I have been meaning for some time to post a proper review policy on this blog (which would basically say, “No, I will not review your book, don’t waste your time asking.”). The main reason I haven’t done so is that I suspect the requests I get for reviews are mainly from people who have just bought a list of addresses to spam and therefore would not read the policy before approaching me.

Pro tip: if you do buy a list of addresses, check it for duplicates. You may find that the price you paid per address is much higher than you thought. Also the people you email are much less likely to be sympathetic if they get several copies of your request.

And talking about pro tips, if you are a reputable organization in the publishing business, you really shouldn’t be sending out email to online magazines asking them to run free advertising for you when those magazines have advertising rates posted on their sites. And if you are targeting fiction magazines you should probably check that you do actually approach fiction magazines and not others. I’m not naming names because this appears to have been an action by an over-zealous intern, but interns do need to be watched.