To: Tom Taylor
From: Christian Crumlish
Subject: Re: DICTION PART 2

>no, i've been trying to build a distribution list of folks who would 
>seem to be interested in poetry, poetics, and what is new in those 
>realms.  are you interested?  I had a list of about 35 and in the 

Yes, indeed I am interested in that kind of thing.

>past few days doubled it in the interests of the accompanying paper.  

Yeah, but after you expand your mailing list, 
how about sending a short message announcing 
that you plan to send 3 messages chockful o' 
great stuff and anyone  who doesn't want to 
receive it (or doesn't have the time to give 
it the attention it deserves) should please 
write you back and you'll remove them from 
the list. This is simple netiquette, since 
most people like to choose what lists they join.

>Time to get the word out.  Perhaps you are on a list of emag editors 
>i received from grist, or on something else that was batched out...

I'm sure I am. I publish a zine called Enterzone 
on the Web. Naturally that raises my profile in 
this area quite a lot. I and my associates receive 
reams of unsolicited material. We prefer queries 
and self-selection. We're jaded, I admit it, and 
we realize that not everything sent to us is a 
"submission" to the zine, but we still all react 
the same way to any deluge of mail, which is to 
resent it and most likely not read it carefully.

On the other hand, when someone send me mail 
saying, "I've published a blahdyblah based on 
the word diction on the web at hppppp://wwwwww.etc 
then I usually do go and take a look at it and 
try to read it carefully when I feel like it. 
I realize the only difference here is whether I 
receive a long e-mail message or not, but that 
seems to make a real difference, psychologically. 
I have over 200 messages in my in-box right now. 
Poor me.

        --xian