{"id":3507,"date":"2018-05-29T22:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T02:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=3507"},"modified":"2018-06-16T06:37:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-16T10:37:23","slug":"responding-to-your-fans-is-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/responding-to-your-fans-is-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Authors Need to Respect their Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

A writer I know recently asked on Facebook if people wrote fan mail to authors, and also asked authors if they responded.<\/p>\n

When I was twelve, I read a kids’ book set in Paris. I don’t remember the title or the author, but I loved it so much I sent fan mail to the author via his publisher. He wrote back.\u00a0 I was astonished.\u00a0 I already knew I wanted to be an author and his gracious letter made me decide I would always respond to fan mail.<\/p>\n

If I ever got any.<\/p>\n

Well, the fan mail started with my very first publication, a prize-winning short story in Redbook<\/em>, and it’s kept coming every year for one book or another. Of course, now it’s via email, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Back before email was a thing, one of my first editors was surprised that I replied to my fans. “Why would you waste the time?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I treasure my fan mail and the correspondence I’ve had with authors.\u00a0 If someone’s been moved by what I’ve written, writing back isn’t just polite, it’s fun.<\/p>\n

All my fan mail before email is archived by Special Collections of Michigan State University’s Library, which bought my literary papers.\u00a0 Someday, perhaps, a researcher will find the correspondence useful for its insights into my career.<\/p>\n

When I sold my papers, old friends reminded me of many things. One who used to type my early stories back in the 1980s because I was such a slow typist, told me that we had discussed the possibility of some university buying my archives one day. I don\u2019t remember that, but I have no reason to doubt her. Another friend reminded me of a long period in my career where nothing I wrote could get published, and that in more than one fit of despair I threatened to take everything I\u2019d written and destroy it in a bonfire\u2014as if that could somehow purge my failures. \u201cAren\u2019t you glad you didn\u2019t?\u201d she asked wryly. \u201cSpecial Collections wouldn’t have The Lev Raphael Papers, just the Lev Raphael File Cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n

My eldest made the best comment. When I told him about the papers deal I said, \u201cThis makes me part of history.\u201d He corrected me: \u201cYou\u2019re already a part of history. Now you\u2019ll have an index.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the best-selling author of a guide to the writing life, Writer\u2019s Block is Bunk<\/a>, and 24 other books in genres from memoir to mystery.\u00a0 You can study creative writing with him online at writewithoutborders.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer I know recently asked on Facebook if people wrote fan mail to authors, and also asked authors if they responded. When I was twelve, I read a kids’ book set in Paris. I don’t remember the title or the author, but I loved it so much I sent fan mail to the author … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1265,1317,592,307,497,323,198,1259,19,192,496,1178,290,214,495],"class_list":["post-3507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers","tag-author","tag-author-archives","tag-author-book-tours","tag-author-readings","tag-authors","tag-fan-mail","tag-fans","tag-http-writewithoutborders-com","tag-novels","tag-publicity","tag-publishing","tag-the-lev-raphael-papers","tag-the-writers-life","tag-the-writing-life","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3507"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3639,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions\/3639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}