I started reading “Guerrilla Marketing for Writers”. One thing that struck me as was this:
“You can show your involvement with your fans by being cordial when you contact them, by being helpful to them, and by asking about them.”
Almost no one does that any more in the great big, fast, condensed world of email. Yet, I think most people have felt short changed by some one sentence, abbreviated email reply. Why don’t we show an interest in the people we email with? Especially if you are writing to someone who has shown an interest in you, or whatever you are selling. Is it so greatly time consuming? Is it too hard to write over the one sentence quota? Or do you really just not care?
The advice from the Guerrilla Marketers is good advice. You really can win people over if you show some interest in them. Maybe they have just read your book or something you wrote on a website. First of all, it’s pretty amazing that you got feedback at all. Not may people bother to send a note. When you have the chance to reply to feedback, take it.
Make the most of the chance to connect with someone. Send them your promotional spiel, your upcoming books, articles and where you are writing online but also send them answers to their questions and some questions of your own. Give them a reason to write back, or at least remember you.
/There is a lot of email flying around out there. Adding HTML and graphics isn’t the best way to make yours stand out. Ordinary, old fashioned chit chat is free, takes up a lot less bandwidth and is far more impressive.