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Old 10-19-2016, 01:28 PM   #20
Krazykiwi
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Particularly on GR there have been some disastrous episodes involving authors contacting reviewers (doxxings, stalking -- this one got written about by the author in question in the Guardian amazingly enough, who thought she was completely in the right, in another case a pretty loopy author travelled the length of the UK and knocked a reviewer over the head with a wine bottle at her workplace.)

It's also important to remember that as an author you have a business relationship with your readers, and have to beware of consumer protection laws. Contacting people via email if they did not opt in to specifically the purpose you are using the email address for might fall foul of the CAN-SPAM laws. Signing up for one giveaway is not necessarily carte blanche to use someone's email address for anything else, that's why many giveaway services/raffle sites make entrants explicitly sign up for a mailing list as well. ISP's tend to treat CAN-SPAM complaints a bit like DMCA complaints, and take you offline while they sort it out, rather than risking it escalating to the point they are at fault too, so all it can take is one strongly worded complaint using the right kind of legalese and your website is down for the duration.

While obviously most authors are not insane (and I assume that includes you!) and many reviewers are entirely open to being approached by authors for free books, it's simply not safe to assume that is always the case! Best practice is as mentioned: Contact only once then let it be if they don't reply. And on GR make sure you check their profile, people who don't want to be contacted will usually say so there.
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