Reader Etiquette

As a writer, I get a great deal of e-mail.  Most, about 99.9% of readers, are courteous and polite. I love my readers and I appreciate the fact that they enjoy my work or have found it enlightening or inspiring in some way. And on the fiction side of the fence I have no problems with my readers whatsoever.  Fiction readers are just fun!

However, on the esoteric side of the fence, I tend to get some very demanding mail. People seem to forget that first off – there’s a real human being behind these words. I may be a magician and a Daemonolatress, but I still have emotions and feelings and a life off of the Internet.

I get at least 50 e-mails a week from people asking about Demonolatry or telling me how I should be doing this, that, or the other. If I had nothing else going on in my life this probably wouldn’t bother me so much. Sadly, I just don’t have the kind of time some readers expect I should have. With a busy writing schedule, deadlines, a day job, family, friends (both online and off) and real-world responsibilities I am so busy that I only answer the most unique emails. Unique is rare in this business.

So here I’d like to come right out with some etiquette for readers regarding some very common requests and questions I get on a regular basis.

• Please don’t ask me to call you on the phone and don’t be offended or upset when I won’t call you on the phone.  There are a lot of reasons I stopped doing this. First, it opens my family and I up to being harassed by phone at all hours of the day and night. Second, I don’t have hours and hours of free time to chat with folks on the phone about Demonolatry. I really wish I did. If it paid the bills – that’s all I’d do. But a girl’s gotta eat (and so does her family) which means I have to spend at least a good chunk of my day doing things that pay the bills.
• Don’t ask to be my student. I will politely decline. I don’t take on students (especially online). I used to and every single time it came back to bite me in the ass. So lesson learned. I won’t do it anymore. Not to mention it takes a ton of time to teach someone and it requires face-to-face contact and hours of instruction every week (for teaching to be done properly). Again, that kind of time would be a luxury for me if I had it. But I don’t.
• If your questions about Demonolatry can be answered by reading the site at www.demonolatry.org  then I will politely refer you to that website or my published work. I actually wrote the beginner books so that all the answers to the most common questions were readily available and so I’d stop having to have the same conversation 50 times a week. 😉
• I am not interested in meeting men (other Demonolaters) for dating so please don’t ask. I’m happily married and happily monogamous. (You’d be amazed how often I’m solicited for dates.)
• I think 101 books are best left in paperback and plain hardcover just so they’re accessible and available POD. I know a lot of folks are into collectible hardcovers and limited leather bound editions and eventually you might see something like that come out of DB Publishing, but it would likely only be for specialty works worthy of that kind of showcasing and for which accessibility isn’t a huge issue.
• While I’m not against making new online friends, I do have a very busy offline life.  Remember that just like you – I’m a real person. I’m very selective these days (after getting burned a few times) in who I chat with online and who I hang out with when I am online. So if you don’t know me, don’t try to force yourself on me so that I’ll be your friend. Let our online acquaintance grow in its own way and let’s see what happens.
• If you feel I’ve rejected your “advances” for friendship or contact (or I won’t do what you want – like make my books worthy of The British Museum with leather covers), don’t send me aggressive, violent, or hateful mail (repeatedly) or I will file a report against you for cyber-stalking and online harassment.
• Please don’t write me with any of the following:

I encountered a Demon that looked like XYZ. Who was it?

I am not human or I am other-kin.

I have a Demon lover.

I am possessed, was possessed or would like to be possessed (no matter what you were/are/want to be possessed by).

How can I raise a demon?

How can demonolatry give me power?

Sure – you laugh, but I get e-mails like this all the time.  So anyway,  I think this is about it for now. Thank you for reading. 🙂