were once friends but for whatever reason you've been dodging me and/or my e-mails for a period longer than 90 days, please resist the urge to put me on your newsletter mass mailing list and/or send your book junk mail to my house. Oddly enough I have not developed global amnesia, and I seriously doubt you can now classify me as your fan.
4. I Won't Fly One Thousand Miles: If you're an author who resides in a major metropolitan city over 500 miles from my home, please stop inviting me to every single public appearance you make, which is apparently ten every week. I did not subscribe to your mailing list, and I can't unsubscribe to it, either. Changing your e-mail return addies to get past my SPAM filter is really starting to piss me off, too.
5. Pedestal Pushers: If you're a writer who thinks your couple o' books career has elevated you to the status of literary giant, and you've thought up a new way to peddle this assumption along with your extremely short stack of novels while swindling money out of the internet reading public for stuff they can get for free elsewhere, please don't have your friend the garage-based publicist SPAM me for a mention on my blog. The mention will probably not be kindly.
6. Please: If you're a reviewer starting up a new web business that makes money off writers, mazel tov. Be advised that SPAMming me with a discount offer for your new service is just about the same thing as dangling a bloody hand in front of a starved Cheetah on a frayed elastic leash.
7. Re-zined: If you're starting up a new online e-zine but you have no venture cash and can't talk any reeeeelly beeeg name authors to give you a gratis piece, please don't go trawling the midlist for writers like me. Especially do not start your SPAM with, "I've never read any of your novels, but I saw one made the Publishers Weekly bestseller list. . ."
8. Strong Disarming: If you're an editor, and you've just forked out $200K for the right to publish the Next Sweet Young Writin' Thang, please do not try to wheedle a quote out of me by using the following enticements: "I know you will love her as much as I do" "A quote from you would thrill her to pieces" "You know how difficult it is to get a decent cover blurb these days" and especially "She's written the best [insert genre I write in] novel I've ever read!"
9. Vanity, Thy Name is Not Moi: If you produce any sort of plastic, useless, offensive or pricey writer promo widget, please accept the fact that I'm never ever ever going to be interested in buying one, much less five thousand. I do not need my bio pic photoshopped onto an example, either. I have enough nightmares, thank you.
10. You Don't Know Me, But . . . : If you're a colleague who has openly and loudly trashed me or my books in the past, but you have since switched genres and cleverly assumed a brandnew pseudonym, please don't send me a lofty-worded invite to blurb your new novel. Assume for one millisecond that I'm not as stupid as you think I am, and that the answer is blow me.
Upcoming this week on PBW, weather permitting:
August Biz post
John and Marcia, the Synopsis
Editorisms
. . . and other stuff, still in the works.
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*boggles at #7*
ReplyDeleteI think you should set the cheetah on all of them. That I want to watch!
Snort...and here I thought I had annoying spammers.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading the synopsis.
OH, John and Marcia do the synopsis! I'm there!! Hope the weather isn't too terrible.
ReplyDeleteOh, man, that's awful. #10's my favorite: assuming that the answer is "blow me" will get you far in life.
ReplyDelete*G* Snickering. Trying to decide which one is my fave. I do like #10, but I'd swap out BITE ME for blow me.
ReplyDeleteYay, John and Marcia.
Holy cow, do you get some SPAM. Looking forward to John and Marcia on one of my favorite topics. *g* What'll a half-demon do to a synopsis?
ReplyDeleteYou make me scared to open my inbox. Is it really like that, all the glomming and promo shite once you make it on a bestseller list??
ReplyDeleteYou get all that on a regular basis? Sheesh. Makes me glad of my not-well-known-writer status : )
ReplyDelete"Spam" is a fake acronym. It doesn't actually stand for "stupid pointless annoying messages," someone just made that up after the fact. Capitalizing all of its letters is like capitalizing my name because I made an acrostic poem about myself. Thought you should know.
ReplyDeletethe answer is blow me
ReplyDeleteROTFL.
Sorry you get all that crap in your mail (and in your comment chain sometimes), but thanks for the laugh this morning.
I actually do get a huge amount of biz-related SPAM, but most of it is because PBW is a popular blog, not because I'm any sort of a literary giant. :) On average I receive between 250 and 300 SPAM e-mails per week from people in the industry hoping to cash in on the blog's popularity.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous wrote: "Spam" is a fake acronym. It doesn't actually stand for "stupid pointless annoying messages," someone just made that up after the fact. Capitalizing all of its letters is like capitalizing my name because I made an acrostic poem about myself. Thought you should know.
I appreciate the gentle reminder, but I'm not going to change it. You see, I made a solemn vow to capitalize SPAM forever here at PBW after a bad-tempered troll yelled at me for doing so. I think of it as my little ongoing peaceful protest against case-sensitive jackasses.
I once sent a short story to an e-zine, got a rejection and left it at that. A week later the editor of the e-zine spammed the world asking/begging for money to pay the printer. He was several thousand dollars in debt and wanted new subscribers/investors. . . Ballsy...
ReplyDeleteLike Dude, you rejected me.
Although I certainly recognize the idiocy of many of the above spam messages, I'm not sure why you refuse to go to any cons. As a fan, I enjoy getting to hear favorite authors talk about their work. Did you have bad experiences in the past?
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! All I can say for now is....I'm glad you're on my side....at least for now. I'm going to make real sure that I don't cross you.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I hope that the storm leaves you alone. We got LOTS of rain here in Oklahoma yesterday. Fortunately, where I currently live, no real flooding. I pray that you are as lucky.
Anonymous wrote: Although I certainly recognize the idiocy of many of the above spam messages, I'm not sure why you refuse to go to any cons. As a fan, I enjoy getting to hear favorite authors talk about their work. Did you have bad experiences in the past?
ReplyDeleteI dislike talking about my work, so I wouldn't be much of an attraction.
The main reason I stopped going to cons is that I'm physically handicapped by RA. It's become difficult for me to travel, and almost impossible for me to sign books, shake hands, walk long distances or stand for any length of time. I'm also on medication that suppresses my immune system in order to slow the deterioration of my joints, so I am particularly prone to infections spread by contact with large groups of people or by staying in hotels where the rooms are never cleaned properly.
If you do go to a con and want to avoid con crud, one simple thing you can do is wipe off the phone and the TV remote with alcohol wipes, because they are constantly handled by guests but never cleaned by the hotel staff. Also, if you have body contact with others at the con, don't touch or rub your eyes without washing your hands first -- that's one way germs are regularly transmitted but few people realizes.
I wouldn't eat the food or drink the water, either, but I'm starting to sound like Monk, so we'll leave it at that.
yep..hotel rooms anywhere can be gross...even more so at con hotels.
ReplyDeleteSpent one night at a very pricey con hotel and opened the curtains to find food all over the floor under the curtains.
And there was the con hotel with mold on the walls...and water in the carpet in the halls...
So I'm with you..if I go I clean the phone, the remote..and use those wipes to wipe down the restroom.
shudder.
con food...blech.
Rebecca
Not sure if this was more rant than comedy but it sure had me laughing! Oh, to be confused for a literary giant!
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteROTFLMAO!!
Yikes, I had no idea US hotels have such a low standard.
ReplyDeleteWow, I had no idea you had such health problems. That sucks.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, you produce like a bazillion words a day or something, and have a ridiculously popular (and useful!) blog.
Oh, and you get wonderifferic amounts of irony laden Spam. Joy.
Whaaat?! Did this stuff really happen? The word audacious pops to mind.
ReplyDeleteGo, Cheetah, go!
ReplyDeleteAs for the weather, U-turns are possible and have happened, before, but that's what it would take at this point for Dean to bother you or most of your loved ones, I think (unless you're vacationing on the Yucatan...)
Yup, Gabriele, US hotel standards are nowhere near what you take for granted in a good German Guesthouse.
"I've never read any of your novels, but I saw one made the Publishers Weekly bestseller list. . ."
ReplyDeleteOuch. Just...no. Geez.
Wow. I'm really speechless. Unbelievable how quickly people forget things...convenient, actually. I will say this as well: pack your own pillow and blanket for a long plane ride. If they're not "too wet" for the next leg of the trip, the blankets are refolded and placed in the seats. If you do get a pillow and blanket, make sure it's still wrapped in plastic. FYI guys.
ReplyDelete