Hi there, I just happened upon your very creative and humorous blog. (Thank you. I’m blushing right now.) Of course you realize, what I’m doing right now is wracking my brain to try and figure out if you’re someone I know. How anonymous are you remaining? Any hints? Maybe even a “Yes, ‘Beulah’, you know me” or a “No, ‘Beulah’, you don’t know me?”
No hints.
I have made comments in public forums like this before and I have a couple of friends who blog in a “professional” capacity. And what happens is, it becomes a mess at work. Blog readers call you at work and want to argue with you over some comment you made. It drains away my work time.
My job is to find new authors and publish them; not to spend 10-20 minutes on the phone arguing over the fine points of the SASE or the finer points of e-queries vs snail mail. As a representative of my company, I can’t really tell these callers to shut up and go away. That would be mean and rude–and reflect poorly on the company I am with. But spending a lot of trivial time on the phone also wastes company time.
Now, YOU would never call me over something this trivial. YOU would only call if you were submitting a manuscript, or inviting me to a conference, or wanting to bribe me with lunch or chocolate. But past experience has taught me that not everyone attends to these professional niceties. So I choose to protect myself (and the company) with this cloak of anonymity, even though it means I may miss out on the lunch and chocolates.
