Hi.
You’re probably here because you pitched something to me by e-mail.
If you pitched something to me and I responded normally, my apologies – you’re here by accident, and you’re one of the many people I’m enduringly grateful to, for approaching me when you didn’t need to, for having great ideas and rock-solid integrity, for helping me do my job, and generally just being, you know, nice.
If you pitched something to me and I responded with a number and a link to this page, this page is for you.
And we’re playing a game.
It’s called The Pitching Game, and the rules are simple. The number you received is the amount of points I’ve awarded you, according to which boxes your e-mail ticks, as below.
Best of luck!
Mike.
INTRODUCTION
| Getting my name wrong… | 10 |
| Giving me more than one name across the whole e-mail… | 30 |
| Failing to recognise I’m a man… | 50 |
| Abbreviating my name in a chummy way, eg. “Mikey-boy”… | 100 |
| Abbreviating my name in a creepy way, eg. “MikeymikeyMIKEY”… | 1,000 |
| Calling me by the first word in my e-mail address, which isn’t my first name… | 15 |
| Not bothering to use a name at all, eg. Dear Sir… | 0 |
| Using my surname as my first name… | 0 (possible culture difference) |
| Using my surname as my first name & you’re based in London… | 500 |
MAIN BODY
| Complimenting me on my blog in a way that avoids mentioning anything specific about it… | 50 |
| Failing to recognise I write about travel or writing… | 40 |
| Failing to recognise I write about anything except what you’re pitching me… | 80 |
| Taking a wild stab that I’ve been hospitalized/burgled/suffered from ill-fortune in some way, and starting with an inspecific “I heard about your troubles, hope you’re ok!”… | 20 |
| Compare me somehow to Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer or Adam Sandler… | Death |
| Offering me a sponsored post “for free”… | 50 |
| Offering me a sponsored post “for free” and hammering home how grateful I should be… | 150 |
| Name-dropping a friend who, when I check, has never heard of you… | 100 |
| Using buzzwords or acronyms incorrectly, eg. “I am expert with niche” or “trained in CRM, CPR & Deep Blog”… | 20 |
| Telling me what my readers really want… | 50 |
| Telling me I’m not running my website in a way that people will find either useful and/or enjoyable… | 250 |
| Having no compelling story to pitch other than “I’m awesome/I’m a guru”… | 50 |
| Using the word “guru” without obvious irony… | 100 |
| Asking me to compete with other bloggers for the right to work with you – eg. Who Garners The Most Likes On Facebook Shall Be The Anointed One… | 1,000 |
GENERALLY
| Having a Google avatar of a celebrity, eg. Liam Neeson or Tom Hanks… | 50 |
| When questioned about celebrity avatar, claim it’s really you… | Ban + e-mail to police |
| A MySpace or Facebook e-mail address… | 100 |
| An email that appears to be a string of random characters before the “@”… | 200 |
SPECIAL AWARD
| Tellingly, your introduction is in a different font type and font size to the rest of the e-mail… | 25,000 |
Image: Waldo Jaquith.