Cats and Email Apps = Bad Combination

“Look at how cute and innocent I am. I’d never send emails on you!”

I’m pretty sure my cat just spammed my entire gmail contacts list — meaning everyone I’ve corresponded with on gmail. If you got an email from me you didn’t want today – I apologize. If your curious how Goose managed to spam my contacts, read on.

Earlier in the year, I wrote a detailed book proposal for Earth Reclaimed, which is one of my novels-in-progress. I used it to apply for a writer-residence-program at the Boston Public Library. I didn’t get in.

When I saw Publishizer was hosting a proposal contest, I realized the one I had written more or less met their guidelines. After doing a few google searches and not finding any red flags, I made some revisions, and created a proposal on their site.

Publishizer is kind of like Kickstarter, but for books. People can use to get pre-orders for works they are self-publishing, however, if an author gets  enough pre-orders, they can also get deals with traditional and indie publishers.

I’m still querying my complete, polished novels to agents. This novel is completely unrelated to those. I thought that while I am trying to make something happen with those projects, I can take a completely different path with this one.

Today, I was getting the campaign ready to launch. One step involved emailing my contacts to see if they want to subscribe for updates. I allowed the app to connect to my contacts list. By default, it had all the contacts checked off. I was carefully going through, unselecting agents and literary magazines who I did not want to bother.

Mischief Managed

I had only deselected a few people when Goose jumped up on my keyboard and walked across the enter key.

Agents and editors do not like getting mass emails from writers who are trying to promote their books. In fact, many of them tweet about how much they hate it. When I see those tweets, I would think, what kind of idiot would spam agents with their self-published book promotions.

Today, I am one of those idiots.

Not because I intentionally spammed people, but because I let an app connect to my contacts with the intent of sending a group email.

I’ve been pacing around my house in a panic, thinking this is going to lead to rejections. I need to stop. Hopefully, agent’s and editor’s spam filters will catch this so they do not get mad at me. And maybe, some half-forgotten acquaintances I’ve lost touch with will pre-order my book.

Later this weekend, when I officially launch, I will post updates on my blog.

Update: Once I calmed down and asked people if they got my email, no one had actually gotten the email. I logged back onto the site I sent the email from and discovered that Goose had sent a “preview” and it only went to my email account. I am very, very, relieved!

And Goose needs new mischief to cause….

©2017 Sara Codair