Annual Reminder on Guest Post Policy

Because the requests keep coming here is my annual reminder on my guest post policy. I’ll keep it simple and make it red just to call it out:

If I didn’t ask you specifically for a guest post, you can safely assume that I don’t want one from you. Put another way: If you have to ask, the answer is no.

Why not?

• Because this blog is my hobby and I enjoy writing for it. I don’t “provide content”, whatever that means. I sit down, and I write. I’m perfectly capable of doing it without unsolicited guest posts.
• Because I think I know my audience better than you, and I’m 99.9% certain that your “content” will not be something my audience is interested in. Just because I wrote a post on toilets a year or so ago does not mean this is something I write about regularly, or that my readers want to read about regularly.

But other people have written guest posts on this blog!

• Yes, this is true. But keep in mind the following:
• Out of 6,538 posts published here over the last 16 years, 4 have been guest posts.
• I personally requested each of those 4 guest posts. Not one of those writers solicited to put one here.

Many of the requests I get point out how they love my blog, or they loved a specific post. A few even say they checked my site for my guest post policy but couldn’t find one. Which is really strange since I link to the policy on every single post. Just take a look over there on the right-hand side of the screen and you’ll see the Site Policy box with the link. (Of course, if you are reading this post via email, or some RSS reader, you won’t see it, but trust me, it’s there.)

This year, I am adding one important caveat: If we know each other in the real world, or we’ve known each other online for a long time, and you think you might have something interesting you want me to share here–a book release, blog tour–reach out to me. Outside of that, unless I ask for something, I hereby pass in advance.

I realize that posts like this won’t stop the requests from coming in, but it does my heart good to make them, especially when the bulk of the unread messages in my inbox are requests to provide “informative articles” for my blog.