First, I updated my website today and added a new Extras page. This is a work in progress, but so far I have a glossary for the Light Warriors series, a list of the theme songs for all my books, and the videos are grouped together. I used bookmarks so it's easy to access the information you're interested in seeing.
Now, beware, I'm about to rant.
Today, I received an email from an author I have never heard of before in my life. I most definitely never signed up for her newsletter nor did I enter any contest she might have been running because I don't enter contests from other authors. I figure they'd rather have a reader win than another writer and I do them the courtesy of not throwing my name in the pool. Yet for some unknown reason, this woman thought it was okay to just add me to her newsletter list. Grrr.
To say this irritated me is understating things. The only way people get on my newsletter is if they sign up for it, or they enter a contest where they are given fair warning that entering will put them on my newsletter mailings--and I haven't even held a contest in a couple of years. You'd think the law of karma would protect me, but I guess not.
Where do some people get their idea of proper online etiquette? Just because my email address is available on various loops (and this was the email address I use for loop email) does not mean that I'm fair game. If she harvested this address from any of the writing loops I'm on, she violated list rules on top of spamming, and given the genre of her book, I have a fair idea from which loop she might have gotten my name.
This author accomplished thing--she ticked me off. Big time. Enough that I will never buy a book from her. I don't appreciate spam whether it's for Viagra, penis enlargement, or an author.
Now extrapolate. She harvested my email address, so odds are good she harvested others--probably a lot of others--and they were spammed, too. Probably a lot of these people are as angry as I am about it. Does she really think she did herself a big favor by sending out this email to all of us?
Don't spam, people, it's not nice.
