Showing posts with label Dana Cassell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dana Cassell. Show all posts

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Be Careful About What is in Your Subject Line

This article from Writers-Editors eZine could help us keep our email submissions from disappearing before they are read:


Subject Lines in E-mails

More editors are telling me they prefer to receive queries via e-mail than postal mail. Yet just this past week three e-mails from members and others in my address book have gotten caught in the spam trapper I use. And my filter is not nearly as tough as the ones most publishers and corporations use! Plus, I do give my filtered e-mails a quick scan before deleting permanently, but many large companies do not bother with this step. So what can you do to get past the gatekeepers - especially when querying editors new to you who will not have your e-mail address in their approved lists?
Here are a couple tips gleaned from my own ISP's filtering rules:
* Be careful with the word "submission." One of the messages caught in my spam trap used this word in the subject line. Not only is it a writer's term, but it is used by many x-rated e-mailers, and thus is caught by some filtering software.
* Stay away from all caps. Frankly, I'm surprised to still see all-cap messages, yet one of the filtered messages had the subject line in all caps. Using capital letters in e-mail and on the Web is considered shouting. Spammers use all caps routinely. So filters will often toss messages with words, phrases, and subject lines in all caps.
* Similarly, use of exclamation marks in the subject line can send your message to spam purgatory -- and I see them used regularly. Instead of ignoring your spam mail, skim through a folder of these messages, and you will soon see repeated words, characters, and formatting - if something appears frequently, avoid it in your queries, and especially your subject lines. If you are querying about a topic frequently appearing in junk e-mails, and you do not receive a reply from the editor, it might not hurt to send a follow-up e-mail asking if your query was received.


Source: Writers-EditorseZine, © CNW Publishing. Sign up for a complimentary subscription at http://www.blogger.com/.CNW Publishing,

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