The good stuff
Spam is everywhere. That has become a universal constant :p Of course, most of the spam I get is useless to me since it is about home loans, or enlarging (or shrinking) body parts or strange women with manly names who are coming to my neighbourhood and want to meet me – I’ve heard of a boy named Sue but now I’ve also heard from women named Roger and Douglas who say that they would very much like to meet me :p
However, most of the time, the spam has nothing at all remotely to do with anything I’m interested in. Today was different. Today, two different e-mail in my inbox offered me two things that I am very much interested in – publication and money :p The first was from an outsourced software development firm in the Ukraine. Now I do some software consultancy work myself over the Net and I charge people anywhere from $10 to $20 per hour depending on the kind of work that I do for them. This company offers to subcontract the work for me at $9 – $15 an hour. I’m supposed to get rich doing this but I really fail to see how since I won’t have much left over after I pay them. Then again, maybe they just mean that I’ll have more time to devote to my writing and get rich using the methods outlined in the second mail …
The second mail says that my next novel could be in the New York Times best-seller list! Now never mind that I didn’t ask these people to tell me about how I could do this. They’re probably really good-hearted chaps who want to make sure that everybody gets their book on the New York Times best-seller list – there are people like that out there you know. What kind of makes me suspect that their golden heart might not be pure 24 carat gold is the fact that they are trying to sell me a set of "spellbinding CDs with a practical, step-by-step guidebook- designed to impart literally YEARS of useful information on how to navigate your career as a successful author". Heck, what more could I ask for? I’ve already got the years of experience to be an author on CD, I will be rolling in the money tomorrow!
Sometimes, (especially when I read stories like this) I think that the only people who actually get rich from writing are the scam artists or the ones who tell you how to do it instead of doing it themselves :p But then again, writing isn’t always about getting rich. Sure, the money would always be nice but it also is nice to know that you’ve created something that others find useful or enjoy and remember. So with that dream in mind, I guess it’s time to delete the spam and move on …