Comments on: Writing Emails

By: Diane Lockard

Diane Lockard — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:55:37 +0000

I am setting up a new laptop, and want a professional email that is suited for receiving and sending writing projects, emails for my groups, e.g. Salt Lake CC DiverseCity writing group, plus separate my personal and writing emails.

I like the suggestion of Gmail; it looks user-friendly, and an email is not cutesy if you don’t set set it up that way. One of my concerns too.

By: Andie

Andie — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:31:59 +0000

Just wanted to comment on the author/writer thing. I personally consider an author one that is published.
A writer practices writing. But an author is published.
Just like a dental student is a student of dentistry, but a graduated, certified dentist is a dentist (doctor).

I wouldn’t want a nutritionist (who has completed a 4 month “nutriiton” certificate) to go around telling me she is a dietitian (difference altogether).

I hope this doesn’t sound snarky. Just wanted to add my personal point of view.

By: Dori

Dori — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:22:48 +0000

Mary, I don’t take offense, I just have a different perspective. A “writer” could write anything. Writers of all kinds use specific titles that tell people what they write. A poet writes poetry. A copywriter writes advertisements or business materials. A speechwriter writes speeches. A journalist writes newspaper articles. You get the idea. Just the same way, an “author,” to me, is a writer who specifically writes literary works.

By: Cara M.

Cara M. — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:52:23 +0000

Aha, that makes sense. That’s also a good reason for what I do already, which is just forward everything into my gmail box.

By: Lydia Sharp

Lydia Sharp — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 11:51:57 +0000

Over-aggressive spam filters are very annoying, especially if it’s someone you email frequently and you have to verify yourself every blessed time you send that person an email.

I have my author email account setup so that any email address I *send* to is automatically added to my contacts. When that person replies to my email, even if I’ve never received anything from them before, it isn’t marked as spam because the address is recognized as a contact.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:24:52 +0000

Dori – Your comment seems to take offense at the distinction, or imply that this is snobbery, but there is a distinction. A published author is that, an author. It is a term that refers to someone who has authored a book or article. Just like until you’ve finished medical school, you don’t go around calling yourself a doctor.

Flo – Everyone’s submission guidelines are different, but a pretty common standard is copying and pasting into an email message unless someone REQUESTS an attachment from your personally. Attachments are pretty frowned upon in most submissions (unless, again, requested, or the guidelines say otherwise).

Cara – I’ve gotten tons of emails from professional email addresses (universities, organizations, small businesses, military, etc.) and I think that’s more of YOUR decision. It makes no difference to me and, as long as it doesn’t make a difference to your employer that you’re using that email address, that’s fine. Only concern: if you move on from that organization, you will probably lose access to the inbox. This would be a problem for me because I love to keep records of all my emails. Your call, though!

By: Cara M.

Cara M. — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:55:10 +0000

I’ve heard lots of weird things about emails, and this one seems to be pretty sensible, but some people have suggested that you shouldn’t use your work email. My ‘work email’ is just my university affiliation email (which drops right into my main gmail inbox). Is it a problem to use that email when querying?

By: Brigid Kemmerer

Brigid Kemmerer — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:08:21 +0000

I love Gmail, too. I never set up a separate “author” and “personal” inbox (though I probably should have), but I’ve recently started playing with labels and rules, and now all incoming mail gets automatically sorted for me. So I have a label for friends/family, a label for “Agent,” a label for “Kensington Books” and so on. The best part about setting the rules is that you can have all emails from a certain domain go straight to a label, not just emails from one particular person. I also like the star feature, because if I’m reading an email on the fly (like at a red light, shhh), I can easily hit the star to flag it for review and response later. (This really helps since I used to read things while on the go, and then I’d forget to respond.) My husband has been after me to import Gmail into Outlook, but I don’t see any reason to. As you said, it’s extremely powerful and very user-friendly. (Now I’m the one sounding like an ad for Google!)

By: Flo Bertsch

Flo Bertsch — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 06:49:42 +0000

I wanted to know when submitting or querying an agent, do you copy and paste to the e-mail or send as an attachment? I noticed most agents don’t accept submissions if it is sent as an attachment.
I’m rusty on my tech skills. So forgive me if I sound silly. What is the difference and is this the standard?

By: Sara Martin

Sara Martin — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 20:53:13 +0000

I tried creating a Gmail account solely for writing purposes, but every remotely professional combination of my name was taken, so I gave up. (I guess I should have kept my rare but unpronounceable maiden name.) I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to try sticking the word “writer” or “novels” in there! Oh, well. Yahoo! has been pretty kind to me so far.