I don’t know how to write this without offending some folks, so I’m just going to tell it like it is.

On a daily basis, readers and authors email me, telling me they need to talk to me on the phone. I have given my phone number to a handful of authors over the years (never WritersWeekly readers) and, while most authors were respectful, some were not.

I changed my number a few years ago and, now, only three authors have that new number. However, not only are they fellow authors (and we published their books), but they are also personal friends we have known for many years.

Several years ago, after receiving phone calls and texts in the middle of the night, and on weekends, on far too many occasions, I decided I would change my number, and not give the new one out to everybody who asked for it. I wasn’t snubbing anybody. The reasons were entirely personal for me.

At WritersWeekly and BookLocker, we’ve never had a “business phone.” We all use our cellphones. We were also all working remotely long before Covid hit. It’s always been very important to me that my employees are able to be at home with their children. They are all extremely responsible (or I wouldn’t have hired them!). We take very good care of our employees, which is why they never leave! 😉

Readers and authors can contact me via email, or through the contact us link on WritersWeekly.

BookLocker authors can also email me, or click on the contact link on that website. Once they sign up for our services, they communicate with us through our online author portal, which we call the “dashboard.” That dashboard is manned approximately 18 hours per day, and if anything urgent comes up, the person manning it at that time contacts me (yes, my employees have my number!), or whichever employee needs to help that author.

Communicating online is much faster and more efficient that talking on the phone, and all parties have a virtual paper trail they can refer to at any time.

These are the personal reasons why I no longer give out my phone number:

BOUNDARIES: When I would give folks my phone number, some authors would contact me about things not at all publishing-related, showing complete disregard for my time. I know they were being friendly, but I have more than a full-time job, and I often don’t have time to chit-chat with folks. We’ve published more than 17,000 print and electronic books in the past 27 years. If all of those folks were calling me day and night, I’d never get any work done.

PERSONAL TIME: I would often receive texts and phone calls during the evenings and on weekends, when I was spending time with family members. I even had some authors contact me on holidays!

TIME ZONE CONFUSION: Some authors would contact me at inconvenient hours (for me) because they were in a different time zone, including in other countries.

A QUICK PHONE CALL WAS NEVER QUICK: A “one-minute phone call” (How many times have I heard that over the years? “It’ll just be a quick minute!”) always stretched far beyond that. You have to be polite (i.e. “How are you doing?”, etc.). It seems everybody wanted to mention the weather, or there was something going on in their personal lives, etc. Answering an author’s question(s) online is FAR faster than any phone conversation.

DEATH THREATS: I receive enough death threats by email because of our advocacy work exposing scammers. I don’t need the scammers calling and texting me, too.

THIS IS GOING TO SOUND RUDE, BUT I’M GOING TO SAY IT: Because I’m very personable online, and because we share so much in this column (“News From the Home Office”) about our family, people feel like they personally know me. This led to texts and phone calls of a personal nature that I was just too busy to respond to or participate in. I felt bad about that, but I didn’t have enough hours in the day already. Plus, we were raising five kiddos for years. The last one turned eighteen and moved out two years ago. But, I’m still too busy to take personal phone calls, and to respond to personal texts from anyone other than family members and neighbors/friends.

STALKERS: We talked about this on a recent podcast episode. I’ve had a few over the years! Those crazy folks have no boundaries. They can simply be extremely annoying, or they can be downright dangerous. If you contact me, I’ll tell you about the most recent disturbing incident. I am not going to post it here, because I don’t want to trigger that person into trying something else to get my attention.

I hope you guys and gals understand my no-phone-calls policy now. I’m going to start giving this link to people who email me, asking (and at times demanding) to have my phone number.

And, if you think you’ll get better service from a company that does give out their phone number, think again. Ingram Spark has a phone number, but they don’t offer live customer support…unless you’re willing to pay for it, starting at $25 for the first 30 minutes. For online messaging, they have a customer service pool.

See: COMPLAINTS about Ingram Spark / IngramSpark.com – by James M. Walsh, Esq.

Many of our competitors have call centers overseas. When you call, you never know who you’re going to end up talking to, nor if you’ll be able to understand their accent.

And, good luck getting somebody on the phone at Amazon KDP. Literally right at this moment, this message is appearing on their site for authors: “We’re aware of issues impacting publishing workflows and some proof and author copy orders, and are actively working to resolve them. We’re also experiencing higher-than-usual contact volume, so it may take us a bit longer to respond. Thank you for your patience.”

There are NUMEROUS complaints about their customer service online. Far more than anybody can count.

See: And, Even MORE Complaints about Amazon KDP!

At BookLocker, our authors know exactly which employee will be helping them with each part of the publishing process. And, they can contact that employee directly through their author account on our dashboard.

And, at BookLocker, every author has my personal email address. Yes, I answer all of my own email! We even have a link on the site that says, “CONTACT THE CEO.” Every one of those messages comes right to me directly as well.

Keep in mind that scammers WILL give you their phone numbers. They have warehouses of folks using AI to make them sound like native-English speakers, and they’ll be happy to spend hours chit-chatting on the phone in their attempts to drain your bank account.

RELATED

• My Visibility as an Author Attracted a Stalker – by Andrea Reynolds
• A reader wants to know why my social media “picture” is a sketch…
• EPISODE 43: 16 Possible Reasons Why Amazon KDP Permanently Closed Your Account (But they won’t tell YOU why you were banned!!)
• Where are these book marketing companies finding my phone number?!
• Episode 48: Misery – Real Authors Who Have Been Stalked
• Writers! Think You Won’t be Stalked or Harassed? Think Again! – by Denise Reich
• When Authors are Abusive…or Just Downright NUTS!
• Cyberstalking: One Of The Dangers Of Posting Online – by George English

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Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.

ASK ANGELA!