How To Not Be Considered Spam

I feel terrible about this, but I just realized that people who have been sending me emails via my web site (to say nice things to me about my book or to ask if I am in fact the same Thomas Mullen that they grew up with in Rhode Island) have not been getting replies from me, all due to an overactive Spam filter.



So: if you have sent me an email over the last 6 months or so, and I never responded, please don't hate me! (Unless you already hated me, and your email was expressly designed to describe your hatred, in which case, you may skip the rest of this, and also, why are you reading my blog?) Write me back, and this time I promise to reply!



I really do reply to every email that I actually receive. (How do you email me? See that small, envelope-shaped icon in the upper-right hand corner? Click on it! And fill out the info, and write your message. I'll read it! I promise! Unless, see below.)



It turns out that my Gmail account was placing in my Spam folder a lot of emails that weren't Spam but were in fact very kind emails from readers. I don't know why this is. These particular emails had nothing Spammish about them, yet Google considered them spam, and quarantined them accordingly. I just realized it this week, when I thought to myself, "hey, I haven't received any emails from my web site in a while," and then I went digging into the Spam folder, and there mixed among the actual Spam were some real emails from real people who wanted to talk literature. I feel badly that they were sitting there, unresponded to and forlorn among the Viagra ads and weird Cyrillic messages, but even worse is the fact that any month-old emails in that folder are autodeleted. Which means that, over the 6 or so months since I switched to Gmail, there have no doubt been other real emails that were misplaced in the Spam folder, and I never got them, and then they got deleted.



So, again, if you wrote me once and I never responded, it's not because I'm a jerk or too busy. I am indeed busy, though not a jerk, and despite my busyness I do find the time to write back. So write me again, and I'll reply. Really.



BUT, to make sure your message isn't wrongfully put in the Spam folder, please follow these handy email-writing tips:



-Do not mention any of your favorite pharmaceuticals and the wonders that they've worked for your sex life. Such messages will certainly be considered Spam.



-Try not to write your email using Cyrillic characters. Google seems to have a strong anti-Cyrillic bias. I myself don't share this -- I think the Cyrllians are a fine people, and their nation a just one -- but that' s just how it is.



-Avoiding use words such as "nude" or "lusty" or "hot Asian chicks" anywhere in your message. I know this is difficult, as my novels are chock full of them, but still, they do tend to set off the Spam guards.



-Keep your comments to my books, or books in general, and leave out anything about the foreign bank that contains hundreds of thousands of dollars and can be accessed if only I could wire you a few hundred first. Oddly, these too are considered Spam.



-Do not write to me about YouTube and the horrible things you've allegedly seen me doing on YouTube. It just isn't true, and is considered Spam.



Thanks, and sorry again, and I look forward to reading your emails!



*This message brought to you by The Revisionists, an amazing novel that actually comes out next week. More info and blatant self-promotion to come!



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