Because I run a lot of genre-related websites in a number of genres, I get a lot of emails from people either looking to exchange links, or wanting to promote something, both of which are fine and are what make the internet go ’round. It becomes problematic when these requests actually generate work for me in the form of having to fill in information that should have been included from the word go and, in some cases, determining if the request is even legit.

Following are a few suggestions that will make people a lot more likely to respond to your requests favorably. These are the kinds of things nobody tells you, and most of us learned them the hard way. Now you don’t have to! This kind of devolves into some self-involved mini-rants towards the end, but the points remain.

1. BE SPECIFIC ABOUT THE SITE. Sending an email addressed to “Dear Webmaster” suggesting a link exchange or promotion, without specifying which website you’re referring to, presumes that the Webmaster only manages one website. I stopped counting the number of sites I manage after 100 websites. So sending an email to savage@sinistervisions.com addressed to Dear Webmaster and suggesting a link exchange means I gotta ferret out what site you were talking about, and half the time, YOU WON’T REMEMBER, because YOU WEREN’T SPECIFIC. I can’t tell you the number of emails I’ve returned asking “which website” and received an embarrassed response asking me which websites I manage.
2. BE SPECIFIC ABOUT THE EMAIL RECIPIENT. If you blind-copy 500 people with a request and one of them writes back asking “which website?” because you didn’t specify (you couldn’t – you sent it to 500 people) and the only visible recipient was your own email address, odds are you aren’t going to have an answer. Yes, this makes you look like a… well, not particularly smart, that’s for sure.
3. SAY IT WITH ME: SPELLCHECK. If your inability to use the English language makes you look like a moron, guess what people will assume you are?
4. HIRING SOMEBODY TO DO IT FOR YOU? BE CAREFUL. I got a form email yesterday from a well-known haunted attraction that opened with “We came across on your website… Great Creative!” That does not instill confidence. Then I clicked the link because I wanted to check out the website regardless, and my computer’s security went nuts – whatever the company this haunt hired to send out these emails did to track the email was clearly not done correctly. Point being, if you pay somebody to get your site more traffic, you really better make sure they’re doing it right.
5. DON’T MAKE IT DIFFICULT. Want to exchange banners? No problem, unless you haven’t bothered to figure out how to get your own banner hosted and can’t provide a working link to it. Want to promote your new book/DVD/movie? Awesome, unless you can’t seem to come up with any graphics, trailer or a synopsis for it. I’m perpetually perplexed by people so eager to promote something that they forgot to come up with the stuff you use to promote stuff.
6. DO YOUR OWN WORK. No, I don’t maybe want to read your new self-published book and make a banner for it to put on my own website. Yes, people actually send requests like this. No, I can’t believe it either.
7. YOU’RE NOT AS FAMOUS AS YOU THINK. You may have lived and breathed your movie for the last year, but I’ve never heard of you. If you think this makes me clueless, that’s OK – it makes me think you’re arrogant. Have fun promoting your project with all those other clueless people who haven’t heard of you, either.

…you get the idea. The real point here – assume nothing. Don’t expect the person you’re emailing to automatically know who you are, what you’re about, or what website(s) you’re referring to. Make sure you’re prepared to follow through on your own suggestions. Basically, be detail-oriented and professional.