I am not a big blogger by any means. I don’t make any money on this site right here. Sometimes I write on OTHER sites where I might make some money, but this site makes me nothing. It has no ads and no sponsored content. And I don’t even really have the type of traffic to support either if I wanted to make money.

YET STILL…I get emails like this all the time:

Hello,

My name is [REDACTED] and I’m interested in publishing an article on your site Miss Zoot.

The article would be of the highest quality and it would be perfectly suited for your website meeting any requirements/guidelines you might have. I would want to include one link in the article to my client’s website. This is a bingo website that is highly authoritative.

Would this be at all possible? Please do get in touch.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

[REDACTED]

What in the hell? There is no way anyone ever responds in the affirmative to these emails, right? They are SO generic in reference to what they want to write and don’t even give a topic that the article will cover. YET! It’s always a great fit for my blog and very informative! BUT THEY NEVER GIVE ACTUAL CONTENT. It’s just some sort of random article that will match my blog and be useful!

Why wouldn’t I say “SURE!”

There’s NEVER any compensation mentioned. NEVER EVER. So, they want to write this generic article about GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT (I’m thinking “Scraping Content From Other Sites” would be a good title.) and not pay me ONE PENNY for putting it on my site. What is in it for me? Just their wonderful content about their mysterious (but informative!) subject? Like – I’m so desperate for words over here I’ll just take it just because? Do people do that?

A LINK TO A BINGO SITE? What in the hell? Why would I want that on my blog? Surrounded by words about my kids and my running and my grief. BINGO? SERIOUSLY?

And here’s the thing – the people who DO say “Yes” to those kind of proposals? Can not in ANY WAY actually be writing a personal blog. Which is very obvious that’s what mine is. A personal blog. If there are people out there who do accept these type of proposals for whatever reason, they are NOT writing about their marathon training, or their grief over their dead Dad, or their reproductive issues. One click to my site and you see it’s a VERY personal site, in what world would ANY of that proposal appeal to me? I don’t even have ads on my site and those might make me a few cents a month – why would I want someone else’s words for NO MONEY?

WEIRDOS.

I get these type of emails at least 2-3 times a week. Sometimes they even follow-up on them which has to be automated because there’s no way someone says, “Hmmm…I’m suprised she didn’t take us up on this. Let’s try again…” without even clicking on my blog first. And they always call my site “Miss Zoot” which means I’m on some database somewhere of bloggers to pester and that’s the “Name” of my site. I would like to find who put my name/site on that database and find who sent it out to hundreds of PR people and then I’d like to give them ugly looks.

Another variation which isn’t QUITE as ludicrous but that I find just as irritating is the, “Hey! Help us promote this author by going out and buying the book yourself and then reading it and then talking about it on you blog!” I get those at least once or twice a month. Now, I wouldn’t mind an Advanced Reader Copy of books from my favorite authors, so I don’t hate those emails as much but they’re not even offering me ARCs. They’re just telling me to go BUY the book and then READ it and then TALK about it! It might fit my blog a bit more and does seem a bit more specific but still – does anyone see that and go “OH WOW! I’m totally going to do JUST THAT!”

I just think the people who respond to those type of emails are NOT running personal blogs. And I wish they’d look at the link ONE TIME before they emailed me to see, “This girl blogs for her own personal reasons. She’s not desperate for content and she doesn’t make money off her site.” These are all things I think you could see with ONE CLICK on my front page and then see there’s NO POINT in emailing me.

*sigh*

Okay. Sorry about that rant. I feel much better now.