Mostly just to annoy PA and be a squeaky wheel, I sent an e-mail to "author support" (what a joke!) asking them why none of my friends or family had received an announcement about my book being available. It's been available since October. I had given them a list of names and addresses of family members, at PA's request, and had included my name and address so I would know when the mailng was sent.
Here's the response I received:
____
Thank you for contacting us about the announcement letters for your book.
We appreciate your interest and pro-active stance with regard to the marketing
of your book.
Per Paragraph 17 of the contract, all marketing and promotion is at our election
and discretion. We have elected not to send the letters to your international
addresses.
We would be happy to provide you with the letter, which you can mail to any
addresses you would like.
Please continue to contact us with your suggestions and ideas.
You will receive a confirmation email in the next 24 hours. If you do not
receive one, please fill out the form again.
____
By international they meant a couple (two to be exact) addresses in Canada.
I think this is another way they are trying to save money. Postage is expensive, even when you're sending things out bulk mail. Much cheaper to just send the author the letter and have them mail out the announcement. Not that I'm going to do that. After all, that is at my "discretion." I did ask them to send me the letter, though, as A) it makes more work for them to do, and B) I'd like to see what it says.
And what an odd last paragraph. It's generally the standard one they send you in another one of the form letters. Somebody hit the wrong button somewhere and used the wrong form letter.
Which basically means: "We lost or threw away your list of family and friends so we can't possibly send out the letters. We really don't want to sell your book to anyone but you, so we'll send you a copy that you can do with what you want."
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