Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Taking a cue from Janet Reid, who over the weekend posted a truly amazingly bad agent pitch letter (yes, I do know who the agent is, and no, this person does not have any sales), I thought I’d start the week off by posting the spam I received this morning from an aspiring author (sent via a DIY email marketing service).

Greetings!

Hello, my name is [name redacted]. I am the author of [title redacted] (now available nationwide). I am also an unsigned (hungry) artist, and very creative. I have two more books I need to finish, and I’m looking for any opportunity that anyone of power and influence may offer.

I’ll like to invite you to my website [link redacted].

Author [name redacted]
[email address redacted]

Writers–don’t do this. I mean, for a start, I’m not an agent or publisher, so there’s no reason for me to be receiving any kind of “get me published” request. Just a small amount of research (as opposed to snagging my email address from somewhere and doing no further checking) would have made that clear. For another, if I were an agent or publisher, I wouldn’t give five seconds of consideration to a mass-mail pitch, even if it were much more informative and better written than this one. (Not to mention, being a cautious Web user, I’m not going to click on a link in a spam email.)

Alternatively, this author may not be seeking an agent or a publisher at all, but a patron. Um….yeah. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.