Writing Review Requests

Often the email box for A Writer's Edge contains pleas to accept copies of books which have nothing to do with writing in hopes I'll mention them on my blog. Consider them mentioned. Also the silly requests. Unless I can use the book (or the message) to illustrate a helpful point for writers, these efforts are wasted. Consider this which greeted me this morning:

Dear Georganna,

I noticed you are an excellent reviewer on Amazon.

May I introduce to you an excellent entertaining culture ebook as a gift? The book fosters culture that enriches communities. I am an author in Taiwan.

From this link [...], you could read an entertaining small free PDF eBook*, which is a sample book. Please feel free to send the ebook to friends. This eBook will be beneficial to them for understanding "an ancient art."

What's wrong with this picture?

The poor author makes several mistakes: although he gets cred for digging out my name (most of these messages begin with "Hi!") a business letter, especially one that is a formal request for a favor, addresses an unknown person by their last name. We are not on the chummy first name basis, and probably never will be.

Secondly, if he had bothered to check my Amazon Profile, he would have discovered that I do NOT post reviews to that website. You can find a list of the top reviewers at Amazon easily enough. And see the latest additions to my Amazon Storefront where I'm selling one of my lightly used color printers!

Thirdly, and this is enough, the "sample" eBook is simply an irritating extended ad, perhaps beneficial to himself for selling his paper book.

Fellow writers, this illustrates the dangers of failing to properly research your market targets. Another way in which this fellow's mistakes could have come about is to have purchased a mailing list. One unscrupulous PR flack has hawked my blog's address for a couple of years. He scraped it from a mailing list that I occasionally contribute to. 'Nuff said.