I think the title really says it all, doesn’t it? Of course, that doesn’t stop the repeated – and I mean repeated – requests all following the same template: “I saw this post (mention of keyword, no matter how inappropriate or out of context or how old that post might be) and thought you might be interested in a guest post/linking to our thing.”
And y’know, I’m aware of bitrot and the like, but damn.
Sure, one e-mail is fine. No big. Maybe it will pique my interest. (Probably not, but maybe.) But for FSM’s sake, don’t keep following it up with more and more aggressive e-mails.
So here’s my form letter I’m going to start sending out to folks who keep bugging me about their oh-so-sponsored “guest post” to their product or service:
Hi! You may know me as the friendly publisher of a blog, and you’ve tried to get me to post something of yours on my blog.
NO.
I got your request. And I noticed that it wanted me to link to your product or service.
And quite frankly, that isn’t what I do.
Maybe that isn’t the smartest way to run a blog. Maybe I’m shooting myself in the foot here by not monetizing things more.
But really? I’m just not interested. I blog because I feel like it, about things that I think are interesting or need talked about.
If your request had caught my attention, I would have replied. Instead, you’re wasting my time and yours.
So again, I repeat to you:
NO.
When you get right down to it, most guest posts at most writing blogs are like this: "I just published MY NEW BOOK! This post is advertising for MY NEW BOOK thinly disguised as writing advice. When I wrote it, I discovered that I could outline! You should try it, it might help you, just like it helped me when I wrote MY NEW BOOK! Did I mention that MY NEW BOOK is available at Amazon, B&N, and other places where books are sold?"
Yeah, and some day, I hope that I will be writing a bunch of those posts….
Oh yeah, I forgot about those. LOL!