Move over, whales. You’ve got company on the endangered species list.
The other day I was catching up on Google Reader. One of the many authors (I am NOT naming names here for sake of not wanting to hurt any feelings or give this author any backlash) I subscribe to had an interesting article, so I went to their site to read more.
The author was asking for donations of .mobi (Kindle) file e-books. They are giving away a Kindle to winner of a contest at their local school and would like to have it preloaded with books. Hey!, I thought, here’s my chance to get my story out to the audience it is primarily intended for! I had a few doubts, being that I’m self-published (but then, so is the author who is asking for the donations, although they are much more well-known) and nobody has heard of me yet. I forwent the thoughts of doubt and decided to send the author an email anyway with my story, Blood of Prey attached.
As someone who grew up writing everything in longhand, including letters, I learned the proper salutation/body/signature that comprises a letter. That same format still resides today, even though it is now written electronically. I wrote the greeting, explained the purpose of the email, a little bit about myself and story, and signed my letter/email before sending it. Salutation, body, and signature. All there. Proper. Professional. From one writer to another.
To my surprise, I received an email back within an hour for the author. Their ENTIRE response was:
Thanks
That’s it. No greeting, no signature, not even a fucking period.
I’m sorry, but if you’re a writer, WRITE! At least have some sort of manners and common courtesy to sign your own damn name. I understand people are busy. I know I am. However, how hard is it to take a few extra seconds, a minute at MOST, to add on a greeting, a period, and your name? If you don’t have the time, don’t respond right away. Not a hard concept. However, I think the donation of a book to another should get a bit more of a response than just “thanks.” (Notice the period there?)
I’m not trying to be greedy, but I think, “Thank you for your donation,” or “Thank you for donating your book,” should have been the bare minimum of a response. It’s called common courtesy. Being polite. Having manners, or netiquette, if you like. (Which, really, is ironic coming from me, considering I’ve made somewhat of a name for myself NOT being a nice, polite person.)
I’ll be the first to admit when I’m wrong. I’m not wrong here, though. Or am I? Has common courtesy, proper ways of composing a professional-looking email, and their ilk gone the way of dinosaurs? Am I outdated in my knowledge of professional communication? Has the onslaught of the Internet. quick communication, and social media deleted our ability to be professional, replacing it with Twitter-like communications of 140 characters or less and IM speak?
The answer, NO!
I have seen many people, even people who are not writers, compose tweets, comments, and emails that are more significant than a mere “thanks” for things that are way more mundane than the donation of book.
This has also put me in somewhat of a moral dilemma. As much as a part of me wants to write back to the author and ask them to pull my book from their donation for not initially taking the time to respond in a polite and professional way (hell, even an auto-responder is more professional) that one would seemingly expect from someone who is a professional writer, there is also the part of me that thinks of kids and how important it is to read. The more material they end up enjoying reading in school, the more they’ll end up continuing to read beyond school.
If the kid who wins the contest ends up reading my story and enjoying, perhaps they’ll seek out not only more of my work when it’s out, but others like it. And they’ll tell their friends who will also look for similar stuff. The snowball of readers will continue to grow, not only for my stuff, but all the other wonderful (and polite!) writers out there who write in the same genre. I hope it happens for all the other authors who have donated their books, as well. In the end, I decided on the side of kids reading being much more important, so I’m shutting my mouth to the author. For now.
My outlook is this–while I believe common courtesy and having manners is dying all around us, thus becoming endangered species, in more ways than just the composition of an email, there are still people out there who are genuinely nice, polite people who will take the time to respond in the same way. We are becoming a rare species, though. Sadly, it seems too many people are becoming like author I donated my story to. It makes me appreciate those who take the time to be polite more.
Oh, and save the whales, too.
As soon as we’re both better, we’ll get back to it. Again, announcements will be made here, on the podcast site, and if you’re subscribed to the podcast in iTunes, you’ll see new episodes shortly.
In all honesty, I do not know whether or not it’s true that we get wiser as we get older. The wisdom we’re supposed to get when we turn 30 did not magically appear. Perhaps I drank away the brain cells that would have stored said knowledge when I was in my 20s. I’m now 34 and feel dumber than I did when I was in my 20s. But I do know what does come with age: bladder issues.
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