[Ipg-smz] DPD updates one of his "grumpy" boilerplates

[Daniel Dern]

(Feel free to use, repurpose, borrow from, etc. Please note that the odds 
are good (>98%) there's (at least) one paragraph you will want to delete.

- DPD

----<set phraser to "Grumble">----

Please don't "circle back," or otherwise excessively follow up

Thanks for your original press release, pitch, or other message.

If it didn't bounce, I have received it.

(I use a non-HTML email client, so if you are using any "tracking" tools, they 
wouldn't know if I have looked at/read/"opened" any of your messages.)

If you didn't get any expression of interest back from me, then I'm NOT
interested; at least, not presently. If that changes, you'll hear from me.

"Circling back," or other followups, whether by email or phone, are 
counter-productive, particularly for freelancer journalists like me, who aren't 
getting paid to slog through all the PR email we are already getting -- and for 
all journalists, since we -- like you -- have only 24 hours per day, and every 
"follow-up" message like yours eats up another small chunk of our finite and 
already crowded work time.

They also, particularly when there's a given sender keeps doing it, potentially 
creates/accumulates negative karma ("good will") to the sender, and, by 
extension, whatever you're pitching, the company it's from, and, for agencies, 
by extension, pitches about other clients from you and, also by extension, 
others from your agency.

So, unless we've got an established relationship, please keep these follow-ups 
to a minimum. Preferably zero.

The same "counter-productive" considerations also apply to pitches that aren't 
on our "beats" per whatever media database or other qualifying research you use 
-- or that show you simply bought a list and and blasting 'em out, without 
any considerations of relevance.

Yes, I and many of my colleagues DO often get ideas or otherwise use information 
from some of the many press releases we get. But I'd be surprised if, of the 
unsolicited and off-"beat" ones, it's even one in a thousand. Of the follow-ups, 
probably not even one in ten thousand.

I save any pitches and releases that MIGHT be of future interest.

If I have any interest and need more information, review samples, interviews, 
etc, I WILL CONTACT YOU.

Thanks for your understanding.

Daniel Dern

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