The vast majority of my fan mail comes in the form of e-mails, but every now and then I get a few handwritten letters that come forwarded from my publishers. Usually 2-3 months after the poor kid has written the letter. I got one a year ago that the kid had written SIX MONTHS before I ever saw it. I answer fan e-mails anywhere from the day I receive them up to a month after I receive them, depending on how far behind I am. Which isn’t too bad…but I feel bad for kids who have to wait several months for a reply. They don’t realize that when they send through the publisher, it’s going to take A LONG TIME to hear back from me. And when it does take a long time, I’M the one who looks bad. 🙁
But I digress…(i.e. that’s not even what my real gripe is with this blog entry) One of my publishers OPENS MY FAN MAIL before they send it on to me. What’s up with that??? My other publishers don’t do that; why does this one?
I suppose I could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re looking out for me, making sure no one’s sending me death threats or anything. But still, I can’t help but find it a little annoying. (The letters that came today were written in October…could they maybe have forwarded them sooner if they didn’t have to READ them first???)
The delay in receiving snail mail fan letters can be annoying — with my past publishers it could be anywhere from 3-6 months. Llewellyn has been pretty good and I get them usually just a month later.
As for the letters being opened before I get them, they ALWAYS are. I can’t think of a publisher I’ve had that hasn’t opened the letters first — usually because they’re addressed “in the care of” the publisher. (My publishers have included Avon, Berkley, Bantam, Llewellyn). I never minded someone opening up the fan letter first because the letters always said nice things and I wanted the publisher to know that I had readers who wanted more books from me.
Have fun writing…LJS
Really? They’re always open??? Many of the smaller publishers don’t open them.
You make a very good point, though. A benefit to them opening the letters is they see the nice things that readers say. I didn’t think of it that way. I just thought, “someone’s opening my mail! And they’re reading it way before *I* am!”