I’ve commented on a couple of author blogs through Amazon and have been delighted with the replies.
Oh, and Robert Crais used to post on usenet, so I “met” him that way.
Say nice and/or insightful things and don’t ask for the world and most times you’ll get a pleasant response.
If you can find his information, I think you should definitely contact him. Writing is a very isolated, lonely job for the most part. Every author I know is positively thrilled when a fan takes the time to contact them. Sometimes, it feels like you could writing to a void. Yeah, you get the sales figures and the checks, but an email or a letter can seem far more concrete.
I had great email exchanges with Matthew Kneale, John Grogan, Ann Rule and Paula Kamen (who wrote a little known, but very entertaining migraine memoir). I contacted all of them through their websites or publishers and in each case I got a reply within a week.
I had a vary entertaining correspondence with Spider Robinson about 20 years ago. I wrote him via Analog magazine for the initial contact.
In my case, I looked it up in “Who’s Who”, which I found in the public library.
This was in the late 70s; public figures may be more reluctant to put that information out there now. But you can try it.
I’ve cultivated something of an email and occasional-IRL friendship or correspondence with a somewhat well-known “internet famous” person who’s written a few books. After I read one of his books, I sent him an email with some reflections upon it and its premise, and to my surprise he emailed me back about an hour later with a legitimate response and not “Dear Fan, thank you for your communication. While I cannot reply to every letter individually, …” That surprised the heckbeans out of me.
I had the most lovely and thoughtful letter back from Terry Pratchett years ago - it got lost along in a house move and is the one possession I wish more than any other I could get back. It was such a wonderful letter, he went answered it properly, going through each of my fannish questions about the most recent novel (Maskerade), and all in the most engaging conversational tone.
Charmingly, he apologised for how long it had taken him to reply, saying he tries to answer all his letters, but it takes time as he gets rather a lot and how he occasionally wonders if a secretary might be better but figures people would on balance probably understand a bit of a wait.
I was, and continue to be amazed at how awesome Terry Pratchett is.
Me too. I found his address in Who’s Who.
OK, not having read through the thread, I didn’t see that you used the same method.
I have written a few e-mails to authors and only received 2 personal replies. One was from Marya Hornbacher, author of Madness: A Bipolar Life (perhaps not a best-seller but she also wrote a book about anorexia called Wasted which apparently did quite well). The other e-mail I received was from Augusten Burroughs back in the day before everyone knew him/loved him/then despised him. If you can find their e-mail address I would say go for it, nothing to lose. Ms. Hornbacher was very charming and showed great interest in my life as a bipolar person. Mr. Burroughs was funny, self-deprecating and seemed shy.
I’ve written to an author twice. The first time was in high school, to ask Starhawk to come speak at my school (she sent back a nice card that said, “Sorry, won’t be coming that way anytime soon!”)
The second time was to an author of a smug pomo book that I read for class, to correct the author’s misperception that Dungeons and Dragons was an offshoot of the SCA created by Steve Jackson. Given that she claimed in her book to have spent eight years as a participant-observer anthropologist in the gaming subculture (I think that means her boyfriend was a nerd), I figured she ought to have these basic facts correct. Astonishingly, she never wrote back.
I just look up their names in the SFWA Directory. I also have a large number of them as Facebook friends, but most authors in the SF field know my name professionally.
Sending fan mail on to authors isn’t a top priority for publishers. They usually wait until they have enough to send and/or remember to send it on. It’s surprising how long it can take to make its way to the author … who then has to find time to answer …
You won’t believe me, but to find both Mr. Asimov and Mr. Ellison, I called information for the city they lived in. Back then (1982 or so) both had listed telephone numbers.
If that had failed, tho, I did have access to, um, certain other avenues for telephone information. What can I say; I was a phreaky kid.
Mr. de Lint, OTOH, I simply sent the latter in care of his publisher, and they forwarded it to him. It was prolly less than 6 weeks after I sent it that I got a letter back from him.
If you want to improve your odds of a reply, print out the letter and enclose a SSAE for a possible reply. I suspect these days authors get very, very few fan letters.
I didn’t do this for both George Macdonald Fraser and John Mortimer (may they both RIP), because I didn’t expect a response, but both replied with very charming letters, which I treasure. (I sent the letters to their publisher, BTW).
A long time back, I wrote to Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld comics) and received a full-page drawing (which I didn’t ask but adore)!
In all cases, I was polite and detailed in my compliments. I wanted to show that I had read their works (and wasn’t just trolling for signatures), and thanked them for the great pleasure they’ve given me. Even if they never replied, I felt good about paying back the good times they had given me.
I was gonna say the same thing. A snail-mailed letter would almost certainly stand out these days.
If I were a best-selling author (sigh Some day.), the highlight of my day would be reading fan mail. The next-best thing to reading fan mail would be corresponding with fans if they needed clarification, had quibbles, etc.