If you reply to an author’s newsletter, do you expect a response?
Interesting question!
If I had ever written to an author back in the days before email, I wouldn’t have expected an answer. Not that I ever wrote to an author, mind you. That would have meant …
- Finding the address
- Writing the letter
- Going to the post office so the letter could be weighed so I could make sure it had the correct postage for an international letter
- Assuming the letter got correctly delivered
- Assuming that the author read the letter
- Assuming that the author then chose to reply
- Assuming that the international postal service managed to get that reply back to me in New Zealand
That’s a lot of assumptions, and is probably why I wouldn’t have expected a reply.
Email and social media have made it easier and cheaper to connect. In theory, makes it easier to send and receive mail, but we are still beholden to the email service providers to deliver our email. Some email gets stuck in spam folders, and some never gets delivered at all.
Besides, email can be overwhelming.
I get work emails, life admin emails (like bank statements and bills), retail emails, author newsletter emails, and various other emails. I look at my email inbox and the emails I need to reply to, and fully understand why someone might choose not to respond.
Also, emails can turn into a never-ending train.
Author: Cool email
Reader: I enjoyed your cool email.
Author: Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Reader: Thank you for saying thank you.
Author: Thank you for …
It could go on forever.
Someone has to stop the train, and I’m not going to object if that someone is the author.
So while it’s always nice to get a response, I don’t need one and I’m not going to hold it against an author if I don’t receive a response.