Email Etiquette...

You know – I’ve been thinking about email recently. As things with the writing start to slowly take off I’ve had to write a few of those ‘Hello my name is Nic’ emails.

These are the hardest things to write.

How do I want to come across? Should I just be me and write how I’d write as if they were someone I converse with everyday? Or do I restrain and come off a bit cold? Maybe I should try and come across a little more intellectual? Or dumb it down and keep it simple?

If you’re in regular email contact with me, you know how I write. But in a cold call email situation it takes a bold move to put any kind of personality across.

Exhibit A. I was given the name and email address of someone to contact with regards to the writing. Cold call. No idea who this person was. No idea what they are like. All the time, going through my mind are these initial contact dilemmas. In the words of Tyler Durden, “Do I give them the crotch, or the ass?”

I went with a pretty dull email talking about what I’ve done – what I’m doing. The mood was instantly lifted by a confident, and amusing reply.

First email tension lifted.

Exhibit B. I emailed someone I admired for their work. Cold call. An introduction if you like, and to complement them. How do you make that not sound creepy?

This happens to me a lot. I send an email and then think – how will that be taken? I then go through a whole paranoia of should I have even bother writing the email in the first place.

Post first email stress disorder.

These emails can end up becoming the literary equivalent of the answer phone scene from ‘Swingers’. I can’t help but think I’m always making an ass of myself.

I find first emails are like those caught glances across a room. You’ve made eye contact – now what do you do? You’re putting yourself out there with no idea of how the other person will respond.

Like all social interaction, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s the clumsiness of the human species.

First emails are the butt sniffing of the 21st century.

I’ll leave you with that thought.

Nic.

posted by Nic @ 3:19 PM 0 comments