Email "best practice" tips for the clueless

Received an email yesterday from someone who has written a book.

I didn’t recognize the email address, so when I saw the email in my junk folder, I almost didn’t open it. The subject line captured my attention, which is why I did.

However, as soon as I opened it, the email raised my spam alert to red-level.

The major no-no’s:

1. Poor formatting — All sentences in lower case, including my name, and bunched together without proper spacing. (I can’t believe a published author wrote this.)

2. No introduction — He assumed I knew who he was. I had to look him up on Amazon to make sure he was legit.

3. Scary link — The link to his site was buried in HTML formatting. (Sorry, but I don’t click on links in emails that look and read like spam.)

4. Zero sales copy — No reason given for why I should promote his book. (Help me honey — why is your book important other than the fact you wrote it?)

5. Spammy “from” address — His “From” address was his email address (rather than his name) from a major ISP versus a real business.

Consequently, even though this person is legit (I’m assuming), I’m not replying to his email. I’m still too suspicious. 

If I had been in charge of this guy’s PR, I would have done the following:

1. Had a known person send out the email as a third party endorsement.

2. OR, I would have sent out the email myself under my business name, introducing my client (the author), his accomplishments, and a promo about his new book. Then I would have asked nicely if I could send an advanced copy.

The point being, my email wouldn’t have looked or read like spam, nor would it have lost my recipients’ trust.