Freelancers! Performers! Independent craftspeople!

 --> Do you find yourself spending inordinate amounts of time answering cold emails to no actual effect or personal benefit? Now you can use that time on more fruitful pursuits - like spending hours on the subway in transit to gigs, or updating your FaceTube page in a desperate attempt to get just a few more paying customers to your show - with this handy form letter!

Just choose the relevant information, copy-and-paste, and hey presto! you have a convenient and ready-to-go auto-reply to all those moronic emails from individuals with no grasp of the actual value of your services in today’s world:

•••••

Dear Sir / Madam / Thing;

Thank you for your inquiry regarding [circle one] private bookings / costuming commissions / add your own specialty.

Before I waste another second of my life replying to your email, however, please understand that [choose one:]

• six five-minute performances all crafted to fit within the musical, thematic and physical requirements of your event and space - which does not have a dressing room, stage, or sound system - happening “sometime this Saturday between 10pm and 2am, we’ll have to play it by ear when you get there” will cost you more than fifty dollars.
• it is not practical to expect a custom-designed gown, wrap and headpiece based on the attached painting of Marie Antoinette but with enough specific design alterations to require ten hours of research and sketching alone, price complete with labor and materials and “also I really want real seed pearls on the hem and I need it for a party next week” for under one hundred dollars.

If you would like to continue this discussion, wherein I clearly and concisely list over and over again my monetary and physical requirements for providing [the service for which you have contacted me] and to which you repeatedly reply “Well we’d really like to have you, I want to make this work” but offer nothing else until you finally simply do not answer my 7^th email back to you, the up-front charge is $150 or $25/hour, whichever is greater.

Please feel free to send me your credit card number to start this process; otherwise, thank you for your inquiry, and I wish you much success in your attempt to extract the maximum amount of work, time and effort from other skilled professionals for the barest minimum of money on your part! Please do know that despite our lack of health insurance, professional respect or any kind of dependable income, you cheap bastards really do make us independent artists smile. With many thanks for that I remain

Yours truly,

[Your name here]