Are you supposed to expect some reward for random acts of kindness too?

[oursin]

Spotted a tweet (I suspect it is one of those that gets recirculated at intervals) saying, 'Normalize reaching out to writers you don’t know to tell them you loved something they wrote', which could probably apply to other fields of endeavour as well.

And somebody eeyoreishly* responded - the implication being that they did this via Twitter, which may or may not be the way to do it - that when they do that the person does not write back or reply, not going to do that any more.

There is - is there not? maybe? - a distinction between telling someone that their work means to a lot to you and wanting to establish some kind of reciprocal relationship? Also, there could be all sorts of reasons why the person did not respond.

Okay, I am a grumpy ol' hedjog who thinks that people ought to say 'thank you' when you have provided them with a pdf of an obscure article that they have solicited in rather curt fashion via academia.edu... (sometimes I cannot imagine why).

But is not the idea of telling people you loved their work, about brightening their life but not imposing a burden?

*Actually I think this is a bit unfair to Eeyore.

Comments

[lilysea]

"I really liked your book because [X]
It really resonated with me because [Y]"
is not something that it is reasonable to expect a response to.

Yes, it is NICE to get a response.

But it's not reasonable to EXPECT one; EVEN MORE SO if you're writing/tweeting/emailing to someone who receives a lot of fan mail...

[wychwood]

Yes, I think that's my feeling - it's nice of them to write back, but you 100% cannot *expect* a response to fanmail.

[silveradept]

Telling someone should be normalized, but the expectation of a response should not, especially for people who get lots of such messages. There are quite a few funny form letters that have gone about the Internet on this subject.

[bibliofile]

Perhaps too petulant for Eeyore.

[threeringedmoon]

JRR Tolkien was reported to feel that he should respond to all the fan mail he got after the popularity of The Hobbit and LOTR. I wonder how much more of his own work he would have published if he hadn't been quite so scrupulous about it.

[mrissa]

Yeah, even being a short story writer makes one a Public Figure in ways that are not always comfortable. After one of my August stories on a particularly sensitive topic, I got more than one email from suicidal people saying that my story had meant a lot to them. These are always so hard to handle, because I want to be a human and encourage them and at the same time having multiple strangers' crises sprung upon me with neither training nor warning is no easy thing.

Hearing that someone liked how I used fungus as a metaphor in one of the stories would be a welcome relief, but it still would not necessarily be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[ephemera]

While I would be very happy to have a response, I wouldn't expect it! Heck, I don't expect it on comments on fic, let alone mainstream creators who might be hndling a large volume of such post: I'd rather they made the next thing than spent their whole day sending thank you notes to fans thank you notes.

[radiantfracture]

That person should indeed stop, because they are annoying. The rest of us can continue.

[lokifan]

Seriously. I'd be much less likely to reach out that way if I felt there was a social expectation that they reply! And I really don't think there is. Just because Twitter's more immediate doesn't mean fan letters now REQUIRE a response.