Judging by the number of people I've met who fall into this category, Terry Pratchett has at least 10,000 close personal friends; I'd probably be better off persuading one of them to do it.

However, I will bend Charlie Stross's ear on this subject if I get the opportunity.

EDIT: to be clear, the possible damage is that if my email doesn't succeed, it raises the bar the second such email has to reach to be persuasive.