My email yesterday about a needy blackbird drew a bunch of amused replies from people who enjoyed the story.
But it also resulted in an unsubscribe rate of 3x the usual.
That’s okay. In fact, it was kind of the point of the email.
However, among all those quiet unsubscribes, there was one that was more vocal. That more vocal unsubscriber reported my email yesterday as spam.
Spam = unsolicited and unwanted email sent out to an indiscriminate recipient list
That’s not something I do. I make sure my emails are solicited and wanted (the headline of my optin page says “Prepare to decide”). I certainly don’t want to waste my time or effort or email marketing tokens writing to an indiscriminate recipient list.
So I got curious who this spam-reporter was, and how he possibly got on my list.
I put in his email address into Gmail and what popped up was this:
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That’s fucking hilarious… Great Email
Cheers
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… which was a reply he sent me to an email I wrote in the character of Bejako Baggins, about a deliverability wizard who approached me out of the cold, only for me to guide him back to the door.
The fact is, the spam-reporter above was the actual deliverability wizard from that story. He had opted in to my list a few days before that email and had written me a flattering message about my emails, along with concern that they weren’t getting through to him quickly enough.
All that’s to say, in the words of William Congreve, heaven has no rage, nor hell a fury, like a wizard scorned.
Because wizards — and men and elves and hobbits also — get outraged and furious when they don’t get what they want. When they feel ignored or dismissed.
But what to do?
You can’t go through life doing what everybody else wants of you all the time.
That means you will inevitably face some rage and fury, and have to learn to shrug it off. It’s not always about you. Many times, it’s just about people not getting what they want.
Anyways, this being the last day of the year, I will link to that Bejako Baggins email. Multiple people have written me to say it was my most entertaining email of the year.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll work to beat it.
But if you want a quick and fantastical story for New Year’s Eve:
https://bejakovic.com/you-dont-want-to-sell-to-a-hobbit-like-me/