In some ways, I have a pretty thick skin but in other ways, I do not at all.
The Universe keeps sharing its lessons whenever I send out a mass-mailing.
Four mailings ago, when I merged several old mailing lists, I heard from someone who was quite wonderful, but who wanted to rehash a transaction from 1998. Honestly, in the last 15 years, the statute of limitations on that ran out a long, long time ago!
Three mailings ago, I got a vicious, extraordinarily angry email back from a waitress in Alaska who is some kind of crystal healer who is trying to become a breatharian –– yes, that’s for real: she wants to only live on energy from the sun and her breathing. It was unsettling and she seemed disproportionately angry that even though she wanted to be my Facebook friend, an occasional email threw her totally out of whack … but obviously the poor girl just needs to EAT SOMETHING!
And two email newsletters ago, I got a crazy response from an ex of one of my ex’s –– someone I haven’t spoken to in six or seven years –– also upset about something in the past (which never even involved him) and going way overboard to offer a critique of my entire life. This, however, turned out to be a MAJOR healing because it revealed that there were not so much things I’d done wrong way back when, but things I realized I still hadn’t forgiveness myself for and needed to heal. It was, in fact, truly a great blessing and major turning point for me.
Yesterday, I sent out my mailing and only got one negative response, a simple “What is this crap? Unsubscribe.”
Simple, direct, albeit a little rude but at least no personal attack involved.
[Ironically, as far as I can tell I think I have this guy’s email only because his sister is a dear, dear friend and we must have corresponded about something involving her wedding a few years ago!]
Now, I realize that my focus here is COMPLETELY OFF. I haven’t added up how many people read all of these email newsletters but it’s easily over 10,000 maybe even 20,000.
More importantly, the people who wrote me back directly and telling me it was meaningful or helped them at some perfect moment is in the low hundreds.
But it is so easy to focus on the 4 emails from the disgruntled (and perhaps HUNGRY) few rather than the vast waves of positive response.
All of this is, of course, splendid preparation for the fact that in a few months my ebook will be launching and I’m hoping to reach a much vaster audience than my current mailing list.
Of course, via my publisher, all of this will be highly targeted and the right audience will find the novel and the novel will find them … but still, there’s bound to be a few more folks who’s only comment on my beloved book might just be “What is this Crap?”
Thus, I am doubly thankful for this minor dose of skin-thickening practice, this Interweb training period, one that’s a vaccination against the ones who “just don’t get it.”
And I’m getting better at reminding myself to be grateful I get a chance to focus entirely away from the disgruntled few, and entirely on the ones who do get it and who want, appreciate and applaud what I have to offer.
Not perfectly yet … but getting better, email by email.
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