I can no longer reply to fanmail
Why? Simply because there is too much of it! For a while there I employed assistants
to help
me manage it. They would construct a basic reply to each email by cutting and
pasting paragraphs
that I'd written in response to common questions or provide links to
answers on the website. Then
I would reread each email and add something personal to the
reply.
Even with this assistance,
it's become clear that answering fanmail was still taking
up too much of my time, especially when
I added it to keeping the site up-to-date, writing blog posts and lots of occasional
writerly tasks, from dry ones like
accounting to fun ones like attending cons and running workshops.
I did consider getting my assistants to reply for me, but decided against it after
I asked
myself what fans want when they email me. I'm only guessing here, but this is what
I think they want:
(a) to know their email has been read by me
(b) to have their questions answered
(c) to get a reply
I can't manage (c) any more, and I can only assure you of (a) - I do read every fanmail that I receive.
I've already put a LOT of work and money into this website for the sake of (c). Now and then
someone will send me a question I haven't answered on the site, and I aim to tackle these in my blog. However,
I will only answer
questions that:
...are not answered in the website. Don't be lazy! If you won't make the effort to read
my website why should I make the effort to answer your questions?
...haven't been answered recently in the blog.
...don't spoil the plots of the books.
...are not completely silly.
...are not downright rude or inappropriate.
For examples of spoiler, silly or inappropriate questions read
my Silly Questions blog entry.
You might also find my blog entry on Fanmail I Love
entertaining and insightful.
To ensure your email isn't one of those I can't read, check out
The Art of the Legible Fanmail.
And the page you should make your top priority to read before emailing me is the
The Frequently Asked Questions Page. (And don't be daft
and
complain to me about the spoiler answers spoiling the plot. They are on a separate page
and you
were warned not to click on the links to them until you'd read the books
mentioned!)
Also please note:
I'm heartily sick of people complaining about the death of a certain character. Readers
weren't
supposed to feel good about it, after all. I'm not aiming to write books in which
everyone is alive,
shacked up with their perfect match, rich and successful at the end (if
you want that, read a romance
novel). I write in order to move people. Sometimes
people are so moved they come straight here
after reading the last page of The High
Lord to send me a wailing complaint. To them I say
take a deep breath, stop and wait
a day for the emotional effect of that book to wear off a little
before you email me.
Occasionally I'll get emails that are insulting. Mostly this appears to come about
because a person
didn't like one of my books and appears to think that I spent years of
hard work writing these books
with the sole aim of annoying them. I find the irony
of this quite amusing. After all, the
sort of person who sends insulting emails to authors
is not a pleasant sort of person, and I'm sure
lots of authors would like to annoy them.
Somehow I manage to achieve this just by writing books that
I, and a whole lot of you
lovely fans, like. All I can say is, if the books aren't to your taste, they
just aren't to
your taste. Accept that. Do you expect to like every chocolate in the chocolate box? No.
Believe me, I don't write these books purely to bother some stranger I never met before.
If I had that
power I'd ... no, let's not go there.
Now, at last, here's my .
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