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About a year ago, maybe a bit longer, I started getting e-mail announcements from book publicists, inviting me, as the editor of a Major Magazine, to pay attention to their books: interview their authors, get review copies, read web-sites, whatever, so that I will use the mighty resources of my magazine to sell their authors' books.
Some of these e-mails might be legit, but unmistakably the patter is that of spammers. Like all spammers they a) are stupid, b) lie, and c) hope that I am stupid enough to believe their lies. I'm fairly sure that some of the spam is from the type of publisher that Jim MacDonald hunts at Writer Beware! and similar sites.
Now that I have an e-mail-enabled phone, I'm trying to cut down on my junk e-mail, initially by unsubscribing from commerical e-mail lists I didn't deliberately add. (Next I'll move on to building a blacklist in procmail, which I should have done years ago.) While doing this, I stumbled across a PR spam from the Necktie Media Group (not the real name--I don't want to give them any publicity), advertising a book on being happy in tough times. I skimmed through the e-mail to see if they offered a real unsubscribe option (they don't) and decided to contact the author directly to tell him that his publicist is a spammer and probably a crook. I followed the link, provided, to the author's web site and got this:
So, stupid, evil, *and* incompetent. Trifecto!
Some of these e-mails might be legit, but unmistakably the patter is that of spammers. Like all spammers they a) are stupid, b) lie, and c) hope that I am stupid enough to believe their lies. I'm fairly sure that some of the spam is from the type of publisher that Jim MacDonald hunts at Writer Beware! and similar sites.
Now that I have an e-mail-enabled phone, I'm trying to cut down on my junk e-mail, initially by unsubscribing from commerical e-mail lists I didn't deliberately add. (Next I'll move on to building a blacklist in procmail, which I should have done years ago.) While doing this, I stumbled across a PR spam from the Necktie Media Group (not the real name--I don't want to give them any publicity), advertising a book on being happy in tough times. I skimmed through the e-mail to see if they offered a real unsubscribe option (they don't) and decided to contact the author directly to tell him that his publicist is a spammer and probably a crook. I followed the link, provided, to the author's web site and got this:
This Account Has Been Suspended
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.
So, stupid, evil, *and* incompetent. Trifecto!
