It's Andy Fish!

I don’t know what gypsy I ran over or what form I filled out that got me on an “Writers who publish their own books” list but I get approximately 4,782 of these messages in my INBOX everyday;

Hello Dear Author,

I’m opening a few new slots in my reader group for upcoming holiday features. The community has over thirty thousand active readers eager for their next favorite book.

Your book looks like a great fit.

Would you like details on how the spotlight works and what you can gain from participating?

This one came from “Isabella” at SamuelPromotion43@gmail.com — feel free to flood her inbox with nonsense.

If I ignored the email you’d think that would be a solution– nay nay. In fact what happens is they’ll send a follow up email asking why I haven’t responded.

I used to naively type “No thank you.” as my response. This would lead to the person giving me a harder sell. I know this is impossible to believe but of the hundreds of these contacts they all follow exactly the same pattern. So I figured I’d type up a proper response so I created a form letter that I reply with;

“Let me explain this to you as clearly as I can. Please READ my reply here, it will save us both time and money.
I get so many of these emails everyday someone paid money to get my name on a list and like many cold calls it’s a total waste of both our times.

I have never self published, I have never self promoted, I have ZERO interest. I don’t care whatever brilliant strategy you’ve developed, you’re chasing the wrong dog here, plain and simple.

Remove me from your list— I wish you well with your endeavors but you are wasting both of our time.
Thanks”

I know it reads a little harsh. This reply message has evolved over months. It doesn’t work one bit.

So why don’t I just delete them?

I do, I also block the sender, but I sincerely am trying to save them time to devote to working with people who might actually need their services, and maybe reevaluate the value of the list they’re buying.