If you’re like me, you get a good amount of email in a day. I deal with email pretty much all day long, so it’s on my mind a lot. But I’ve noticed lately a few folks on Twitter, or Facebook, or in messages to me complaining about unsolicited email newsletters from authors or publishing professionals.
In a nutshell, what usually happens is that a reader was added to a newsletter list that they did not subscribe to, and suddenly start receiving email they didn’t want. In other words, they’re being spammed. It might not seem like spam since the author herself may be emailing each person, but an impersonal “Dear Readers” email with links to buy is spam when the recipient never asked to receive it.
This happened to me, and I don’t think the author meant to be malicious at all. But I received a newsletter at an email address attached to the website that I don’t use for correspondence, which means that it was added by someone other than me.
Also, from my perspective, this is not good PR. Sending email to readers that they didn’t want means they will likely have a negative association with the name of the sender. Uh oh! What author would want to be associated with all those terrible spellers who want to refinance your penis and enlarge your mortgage?
The sad thing is, many newsletter outfits online make it easy to import your contacts, but if those contacts have NOT opted-in to a subscription list previously, any harvesting is against the law. Granted, the CAN-SPAM act has been about as effective as patching windows with Jello Pudding Pops (yum), but still. Not legal, not good.
I’m pretty damn forgetful, and I’m guessing that in a few months I won’t remember this author’s name and think, ‘Oh, Spam.’ I unsubscribed and went on with my day. But the fact that an email address I don’t use was subscribed to a list, coupled with the increase in people complaining about unsolicited newsletters is making me wonder – has this happened to you? Did it make an impact?
Have you received unsolicited email from an author or publishing house? How did you react? Did you report it as spam, or just unsubscribe? Do you use email as a way to stay reminded of upcoming books you may want to buy and don’t mind? Or does receiving unsolicited email bug the crap out of you?
I got my 1st one today. I looked at the authors name and
wondered “who the hell are you.” I’ve never heard of her
and have no idea how she got my address. The end of it thanked
me for my continued support!!! Who knew.
I’m seriously considering ending my newsletter. I would never, ever add anyone just because they commented on my blog or emailed me. (And I do know of the author who added everyone who commented on her blog, as I was one of them and was mightily pissed about it too). But I did have a contest form that clearly stated if you entered the contest, you were agreeing to be added to the list. This was all well and good until my contest ended up on one of those delightful sweepstakes sites. 🙁
Now, being new to the business (2 years ago), I happily let all those email addresses pile into my database. Because, clearly, they could READ the terms, right?
Wrong. On the sweepstakes site, someone lists the giveaway, the answer to the question that is asked (usually something from an excerpt on the site) and the link. All a person does is pop over and enter without reading a darn thing. I rarely send newsletters, but now when I do, I inevitably get people clicking the spam link. It’s downright disheartening. I kept all the entries, so I can prove I didn’t randomly add people willy nilly, but it’s too much work.
I’m trying right now to sort those people from the legitimate ones who have signed up for my list. I don’t hold contests anymore, unless they are impromptu blog contests (and for those I never add you to my list, even if you win). I still have the contest page, but it’s going away in the next redesign of my site.
I’m torn between doing away with the newsletter and continuing to try and weed those sweepstakes people out. 🙁 If you get mail from me, and you don’t want it, you can unsubscribe by clicking. You don’t have to beg me to let you free. I honestly don’t want to spam you! I’m so against spamming you that I’m thinking of doing away with the newsletter just so no one thinks I did.
It’s a tough call. For now, I keep trying to weed out the sweepstakes people. But I may give up soon and delete the whole darn thing. 🙁 I despise being added to lists without my approval, and would never do it to anyone else.
I’m thinking tagging blogs is not such a good idea. I get stuff from people wanting me to pay them to publish my work. Bookbaby even wants to handle my revenue for me. Gee, what a great idea.
And on the radio they advertise that they can get you blog hits for like 5 cents a piece? I owe you guys a fortune.
I don’t object if I’m added to a list when I enter a contest, or something like that. But it’s just plain asinine to add me to specific author lists just because I visited an aggregated author site. (Yeah, I was on that site that got hacked.) Worse is that some of us mentioned it on Twitter, and someone from the site said she’d unsubscribe me from all lists. However, I was never unsubscribed from the miscellaneous authors—those were the lists I objected to. (Hmm, if they’d really unsubscribed me, they could have deleted my email, and I wouldn’t have been in the database when they got hacked.)
Anyway, if I’ve shown some interest in an author, that makes some sense. But to add me to lists of authors I’ve not approached is guaranteed to make me avoid them. So what’s the point? If I mentioned it to others, they may also decide to boycott the author (stop reading or choose not to give her a chance). I guess there are people who don’t care, or thing it’s part of another general subscription, but they’re just antagonizing me.
Regarding newsletters: I don’t remember to visit the websites of every author I like, I can’t keep up on Twitter (or Facebook), and sometimes I don’t even read all the “coming soon” lists. So it can be nice to have a newsletter that reminds me that a particular book is out. But it had best be for an author I read!
If someone is kind enough to spend their time writing me a reader letter, I always respond personally, and I generally ask if they would like to be added to my mailing list for the little “I have a new book out” newsletter I send out 3 to 4 times a year. I NEVER add their name until they have emailed me back with their explicit permission. I am on the mailing list for a couple of well known authors because I sent a reader letter letting them know how much I liked their book. Now, I don’t object, as such, to getting their newsletter, but I would have liked to have been given the option. And yes, I get TONS of email from book marketing/website/author promo companies. Completely unsolicited. Add that to the assh*le who keeps ringing me from an Indian call centre telling me that my Mac computer has a PC virus and I must send them lots of money so they can fix it for me, and you get one angry pajama-clad crazy-haired lady.
I haven’t received unwanted newsletters yet but I don’t really post anywhere or read many blogs. First comment here on SB.
FWIW I buy at least 15 books a month with some breaks here and there.
I have signed up for a few loved authors newsletters, all different genres, not just romance. I enjoy the different voices in their newsletters and agree “just buy my new book, it’s out now types” can annoy me and make me take a step back. I hate feeling cultivated, and yet I fear I skate that fine line of touching base with an authors new book and a TMI moment I can’t live with. Lol.
I have stopped reading some writers when something they said outside of their book stuck in my head and got between me and their story on the page. It’s in my interests as a reader to keep my favorite authors a mystery, but it has worked out ok so far……………….
What annoys me is one or more of these authors, or whoever handles their newsletter mail outs appears to make some extra cash on the side by selling their database to email spammers of all types. This is a private email I have had for ages and haven’t used it for anything beyond my private needs until I added author newsletters. I’d had no trouble with a few long standing group mailing loops dealing with non reading related hobbies.
I went from maybe 2-3 spam letters a every month to 50 a day, many touting unwanted academic online degrees and self publishing deals along with the usual dating sites and pharmaceutical “enhancements”. I fume at the time I take each day to block them and they keep coming.
I would drop their books like a hot coal if I knew who.
One of the many reasons I own a Mac is the “bounce” feature on the email program. Unsolicited newsletter? I’ll try the unsubscribe option, if there is one, but if I keep getting spam, I just bounce that baby back as if the email address were invalid. Seems to work well to get off mailing lists.
I feel this way about everything “social.” Facebook, Twitter, blogs. If all the author talks about are books, I get bored. I mean, if I want to read about books, I go to sites like this. If I’m going to actually “follow” an author in some form or another, it’s because I think they are “charming, witty, insightful, etc.” Basically, if I go that far, I already like their books.
I like author newsletters, whether they’re just about upcoming books or include some personal information. I get a lot of them but don’t think any of them have been unsolicited. I did get hacked by Lulzsec from the author promotion site and now I’m getting a lot of spam but I don’t blame the website. And when I wrote to them, they had already removed my account. The only thing I’ve done is withdraw from a couple of Yahoo groups because even with being on Digest emails, I found I was ignoring almost all of them so it seemed pointless to continue my membership.
I know I’ll sound hopelessly old-fashioned but I don’t do social media (I have an advanced degree in computer science and work in the field so it’s not because I can’t). I check my email a couple of times a day and don’t have time to also check Facebook, and Twitter, and Google+, and whatever else comes down the pike in the future. Those are all separate checks for separate things whereas my email is one spot and they all come to me! I like that a lot better.
Lucy: I’m of the opinion that there are many different groups of readers who interact with authors in different ways, often with little overlap. The Facebook people aren’t always also on Twitter, the Twitter people not on Google+, and then there are those who only read blogs or use an RSS feed to keep up with sites they want to read, bringing the info to them instead of going out hunting for it. And there is a group of readers who get email, and use that to build shopping lists.
I think it is in an author’s best interest to consider a newsletter, because those that use email may not interact with you in any of the other myriad locations you hang out, and prefer to get information in their inboxes. And if you keep a commitment of 1 newsletter every quarter, or 1 a month or whatever, and you keep the content specific to what you say you will (new releases, rereleases, news and appearances, links to Angry Birds, etc) then you’ll meet that readership where it lives (their inboxes) with your brand intact.
In short, it’s disrespectful. (I so <3 Seth Godin’s take on spam.)
If it’s someone whose newsletter I think I might have subscribed to, then I’ll unsubscribe and go on my way. It’s certainly quite possible that I’ve forgotten. If you resubscribe me after I unsubscribe, then you can bet anything you want that I’ll turn you into the newsletter provider and your isp/email provider if I can find it, as a spammer and violating their TOS. If it’s blatant spam (thank you for putting a gazillion emails in your CC or in your TO field since that also opens up emails to being harvested), then if I have a few moments, I’ll turn the email into the ISP/email provider as abuse/spam. And yes, spammers get remembered and not in a good way.
Generally you can forward any email (don’t forget the headers which are easy to copy/paste out of Outlook) to abuse@ email provider to make the report. 😉
I have had authors who I’ve just casually met add me to their email lists. I don’t understand how those work, so I’m forever trapped getting these stupid emails. The good news is, I’ll always be able to remember who I don’t want to buy books from.