Alright fellas, hear me out.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but cold emailing creators for free guest posts without reading a single word of their sites is not a business strategy. It’s a cry for help.

As a full-time blogger in a B2B-oriented niche, my daily life already looks like this:

• content planning
• writing
• editing
• updating old posts
• client projects
• managing affiliate dashboards
• replying to actual business emails from partners, brands, and humans with names
• filtering legitimate proposals from spam/scam attempts
• (currently) carefully analyzing clients' websites for a proper SEO makeover
  (I'm doing SEO consulting now, so go take advantage of the beta era before the prices increase! 👀)

And yet… before I can do any of that… I have to delete 37 emails (not even counting the ones that do not survive my spam filters) that all say some version of:

Sir.

You don’t know my name (I'm very much a woman, just to begin with 💀).

You don’t know my niche and audience.

You didn’t read my guest post guidelines that literally say “NO generic guest posts.”

And why would you think submitting an AI-generated post about parenting to my website about content creation and online income would be a good idea???

What you’re really saying is:

Well, no.
Kindly get the fck outta my inbox.

Because here’s the thing that people don’t get:

Publishing a random guest post is not “free content.”

It’s free labor… *for me*.

A published guest post on my website becomes my responsibility to:

• edit it
• fact-check it
• make it not embarrassing (AI-generated posts from randoms always are)
• internally link it
• maintain it
• update it yearly

All for what?

A post that actively harms my topical authority, makes Google side-eye me, and that I haven't even *earned* (yeah, MONEY), for???

Now, before someone yells “BUT NETWORKING,” yes, blogging is amazing for networking. I've said it myself countless times.

But let me be clear:

I used to be very open to hearing from other creators. Actual creators and online entrepreneurs, I mean. People with a digital footprint.

I love original success stories and creators who actually built something, creators who can say, “Here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t, here’s how I became my own boss and stopped letting capitalism mentally destroy me.”

Unfortunately, getting Mr. Johnny McSmart SEO Guy™ spamming the Hell outta my *professional* inbox (and the entire internet, too) with black-hat link farm energy, a Gmail address from 2009, and a profile photo that looks like it came free with a prepaid phone has been too much for me. 💀

And yes, every time I get some time to Google them (for the sake of confirmation bias), they’re flagged. Everywhere. Always.

Is it that hard to just create quality content, grow an audience from scratch, and build a real digital footprint like decent creators and bloggers do every day?

Anyway.

Now I can't do that anymore.

I'm no longer accepting free guest posts.

If you want to purchase a sponsored post, you can check my guidelines about how to advertise on my blog here.
​

/End rant.
Now back to deleting emails and pretending I didn’t just lose 20 minutes to this tangent right on my Winter Solstice Holiday -_- /facepalm

Talk soon!

Andréane @ BeProductiveEveryDay

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