Spam Laws

Sorry I've been lacking this week. I'm in Indianapolis doing a trade show. Beautiful town, by the way, definitely pay it a visit if you get the chance.

Sally Bradley asked about spam laws. This is one of those cases where the government has created more problems than they've solved. Shocking, I know, but true.

Essentially, if someone gives you an e-mail address or phone number to request information, you're within the law to e-mail or call them to sell a product. That's general, but for our purposes, it's good enough. If you e-mail or call and they ask you to stop, then stop. No problems.

My company sent out a 30,000 phone taped message a few weeks back. One person complained. One. And no attorneys were heard from. So don't concern yourself with it. Where you might get into trouble is if you buy a mailing list from someone and cold call those people. Chances are, us little old writers won't ever have the money to do that anyway.

Play it smart. Make it clear to your customer that you may call or e-mail them, and you'll have no issue. And the next time some politician offers to fix a problem for you, politely tell them you can handle it yourself.