Hi my name is Brooke.. Im new to WOP.. I wrote 10 PP last week.. excited to hear a response. How long does it normally take for you to receive a letter? Do you include a pre stamped envelope inside your letter? how many out of the 10 do you think will respond back?

Hi and welcome......they all might respond. It all depends on the timing it could be a while yet.

I wouldnt include a stamped addressed envelope. Assuming you found them on here then they will have been looking for penpals so will be able to afford a stamp.

I hope you have time to write to all 10 of them if they all write to you. These guys arent toys, we seem to tell all when we feel used or scammed or whatever but what about if it happens to them?

Anyway sorry happy writing

As posted above, they may all respond. Initially I wrote to two, but one pen pal correspondence ended rather quickly, I believe in less than two months. The other I have been writing for two years and we have a great relationship. You may not "click" with all these people and so some correspondence might die a natural death just as friendships in the free world do. I only chose two, and am happy to continue to write to just one person as you have to consider the amount of time and effort you have available to put into pen palling. I simply don't wish to spend all my time writing letters to lots of people.

As to timing of responses, all states are different into the way they handle correspondence. Some you may be able to use Corrlinks or Jpay which is an email service, some you may only be able to snail mail. So it would depend on where the people you wrote to are incarcerated. I got letters back initially in just over two weeks and I snail mailed, I did not use the email service on WAP for the first letter.

I would not worry about stamps. It costs around $40 for the prisoner to put the ad up so assume for the meantime they have enough money for stamps. Some people have prison jobs that they get paid for, others do not.

Hi and

Well, Fee pretty much said it. I did like you - well, not 10, but all the guys I had written replied to me. So you may be in for a lot of letters coming your way.

Remember that even if you want to send stamps, envelopes, etc. that it's not up to you, it's up to the DOC guidelines of that state. Every state is different and some do not allow stamps to be sent. Don't arbitrarily send stuff without checking because it can cause a problem.