Kassi May 3, 2012, 18:03:40

do I garbage it as lbhluaagy ignorant of me and my writing. You seem to have misunderstood my objection. I truly don’t expect them to be familiar with my writing, nor do I care that they aren’t. Objecting to that would be both unrealistic and narcissistic. What I object to is the ridiculous extent of the flattery. A person of modest success who gets a happy glow when someone tells them they’re immensely popular is a pretty pathetic person. Since most authors achieve modest success rather than immense popularity, that letter assumes that a whole lot of people are desperate to be told an insanely overblown lie about how important and popular they are, as well as gullable enough to open their wallets on that basis. I find that either appalling or insulting depending on how true it actually is (and, based on most of the authors I’ve met, who have been level-headed people, I would have to say insulting .)Further, I find it objectionable that someone thinks you have to go that far in order to flatter a bunch of authors, because it implies that no lesser remark would be flattering. In other words, We know you’ve probably sold fewer than 10,000 books and we think that’s pathetic. We’re assuming your lack of success makes you both desperate and susceptible to flattery, so we’re going to tell you what we’re certain you want to believe about yourself. Now, please give us a donation. It may be that they’re just trying to cover the range of success but, in that case, it’s better not to refer to it at all. Or maybe put some extra effort into going after the Atwoods and Munros and save the form letter for the rest of us schmos (another thing to which I would not object.)