If you broadcast your resume, you will get "flamed".

According to Joe Vitale, Houston net marketing specialist and author of the new book, "CyberWriting: How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (without being flamed)" (AMACOM, $18.95) there are several appropriate ways to handle flames:

1. Remember the new prime directive of cyberspace. "Write in kindness," says the author. "As long as you soften your heart, take a deep breath, and write a kind message back to the flamer, you will end the flame war, neutralize the flame you received, and make yourself and the flamer feel better."

2. Delete the message before reading it. "If the header on the message you are about to read says something like 'YOU FOOL!,' you know you are about to read a flame," says Vitale. "You would be wise to delete the message and save yourself the aggravation of reading it."

3. Forget it. "A fundamental truth in human psychology is that people will defend to the death their belief that they are right," writes Vitale. "You have to be secure enough in your own self-esteem to let the flamer off the hook and not retaliate."

4. Save them for fun. Did you know that Mark Twain and P.T. Barnum collected crank letters with the idea that someday Twain would write a book about them? Twain never wrote the book, but the idea made receiving those awful letters easier.

Vitale's 180-page new paperback also offers an adapted 1903 secrets for making money online, shows how to write cyber-sales letters and e-news releases, and describes a new formula for writing ads online that get results.

"CyberWriting: How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (without being flamed)" is Vitale's seventh book. He also wrote "The AMA Complete Guide to Small Business Advertising" for the American Marketing Association.

"CyberWriting" is published by AMACOM, the book division of the American Management Association, and will be available in bookstores on September 1st. It can also be ordered online at http://www.amazon.com.