So, people, especially if you are academics, how do you feel about getting emails that go like follows,
Dear Professor Bulochkina,
I’m writing to let you know that my new book titled Xxx came out last month. Here are the links if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Abcde
I’m seeing some people do it and I’m not sure what the etiquette is. Should I do it for my new book?
I have to be honest: I LOVE getting such emails (and please consider sending one to me the next time you release something.) I find it very useful to get them because I like knowing what’s being published. Plus, I’m always happy that things are happening, people are getting published, etc.
But we all know I can’t be trusted to guess what the majority likes and responds to. Will people think I’m an idiot if I send out such an email? Would you do it?
Clarissa's Blog 
In my field it’s papers and I both send and receive emails like this. I like receiving them and usually always at least take a look at the PDF attachment (people will attach papers). I think such emails are totally okay.
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I like them when they are from people I know or are in my research area. I detest them when they are from strangers and are far from my research area.
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I occasionally get emails like this, but not often. I wish I did get more, though. It would help me know more about what’s out there and recently published.
By the way – I wanted to ask for advice about writing scholarship on work that no one has published on before. I feel like everything I’m writing is summary, but how can you not summarize when no one has seen/read this play? This experience is obviously oppposite my experience of writing about Shakespeare. But I thought since the works you wrote on were so new in your book you might have some insight about this problem. Thoughts?
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I constantly get flak from editors for summarizing too much. And it’s precisely for the reason you say. If something was published 2 seconds ago, how can I not retell the contents before analyzing It? But editors force me to cut out all the summaries and I suffer.
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Perhaps your (and eventually my!) analysis will inspire people to read the text you’re writing about. But it’s annoying trying to analyze something when no one but you has any idea what you’re talking about.
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But you get to define the conversation because anybody who writes about it in the future will be forced to respond to you.
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If the email is from someone I know, I like it. I’m always happy for friends and colleagues. Or if it’s deeply related to my work and the author is familiar with my work, I appreciate the heads up.
But if it’s totally an out of the blue e-mail, I generally find it sort of sad. In my personal experience, that sort of gratuitous self-promotion tends to come from those whose work is coming out from not-so-good presses. Well-established university presses tend to have their own very fine promotion teams while places like Edwin Mellen or Peter Lang rely on the authors for promotion.
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Yes. Send out this email. How are we to know of the book unless you tell us about it?
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I’m very glad you support this idea, Jonathan.
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I agree, send it out.
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