I receive a lot of email messages through my website from authors who read my blog. Many of them believe they have the next big thing in literature on their hands, so they reach out to me in hopes that I will spread the word. Unfortunately, however, their emails often lend the impression that their books are most likely not very good, or they don't inspire me to get the word out. Here are three reasons why:
1. THEY WRITE THEIR EMAILS IN ALL CAPS.
When you send someone an email in all caps, no matter what you write, IT COMES ACROSS AS SHOUTING. End of story. And right or wrong, this creates a negative impression. Nobody likes to open emails and feel as if someone is yelling at them.
Using all caps in an email comes across as SHOUTING
2. They use an unprofessional email address.
I always suggest that authors use a professional email address, e.g.[email protected]. When I receive an email from [email protected], it is hard to take the sender seriously. For contacting your friends or family, use whatever account you want. But if you're reaching out to strangers and asking them to take you seriously as a writer, a professional address makes a much better impression.
3. They spell my name wrong.
My website is www.mariamurnane.com, and my email address is [email protected]. However, I get a lot of emails that begin with "Hi Marie" or "Hi Ms. Murname." The senders who do this lose me before I even read their messages. How can I think of them as amazing writers with well-edited books and good attention to detail if they don't even check that they have written my name correctly?
These are basic but important things to keep in mind the next time you're conducting email outreach for your book. It's usually the small things that make the biggest impressions!
-Maria
Maria Murnane is the author of the best-selling romantic comedies Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, Honey on Your Mind, and Chocolate for Two. She also provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.
This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2013 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.
Brit, so true...
in one case I've heard about it seems more like preference... but in the other case it seemed that the person wanted to see the text all on one screen. As a personal choice it's harder for me to read ALL CAPS in any size font. It's why I asked if others had any other viewpoints.
@Adela, my publisher always refers to book titles in all caps, so apparently yes! :)
@Brit, I think gmail is okay, but in my opinion it kicks you up a notch if you have your own domain. :)
Thank you, Maria. I read somewhere that the proper way to format a book title in an e-mail is ALL CAPS. Do you agree?
RYCJ, why can't those people use control plus as many times as they want to make their text huge? Or why can't they compose their comments in Word at size 18 font and then copy-paste? If you're in the same font size there's not THAT much difference between lower case and caps.
I try not to get worked up about my name being misspelled, but I can't help it... I do! I usually delete those emails right away, although this year I've noticed I've been receiving many professionally written requests... as if 'the word' is now out.
As for the ALL CAPS, although I do agree, I am forever scared by a huge debate that happened a while back by a person who uses CAPS, as it turned out, due to vision issues. It was pointed out this should have been stated in advance, except the user apologized stating they didn't know in advance. Ummm... I wonder if anyone else has heard of this before, or knows why ALL CAPS are used?
I'm very curious about the question Brit Columbia asks. I'm looking to update my email addresses in the future, but I have found that by using my gmail accounts, it has been quite helpful in keeping up with marketing, networking, and socializing efforts when it comes to Google+, Youtube, and other sites using Google applications. Since my current gmail accounts use both my name and book titles, I feel that they are professional, but I'd like to know what others think...
And as far as the tips in the post are concerned, I never realized that so many things needed to be explained to people. All caps, crazy email addresses, and messages written as if they were texting, are just the beginning. I find that one of the main things that makes email correspondence for business purposes to be quite challenging, is that most people don't actually read anything beyond 140 characters. After that, they assume what they want and reply according, even if you stated in your message, "Please do not respond to this message."
Maria,
I agree with you completely. When I send an email to someone I try to make sure all my details are right; everything is spelled correctly, etc. But I've been a writer a very long time (over 42 years) and I've learned all this the hard way. And your post also reminds me, on a funny note, of this one Amazon review someone gave me on one of my 18 books last year, a book that had many great reviews, in fact. The reviewer trashed my novel and gave it one star, listing all the petty things that were wrong with it...the problem was the whole review was filled with spelling mistakes and a lower fonts everywhere they didn't belong. It looked like a five year old had keyed it in. Of course, I laughed as I read it. So I know how you feel when you get such an email. How can you take anyone seriously if they can't get an email right? Kathryn Meyer Griffith [email protected]
I have never understood people who write all in caps.
Would you consider a gmail address to be unprofessional? Basically all my addresses are gmail with my name or some variation of my name before the @ sign.