Are you a freelance writer or a published author? Do you get a lot of press\u2014have numerous articles published every year, are involved in many websites and organizations related to the genre\/topic of your book, are an active promoter, add to your blog practically daily, travel around and speak\/sign books quite often? If so, then you get a lot of exposure and you probably have \u201cfans\u201d (or, at least wide recognition). <\/p>\n
Perhaps you have found out that, with recognition comes the occasional or even the frequent acknowledgement from someone who has met you, knows your work, knows of you, admires you or is jealous of you. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been putting myself and my work out there for decades and I\u2019ve collected quite an array of \u201cfollowers.\u201d I love hearing from someone who says they found value in one of my books, that they read my blog religiously, that they enjoy and learn from my articles, that they heard me speak and liked what I had to say or that I came highly recommended as an editor\/consultant. These are the emails, letters and phone calls that make my day.<\/p>\n
Just this weekend, I received three great emails\u2014one from a gentleman who said he read my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em><\/strong>, in one day and loved it. A woman wrote to ask for help with a book project because I came highly recommended by a dear friend of hers. The third one was from someone I\u2019ve been in communication with over the years about her book project. She wanted to check in with me and let me know she is almost ready for me to take a look at her book. She also mentioned how much she enjoys this blog and she bought a copy of The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Do I ever get \u201chate\u201d mail? Well, a couple of times clients were unhappy with my recommendations. I must have come on too strong with one of them because he wrote one last email strongly defending his decision to mislead his readers and I never heard from him again. Another one disappeared for a while after my evaluation of his manuscript and then, weeks later, he returned ready to work with me. <\/p>\n He said that he couldn\u2019t believe my comments at first. But after thinking about it, he realized that I was right.<\/p>\n I had one doozy of a jealousy situation once. One of my articles appeared in Entrepreneurial Woman <\/em>. A woman I knew slightly called, I thought to compliment me. But, no! She called to say that she couldn\u2019t believe that HER national magazine would publish something written by someone who, as far as she knew, had written nothing more than a book on the local history. Evidently, she did not know that I had been writing articles for magazines, by then, for about 15 years quite successfully and that I\u2019d been published in Entrepreneur<\/em> and Entrepreneurial Woman <\/em>and many other magazines during that time.<\/p>\n She ended the conversation by saying that she was going to end her subscription to the magazine and she was going to tell the editors why\u2014because, if they would publish articles by me\u2014someone that she knows\u2014an ordinary person\u2014their magazine must not be legitimate. <\/p>\n Can you believe it? Just because she knew me and one of the people I interviewed for the quite legitimate and interesting article on what does success mean to you, she figured that the article and the magazine were now bogus.<\/p>\n Most people, after reading an article by someone they knew, would adopt a more positive take on it\u2014\u201cWow, I didn\u2019t know that you had worked your way up to the point where you are getting published in such prestigious magazines. Good for you!\u201d<\/p>\n Do you collect \u201cfan\u201d mail? I sure do. It does a heart and soul good to be acknowledged for our accomplishments. It encourages us to do more for our readers\u2014to try harder. It spurs us on to reach the next level. Don\u2019t you think so?<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to hear about your fan mail and any jealousy mail you have received over the years. Leave a comment here or email me at PLFry620@yahoo.com. <\/p>\n And, while you\u2019re at it, be sure to thank or compliment another writer. Dennis and I read a book by a friend this week\u2014Thrift Me Deadly <\/em>by Wendy Dager. It\u2019s an ebook available at SmashBooks. It is fantastic. And I emailed Wendy to tell her so. She said, \u201cBecause of your comments, I\u2019ll be smiling all day.\u201d<\/p>\n Make someone smile today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you a freelance writer or a published author? Do you get a lot of press\u2014have numerous articles published every year, are involved in many websites and organizations related to the genre\/topic of your book, are an active promoter, add to your blog practically daily, travel around and speak\/sign books quite often? If so, then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t