Saturday, March 24, 2012

Win some, lose some and some you don't play at all: Part 15

Dear Tundra Tastemonger editor or whoever you are:

Thank you for your seventeen hundred (so far) emails and voicemail on my cellphone. I'm a little puzzled at your somewhat eccentric late night approach late on a Saturday night in the US to whatever it is you are pitching to me. With respect, none of the emails make a great deal of sense to me - if I've deciphered them correctly it seems you feel strongly about the dangers of global warming in terms of rising sea levels, and when you were not able to interest the mainstream media in your ideas you decided instead to fictionalize your theories in the form of a novel, and you found a veteran sci fi writer named Jim Laughter, who wrote the book, to be released next month. But with all the excessive capitalization and incomplete sentences in your emails, Danny, I can't be totally certain. Slow down. You type too fast. And typos and incomplete sentences galore. Are you high on something, sir? Ritalin? Lipitor? Xanax?
If you are seeking some publicity for your book launch, can I respectfully request that you send me another email with a succinct two or three-paragraph summary of what the book is about and the message it's trying to convey, with details of the publisher, price point and so on, and a few details about the author and his background. I can then approach book page editors to see if they would be interested in the possibility of publishing a review. If they are, you could then provide an advance review copy and we could take it from there, as is customary when book publishers are seeking publicity for new releases.

If I've missed the point and you're telling me something else, then I'm afraid I've missed it and maybe you could enlighten me in clearer terms?

As a freelance reporter who has written about rising sea levels worldwide, I'm happy to listen and help if I can.
Please let me know if I can help further.

With best wishes, I am
YOUR NEW FRIEND IN THE GLOBAL MEDIA
Peter Gladstone

PETTER ADDED TO HIS FIRST LETTER ABOVE THIS NOTE LATER WHEN HE LEARNED MORE ABOUT MY UNORTHODOX AND TYPOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED M.O.:

''Thank you for your second and new clearly typed email, and earlier reply. It's late here in the USA, as I've mentioned, so I can't really look at this further tonight but I will revisit it all on Monday morning when I'm back at my desk and have a little more time. I'll get back to you in the early part of the week.

Have a good weekend, or what's left of it.''

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