Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home

by David Shipley, David Shipley (Narrated by), Will Schwalbe, Will Schwalbe (Narrated by)

Overview

When should you email, and when should you call, fax, or just show up?

• What is the crucial–and most often overlooked–line in an email?
• What is the best strategy when you send (in anger or error) a potentially career-ending electronic bombshell?

Enter Send. Whether you email just a little or never stop, here, at last, is an authoritative and delightful audiobook that shows how to write the perfect email anywhere. Send also points out the numerous (but not always obvious) times when email can be the worst option and might land you in hot water (or even jail!). The secret is, of course, to think before you click. Send is nothing short of a survival guide for the digital age–wise, brimming with good humor, and filled with helpful lessons from the authors’ own email experiences (and mistakes). In short: absolutely e-ssential.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739344361
Publisher:	Random House Audio Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/29/2008
Edition description:	Abridged

About the Author

David Shipley is the deputy editorial page editor and Op-Ed page editor of The New York Times, where he has also served as national enterprise editor and senior editor at The New York Times Magazine. Previously, he was executive editor of The New Republic and a senior presidential speechwriter in the Clinton administration.

Will Schwalbe is senior vice president and editor in chief of Hyperion Books. Previously he was a journalist, writing articles and reviews for such publications as The New York Times, the South China Morning Post, Insight for Asian Investors, Ms. Magazine, and Business Traveller Asia.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
Why Do We Email So Badly?

Bad things can happen on email. Consider Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who committed the following thoughts to email during the very worst days of Hurricane Katrina.

From: Michael Brown
To: FEMA Staff August 29, 2005

Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?

From: Michael Brown
To: FEMA Staff August 29, 2005

If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god.

From: Michael Brown
To: FEMA Staff August 30, 2005

I'm not answering that question, but do have a question. Do you know of anyone who dog-sits?

Or consider us.

Once upon a time, we were trying to figure out when we needed to get a draft of this book to our editor, whom we'll call Marty. (After all, that's his name.) No problem, right? We were (reputedly) literate professionals--Will, the editor in chief of a publishing house, and David, the editor of The New York Times Op-Ed page--setting a basic timetable. It wasn't contentious. It wasn't emotional. It wasn't even all that complicated.

Here's how it started:

Marty sent us an email--Subject line: "One for the book?"--about an angry email he had written and regretted sending.

Why was Marty sending us this note?

David took the email at face value, assuming that Marty had simply wanted to pass along an anecdote for us to include. Will, however, suspected that this was Marty's gentle way of eliciting a status report.

If David was right, the correct response would be simply to thank Marty for his contribution and leave it at that. If Will was right, the proper reply would be to email Marty a detailed memo, giving him a date by which to expect the manuscript.

David answered promptly, following his instincts. (He copied Will.)

Subject: One for the book?
To: Marty
From: Shipley
Cc: Schwalbe

Dear Marty:
Thanks for the anecdote.
This will fit right in.
All best,
David

Will started to formulate a progress report, but then, before he had finished it...

Marty sent another email. In this one, he wrote how helpful it would be to have a portion of the manuscript to show his colleagues at an upcoming meeting.

OK, this time we both agreed his note was a pretty unmistakable request for us to send him part of the book. The problem: we weren't quite ready. So we needed to figure out whether getting him part of the book was "helpful" or "essential." David thought the former; Will thought the latter. Regardless of who was right, the ball was now in our court. So what did we do? We began to panic and behave like lunatics.

First, we did the worst possible thing: nothing. Days went by. Perhaps the email would just go away. Then we wrote a convoluted response--one that reflected our eagerness to buy ourselves as much time as possible to finish the manuscript but that was also meant to reassure our editor.

Here it is:

Subject: One for the book?
To: Marty
From: Shipley, Schwalbe

Dear Marty: Thanks so much for yours. The writing is going well, but we're not quite there yet. We really want to get you something for your upcoming meeting, but we're not totally sure we can do it in time. We're wondering how much of the manuscript you need and the last date we can get it to you. Is there a part of the manuscript that you're particularly interested in having? We have a complete first draft, but some parts are...

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Do We Email So Badly?     3
When Should We Email?     15
The Anatomy of an Email     54
How to Write (the Perfect) Email     115
The Six Essential Types of Email     141
The Emotional Email     175
The Email That Can Land You in Jail     199
S.E.N.D.     217
The Last Word     220
How to Read Your Header     223
Acknowledgments     229
Notes     233
Index     243

What People are Saying About This

“Send is an easy to read primer, full of practical tips for every emailer.” 
—Bob Eckert, Charman and CEO, Mattel, Inc.

“Send can help any of us send emails that build better business relationships and get better results.”
—Spencer Johnson, M.D., author of Who Moved My Cheese?

“It should not have taken until 2007 for someone to write the definitive tome on email. Send is to email what The Elements of Style is to writing. Thank God it’s here at last. (BCC: David Shipley and Will Schwalbe)”
—Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start

“This is just the book I’ve been waiting for.”
—Bill Bryson

“A fascinating, entertaining, and, above all, informative look at email—and how it changed the way we communicate with one another. What Strunk and White is to style, this book is to email. It’s a terrific read. I highly recommend it.”
—Charles Osgood

“The Internet has finally found its Emily Post. If after you’ve read this you fail to change your emailing habits, you’re doomed. Read it or weep.”
—Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side and Moneyball

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Some folks are so disgusted with email, they're abandoning it. We have a better solution: Read Send. This book offers the world's best advice on writing emails that'll be read, understood the way you meant them, and acted on the way you want.

The authors help you ruthlessly eliminate ambiguity that leads to misunderstandings (and gives people an excuse to ignore you). You'll learn better ways to ask for stuff (and thank folks afterwards). You'll discover how to write better subject and signature lines; how to use cc: and bcc: appropriately; how to avoid email's emotional traps; and what shouldn't get emailed at all.

Along the way, you'll be entertained with some of history's worst emails (from luminaries like FEMA's Michael Brown), plus neat tidbits like this: in Dutch, the word for the "@" symbol is apestaartje, "little monkey's tail.") Bill Camarda, from the July 2007 Read Only

E-mail, for all its efficiency, often fails to achieve its intended result; a vague or carelessly worded message can cause major problems — personal, legal and financial — for senders and receivers. Helping you avoid these problems is the goal of “Send,” an informative, entertaining, thorough and thoughtful book. The authors are media veterans — David Shipley is deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times; Will Schwalbe is editor in chief of Hyperion Books — with extensive, and not always positive, experience sending and receiving e-mail. They summarize their essential message in two rules: “Think before you send” and “Send e-mail you would like to receive.”
— The New York Times

Dave Barry

From this essential guidebook's opening sentence—"Bad things can happen on email"—Shipley and Schwalbe make all too clear what can go wrong. E-mail's ubiquity, with casual and formal correspondence jumbled in the same inbox, makes misunderstandings common; e-mail's inexpressive, text-only format doesn't help. Given its brief history, there's no established etiquette for usage, which is why this primer is so valuable. It promises the reader hope of becoming more efficient and less annoying, reducing danger of a career-ending blunder. Brisk, practical and witty, the book aims to improve the reader's skills as sender and recipient: devising effective subject lines and exploring "the politics of the cc"; how to steer clear of legal issues; and how to recognize different types of attachments. Using real-life examples from flame wars and awkward exchanges (including their own), Shipley and Schwalbe (op-ed editor of the New York Timesand Hyperion Books' editor-in-chief) explain why people so often say "incredibly stupid things" in their outgoing messages. "Email has a tendency to encourage the lesser angels of our nature," they note. They also offer "seven big reasons to love email," along with quick guides to instant messaging and e-mail technology, all the while urging us to "think before [we] send." (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Adult/High School-In a snappy and easy manner, the authors provide a brief history of email, explain why people love it, review reasons for using it, and describe times when it should be avoided-for love letters, documents to be archived, and confidential correspondence. There are discussions on writing emails (essentially six types), subject lines, the use of contractions, font type and size, color, openings, and sign-offs. For readers who have ever sent an email and instantly regretted it, wondered about legality issues or whether or not that deleted email will stay deleted, or what information is hidden in an email's header, this guide provides the answers.-Joanne Ligamari, Rio Linda School District, Sacramento, CA

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

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