More Email Spams

This weekend's e-mail brought more spam emails into my junk mail folder. 

Two were definite scams. You gotta love this one that came yesterday: 

The sender can cure several major diseases in only 5 days! And he has liberty anchored on strong desire, whatever that means. And he wants to share his profits with me for his HIV/AIDS cure made of a particular root and leafs that are dried and grinned. I wonder how long he had to grin at the leafs. Anybody know? But if I try it with people with the virus, wouldn't I be practicing medicine without a license? Guess I'd better not take Abdul up on his offer. 

Today's e-mail sender must think I'm a lawyer:

 Easy to answer that one: No, I'm not interested in your case. I'm not a lawyer. Plus, I don't remember any settlement with an ex husband.

I am an ex-English teacher, though, so I'm somewhat amused at the poor grammar and punctuation from both e-mailers.

I also received a book spam today. The book, published by a major company last fall, was about a subject that doesn't particularly interest me written by a person that I don't know (and who lives several states away from me). The e-mail (all 303 KB, including a 208 KB attachment) was sent from info@[title redacted].com and sent to info@[title redacted].com. It wasn't even sent to me personally.  I assume I received the e-mail because some PR company purchased a bunch of e-mail addys —a list which happened to include mine. Consequently, I won't be buying this book.

To any of my writer friends who might be thinking of hiring a PR company for book promotion, read this recent Writer Beware blog post by Victoria Strauss.

To my writer friends who want to e-mail me about their new (not several months old!) books, send me a personal (not group!) e-mail and include a message about why you're sending it. I like books by Southern and Appalachian authors, I read kid-lit (especially middle grade and some YA novels), and I like humor. I enjoy regional history and memoirs from people I already know, and I like fiction with a local setting. I enjoy well-written books about writing.

I don't like books about misery (either real or fictional), especially books that involve child or animal abuse. I don't care for  military history,(unless it's about the Civil War or Revolutionay War), and I'm not into technical stuff unless it's about Macs, iPods, or iPads.

If you paid to publish, I'd better already know you and have heard you read. I've read some doggone good self-published and vanity-published books, but I've run across more bad ones than good ones. So I'm wary.

Just like I'm wary of the spam that turns up my inbox.

~
Note: On July 5, 1937, Hormel introduced the meat product SPAM to America.