Dear Gmail, Quit Embarrassing Me

Not sure if any of the rest of you have these kinds of problems with Gmail, but I've had a few that could've turned into serious faux pas if I hadn't caught them. So I thought I'd share what to be on the look-out for, especially as you're querying! Because every time one of these attacks I want to scream and stab Google to tiny pieces.*

LinkedIn Add Requests. This is the biggest problem for me. My LinkedIn account is attached to my Gmail, so whenever I log in, it imports all of my Gmail contacts and constantly tries to force me to "add all" of them to my LinkedIn profile. This would be fine, I suppose, under normal circumstances, but it's a problem for me. Because 75% of my Gmail contact list is comprised of agents and editors I have queried.

LinkedIn is a business site. Used for business contacts. Generally business contacts you actually already know. Sure, I'll add other writers, or maybe an editor or agent who I know personally from conferences or as a former classmate. But literally every time I log in I have to be careful, because it makes it far too easy to accidentally send add requests to everyone you've ever queried (and I am relatively sure that essentially friend-requesting a spamlist full of agents who rejected you is NOT A GOOD THING).

Consider Including. Dude. I do not know who wrote the programming on this one but FOR SHAME.

Basically, in case you don't have Gmail, it's a little button that appears underneath your To: window, with suggestions of who else to add to your email. Because clearly nobody ever emails just one person anymore.

Sometimes it's spot-on. Everyone in my writer's group is intrinsically linked on there now (you emailed Ghenet? Email these other 5 people too!!). But other times, the thought of accidentally clicking that hyperlink and adding more people to my letter** makes me cringe in horror. Because now it likes to tell me to add people to the same email who I've sent similar messages to.

FOR EXAMPLE, "oh, you wrote an email with the subject "Query: Stray" to Agent A, B, C and D too! You should include them in your query to agent E."

AHHHH no. So um. If you are easily inclined to click too many things like I am, watch out for this one.

Color-Changing Font. I really have to wonder what genius thought this one up. Say you're copying and pasting something from a sent message (i.e. the body of your query letter) to paste into a new one. It looks fine when you paste it. You type the rest of your new query, and hit send.

Then you go into your sent box, only to find that Gmail has handily changed the font color from black to purple or green. GEE THAT IS SO USEFUL THANK YOU. Especially because we all know people love to read submissions in neon multicolored fonts.

Luckily if you select all and change the color to black (even though it already looks black) every time you do this, it will avoid the color-changing. But still. Annoying extra step for me to forget? No thanks.

Automatic Adding of Email Contacts to Chat List. Gmail also has this totally un-handy feature where it adds all of your email contacts to your Chat list on the left-hand side, as soon as you've emailed a person who has a Google account.

Granted, yes, you would need to mis-click to accidentally message, say, an agent. Or a real estate broker you talked to 5 months ago (I have done this one). But people have similar names! I have like 10 friends named Sarah. What happens when I query an agent named Sarah and then their name pops up from idle right as I'm about to message my friend Sarah and I click too fast? SRS PROBLEMS.

Thankfully, the chat window is hideable, and you can individually select contacts you do not want to display. Just FYI.

Yes, these are all avoidable issues. No, thankfully, I've not yet embarrassed myself with any of these (except that color-changing font one). But as I am a complete klutz/Technobane, I'm sure it is ONLY A MATTER OF TIME. So I thought I would share the tips.

* STOP TRYING TO INTEGRATE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE, GOOGLE. I have a PERSONAL life and a WORK life and a WRITING life, and I would like to keep them all on their own separate planes of existence. Apparently no one in your marketing departments understands this. Grrrr.

** Okay, I realize the chances of this are slimmer than the chances of accidentally Linking-In people, BUT STILL. I am le clumsy with the mouse button. I want to lower my chances of accidental social embarrassment by as far as possible.