Asking for money can be easier over e-mail. As a journalist, I’ve learned that if you give someone a chance to get off the hook, they’ll take it—on the phone it’s easy to want to be nice, to say things like, “I know these are hard times and you probably can’t pay this.” (They’ll probably say, “Yes, you’re right.”) I can be a little more hard-nosed by e-mail. You also have a written record of the conversation.
