As you all know we recently had a 300 + prize giveaway on our Blog. Yes, over 300 prizes. For those of you who haven't ran any giveaways.. giveaways take work. It's not as simple as a blog post and you're done. A giveaway of this size took a lot of time. And by a lot I'm talking a few months of planning and preparation. An endless stream of spreadsheets and emails, hours upon hours of work. I'm not saying this to get a pat on the back, to be honest I rather enjoyed putting it all together and the legwork of collecting Winner info etc. What I'm trying to do is paint a picture for you all. I'm not a writer but I think you get my point. Something this big does not get pulled off overnight.
I recently received an email from a Winner that floored me. Pissed me off, saddened me, angered me, made me laugh, shocked me.. you name it. It was a simple email:
"When do I get my book"
That's it. Well, probably not exactly it since I didn't go back and look at the email. One sentence. No Hi How ya doin. No Thank you again for my awesome prize. Just wheres my stuff at. Maybe I'm overreacting but this was literally a few days after the prize was confirmed and I just couldn't believe it. Maybe I'm just old fashioned . I professionally, as always, emailed them back letting them know they would receive an email as everything shipped.
I kid you not I got another email about a week or so later. This time there was a Hello involved.. but same thing. Again professionally emailed them back letting them know there was a delay in shipment (that was posted about on Facebook) due to the Flu.
So how would or do you handle rude people? Do you ignore it? Tell them they are being rude and try to correct the behavior? Part of me things that things of that nature should be ignored and that maybe then they'll try a different approach (a nicer approach) and another part of me says it's time to start calling people out on their bad behavior because if you don't they'll never know and won't change. This doesn't just apply to people who win prizes, I've seen some rude emails from want to be Authors, publicists.. you name it. Rudeness happens to us all and we all can be rude at times.
I'm not posting this to be mean spirited towards this person. I just believe that Book Bloggers and Bloggers in general get taken for granted and deserve as much respect as anyone else.
At first I thought.. man I'm not going to do anymore Giveaway if this is who people are going to act. But then I realized that would be hurting the CORE people, you guys, who are talking with us on Facebook and posting right alongside us. That's not fair to you.
I do want to say Thank you to everyone who has been so understanding about the time it's taken to pull Winners, email everyone, collect info, send out prizes, etc. I've received a few emails asking about status of prizes and everyone else as been awesome! I appreciate you guys more than you know and hope that the Giveaway gave you an idea (a small idea) of just how much that is!
<3
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