Generally speaking, he does not. If a letter is particularly noteworthy, I may forward it to him. But other than that, he does not get any email, nor does he respond to any.

I do. I'm the webmaster for this site, and also the author's son. I talk to him every few days, and am current with what's going on with... well, anything regarding the books. If you have any questions about the books, I can answer them. Knowing the books inside and out is another facet of my job.

Sometimes.

I do not accept unsolicited manuscripts of any sort, and I do not forward such to the author. This is for our legal protection. If someone submits an idea that happens to end up in a future novel, that person may feel that they are entitled to some form of compensation. The only way to ensure this does not happen is to destroy all unsolicited manuscripts unread.

If, however, you are a published (or to-be-published) author and wish to submit an Advance Reader Copy for review / blurbing, I will forward it to the author. Contact me for more information, using one of the methods listed below.

Yes. Do not send in story ideas, because they get destroyed unread (or at least unread by the author) for our legal protection.

I answer questions about the books, questions about the author, questions about the writing process, and things like that.

I don't answer hate mail. I don't answer email if the sender is demanding, obnoxious, or rude.

Criticism is fine. Hate mail is not. So really, it's not so much what you say as the way you say it.

That said, emails that include "I'm never reading one of your books again!" or "I demand an apology for what you said!" do not get answered. What would be the point?

He does, but he does so on his own time and of his own volition.

If you send in an email asking for free things, it will not get answered. It does not matter if you are doing so for your own purposes ("Can I get an advance copy of the next book?") or for a charity ("We want you to donate a free book to our charity auction!") or for any other purpose. Requests for freebies get ignored.

Unfortunately, it does. As much as I'd like to send autographed photos to people who ask, I'd have to produce them with my own funds and then convince the author to sign n-many hundred (or thousand) photos. If the publisher ever decides to send me a stack of signed photos to send to fans, I'll certainly do it.

He used to, when we shared an office in downtown Saint Paul. But now that I live two thousand miles away, the process is laborious. I'm not allowed to give out his home address, so any books have to go through me. And after the last large batch of books, he told me specifically to stop the signing system. So if you want a book signed, going to a signing is the only method now.

Believe it or not, no. All of these rules have been set up because we have had problems with contact. Many, many problems. Whether it's because of harrassing phone calls, or just someone who sends box after box of twenty books each expecting them to get signed (and not enclosing return postage), all of the rules are in response to specific situations.

To put it another way, these rules are the equivalent of the legal jargon you see on products or websites. You know, the ones that include dangerous phrases like "manufacturer has no liability " or "use at own risk" or whatever. I'm just putting it all up front, in perhaps unnecessarily blunt language, so people understand.

I had to abandon the old email address recently because of spam. When the spam that gets past the spam filter is more than a hundred per day, it's time to switch. Worse, by the end of it the spam filter was tight enough that it filtered out a lot of valid emails. There's a lot of stuff from about October onwards that simply never got to me.

This is actually a better way of getting in touch with me than email, as I have been having a number of email issues lately. Also, you get instant feedback, rather than waiting.

And just so you know, the author never does online chat (with the exception of specific online events set up by the publisher). So if you encounter someone online who claims to be John Sandford, author of the acclaimed Prey series, they are lying.