I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t a mistake or a joke, but sure enough – the email was filled with hate and profanity, and it was addressed to me. I received my first hate mail yesterday!

The writer/ hater, who is apparently female and (shockingly) chose to remain anonymous, is quite annoyed with me in general, but she finds my personal finance posts and my nutrition/ diet posts especially offensive.

According to her, I am a “rich, skinny bitch who has no f_____ idea about real people with real problems.” She generously adds a valuable piece of advice, saying that I “seriously need to shut the f___ up” and stop dishing out advice about topics I know absolutely nothing about.

Since I am fairly new to the blogging game, I wasn’t quite sure how to handle this, so I turned to fellow bloggers to see how they cope with hate mail.

This is what I found:

Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz is delighted with hate mail just as much as she enjoys her supportive readers. She says, “to all of my readers – every day, you delight me. Your comments and your hate mail and your fan mail and your Tweets and your blog posts make this whole work-from-home lunacy the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done… I am very, very grateful for all of you.” It looks like Naomi likes the interaction and attention – good or bad.

Scott H. Young thinks that “if you’re not getting hate mail, you’re writing probably sucks“. He adds, “It took me a while to realize this, but hate mail can actually be a sign you’re doing something right. Truly awful stuff gets ignored.” I find it mildly encouraging to think that I am not writing “truly awful stuff.”

Mad Kane embraces hate mail too and sees it as part of the freedom of speech. She rhymes, “I never will fret over hate mail I get: this is freedom, for better or worse.”

So, hate mail is just part of the game? I should not be alarmed at all? According to Scott, I should even congratulate myself on receiving it. Well, I am not exactly going to frame that email and hang it on the wall, but I think I will start a “hate mail” folder and save those emails. In a way, they are proof that people read, react and respond.

Photo credit: sardonica

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