Thursday, February 26, 2009

Add this to your list of tactics for success

Yen Cheong writes the incredibly valuable Book Publicity blog. If you don't subscribe to it or read it daily, you get to stand in the "I am cluefree" line for awhile.

Today she mentions email signatures:

Email signatures — on new messages, responses / forwards and on Blackberries / other PDAs — are vital. Would you leave a voicemail message for a professional contact without leaving your full name and phone number? Hopefully not. So what makes it okay to sign off an email with just your name and not a word about your company or its website?

Make it easy to find you when you're contacting people you want to find you. If you're an author and you don't want to publish your home address, get a PO box and a cell phone.

If any of you email me (and I reply!) you'll see there's an email signature.

It goes on every email. It's really easy. I set up my mail program to do it automatically.

If there's some reason I don't want to include it, I can delete it by hand before I send the email. (MWA lists require a sig line to be a max of two lines, so I have to cut it down when I post there; also other list serves don't need my details on every post so I edit those too)

Here's what mine looks like:

Janet Reid
FinePrint Literary Management
240 W 35th St #500
New York, NY 10001
direct: xxx-xxx-xxxx
office: xxx-xxx-xxxx


9 comments:

ryan field said...

Half clueless here.

I always sign off with all contact info...but didn't know I could set it up that way.

Lehcarjt said...

I'm fine with simple email signatures. Contact info and a web address make sense. However, I find using email signatures as promotional tools for new book releases, etc. (especially when done in blinking florescent pink) to be obnoxious. I have never followed one of these links or bought one of these books. For me, it is unprofessional.

Sarah Jensen said...

This is good to know. I will add it to my sig.

Anna Claire said...

I did recently add my blog to my signature. Anything that could drive traffic seems like a good idea.

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

love Yen's blog! Email signatures are great - i get some great blog traffic from it too.

Tara Maya said...

If you have several different email accounts, just make sure you are signing your email with the right signature!

Anonymous said...

You couldn't be at xxx-xxx-xxxx. That was the number of all the women I used to meet in bars.

BJ said...

I always have my blogs listed on my writing e-mail sig. My work e-mail sig always has my name, position, company and contact info. It's not only good business, but it's just plain polite.

Janet said...

Hey, I wasn't clueless! Just uninformed. Now I am neither.

I appreciate this so much, I'll probably refrain from emailing you those two hundred query letters...