I get lots of emails from people offering to do guest posts, so I thought I would say something about that to everyone.
Most of the emails I get are obviously spam. The basic idea is that someone writes an article for me of dubious quality in exchange for some links to irrelevant commercial sites or badges for my sidebar, that have nothing to do with gardening. I suspect what’s going on is there are people willing to pay enough to get these links onto my site, that others are trying to make a living writing guest posts to go along with these links.
Increasingly these guest post offers are looking less like spam. They sometimes refer to websites that I know are associated with guest post spammers, but are making better offers for higher quality posts, often citing some of their other work. Even though I suspect they intend to include some irrelevant commercial links into their guest post, at least they aren’t coming right out and saying it. These people sometimes say things to suggest they have done some research, and either read my blog or found a good online summary of it somewhere.
I’m even starting to get some compelling stories that come with guest post requests. The latest from someone who says they are a graduate student and wants to publish an article related to their studies here, because they feel the theme of my blog goes well with what they do, and they hope a post will make them better known. In emails like this, it can be very difficult to find any sign of spam or intentions of spam.
I think all readers of this blog must know by now that I would like to help people in general, and in particular like to use my blog to help others. I have also published some guest posts in the past.
I’m afraid I just can’t accept guests posts, with the possible exception being from other established bloggers that have some existing relationship with this blog.
I toyed with the idea of accepting some posts, but not from spammers and not with commercial links. The problem is I don’t really have any way of knowing for sure who is a spammer or not, or what links are commercial. Even answering these requests, involves possibly sending an email to a spammer, and can result in further unwanted emails. Also, mostly, this blog is a personal expression of who I am and and what I want to write about. Negotiating guest posts takes time, and doesn’t always add a lot to my content.
If you’re looking for a place to make a guest post, I suggest starting your own blog or finding a place on the Internet that accepts ad hoc posts. If it’s relevant to this blog, send me an email and ask me to link to it. I honor most requests like that. Then what you write is your own to do with whatever you want, no one has a say in the content, and it’s not a part of mine or anyone else’s blog.
Are there any other bloggers out there with guest post experiences?
Hi – I just found your site and read this post on guest bloggers. I am NOT a spam artist. I’m writing to invite you to send a paragraph or two about your experience running a seed exchange. I have been blogging for almost a year, writing primarily on topics of heirloom vegetable gardening, but also about gardening and living in modern times. I hosted a seed exchange and had a couple of other garden bloggers attend. It was intimate but successful. I’d like to expand the network, though, and was wondering if you could tell me more about your experience with the seed exchange. If it’s been successful (and maybe not too overwhelming), I’d like to consider incorporating your approach. Thanks for taking a minute to let me know about it (how long you’ve been doing this, whether you would do it again, how you got started, etc.). Cheers to you, congrats, and happy gardening! Revel Gardener
Hi Revel,
Thanks for your comment and the friendly words. Actually, your question is a really good one, but I’m probably not the right person to give you a good answer. I didn’t really organize the seed swap here in Amsterdam, I just participated in it. I actually don’t have very much to do with the people who organized it.
The people who organized it are not gardeners or seed savers themselves, put rather they are a ‘political organization’ who are trying to change our food system. They simply felt a seed swap fit into their idea of what was right. This means our seed swap was meant much more for TV cameras, than as a functional event for seed savers.
I think the key to being successful in organizing a seed swap is to connect with whatever existing organizations you might be there. For example, community gardens, family run seed stores, bloggers, and so on.
In the case of our seed swap, the main networks the organizers used were the large number of people in Amsterdam who live in squatted housing, including a network of ‘people’s kitchens’ that operate informally in these squats and offer low cost vegetarian meals. In addition there is a European network of political oriented seed savers that I’m a part of. Since these things are probably pretty unique to Amsterdam and Europe, you have to look for and identify other similar kinds of networks that exist near you.
The two main things you have to focus on are first getting people to offer seeds, and then getting people there interested in acquiring seeds to plant. In the first case it’s probably a more personal thing where you contact people you might know directly, and otherwise getting people there is generally a matter of publicity.
There are different approaches to take with a seed swap. For example, you can encourage people to offer any and all seeds including commercial F1s, and perhaps even invite commercial seed companies to participate. The other extreme would be to only let people you trust offer seeds, and only OP/Heirloom or handmade F1s.
For example, some European seed organizations similar to the US Seed Savers Exchange sometimes have closed seed swaps where they only invite their members to exchange non-commercial seeds.
All seed swaps of significant size have to cope with unrelated stands. Many people for example object to offering their seeds at an event where there are more tables selling cookies, cupcakes, coffee, books, etc than seeds. There’s a place for unrelated stands, but you need to plan this a bit, and you should probably charge more for such stands.
I don’t know if this answers your question or not. You’re welcome to cut and paste any part of this comment on your own blog for publishing in a post. I’d be happy to try to share more ideas too if you’re interested.
Hi Patrick – my experience is similar to yours. I did correspond with one of the more compelling and genuine sounding ones and the resultant post turned out to be poorly written with lots of links to dubious websites.
So now my policy is to accept guest posts but only from people I know well. If people want writing experience, there’s usually a suitable forum for them somewhere where they can write posts without needing to set up a blog. In the UK we have Gardeners Click and UK Veg Gardeners for instance.
It’s sad that the spammers have made it harder to be friendly and helpful 🙁