If you are a blogger, then you’ve no doubt had emails asking for free work, or emails from PRs that have a budget so tiny it’s almost more insulting than asking you to work for free. In this post, I’m sharing what I actually say to those emails and what I would really like to say instead.
As most bloggers will know, generally speaking, PR people are nice people who are trying to get a good deal for their client, but appreciate that if they want to advertise in someone else’s space, then naturally they have to pay for that. This post is in no way reflective of those people.
And for the record, I’m not some entitled brat who thinks the world should be bowing down to me or that the world owes me a favour. I am just someone who thinks that a business arrangement should be beneficial to both parties.
When PR people start being rude, demanding free work or expecting bloggers to work for insultingly small amounts and then won’t take no for an answer, that is not beneficial to both parties.
I can have a bit of sympathy for the PR people who are just trying to make a living and are stuck working with a client that doesn’t understand that marketing this way requires a budget. They are the ones who take no for an answer and don’t make me want to respond in any of the ways listed below.
These responses are the ones that come to mind after a polite refusal or me ignoring the email leads to another email where they practically demand that I meet their ridiculous requests.
Ask any blogger and I’m sure they’ll have had similar thoughts.
Scenario One
Their Email
Their email will be something along the lines of:
“Hi Wrong Name,
We love your blog and we think your readers would love our brand. We would like you to write a 1,000 word post about our brand with a permanent follow link. In exchange, we’ll tweet your post out to our followers.
We need the post to be live by the end of the week.”
The Response I Usually Give
“Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to take on any unpaid work right now.”
The Responses I Want to Give:
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Great, you got me to laugh. Now what?”
“I’m sorry, you seem to have me confused with someone stupid.”
“Hahahahahahahahaha.”
“Was that a typo?”
“Do you work for free?”
“I thought this was a great opportunity, but then I contacted (insert any company you pay a bill to here) and offered to tweet about them in exchange for my monthly bill. Strangely, they didn’t take my hand off for that and they were quite surprised I would even suggest such a thing. So you can see my dilemma here right?”
“This is an automated message. Our newly installed crapometer software has flagged your message as level five and automatically deleted it from the system. Have a nice day. “
“First impressions count. Would you like to try that again?”
Scenario Two
I had one of these quite recently which got me thinking about writing this post.
Their Email
This particular scenario started out sounding quite promising. The person got my name right and had clearly read my blog and understood that their brand was actually a good match for it. They said they would be interested in either a sponsored post or some Instagram pictures.
I checked out their site (it was a fashion brand) and found some really nice things on there – which I’m now angry about because there’s no way I’d buy from them now I know they try to rip bloggers off.
Anyway, I sent him a couple of different packages to choose from. Bear in mind one of the options I gave him was to send me a dress which I would review so it wasn’t like I was trying to wheedle a large amount of money out of him and this is usually standard practice with review items (some bloggers also charge a fee for this on top of the item).
At this point he came back with this:
“I have a budget of $3. What can I get for that?”
And I’m sure you can imagine how blue the air around me was at this point when I’d wasted so much time emailing back and forth and putting some package ideas together for him.
What I Actually Said
“Me fees are stated below. Please feel free to contact me in the future if you have a realistic budget”
I use this one quite a lot and I think that’s the only reason it came to mind instead of what I really wanted to say.
What I Wanted to Say
“This email.”
“Half a cup of Costa coffee.”
“My utter contempt.”
“A head shake, and I’ll even throw in an eye roll for free.”
“Seriously?”
“Laughed at.”
“The last full stop in my most recent post is all yours (link not included).”
“Congratulations – you win the cheaptard of the week award.”
“Errmmm, let me think. You lost a potential customer. Does that count?”
“An invoice for my time that you’ve wasted.”
I’m sure some bloggers are cringing at this (even though inside I’d be willing to bet they agree with every response) because they think it will put PR people off contacting me. I can only hope it works on the kind of PR people who send these emails.
And as for the genuine ones? Well it won’t put them off, because they would know their offer is fair and therefore they wouldn’t get a response like any of those above. Plus, I’m sure they too are sick to death of the chancers sending out rubbish like this because it can give them all a bad name in some people’s eyes.
How do you respond to emails like this and what do you really want to say? Let me know in the comments 🙂
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LOL I’ve yet to get a proposal from someone about my blog so I don’t know what I’d say but thanks for the tips in case one ever comes my way. Guess I don’t write anything interesting enough even for the losers 🙁
Honestly, you don’t want this crap all day long lol
Love the crapometer response! It would have served them right to receive some of those. Three bucks? That’s not a budget; it’s barely a coffee from Starbucks.
Whenever I get emails like those, I ignore them…until an idiot follows up. That’s when I tell them that if they actually read my blog, they’d know I wasn’t a good fit and never posted promotional articles.
I think I might just start sending them a link to this post lol.
Ha ha ha, oh it’s awful isn’t it. I received a email last week with ask the lovely sentences to start with, asking for a guest post or a banner. I replied that I only did product reviews and they replied with, I write exactly like they did: WE TOLD YOU TO PUT A BANNER!
Wtf! I didn’t reply but this is very rude!
Oh my God, that’s absolutely shocking! As if you’d want to work with them after that even if you were willing to do a banner
I do receive some emails offering to write a post on anything I want if they can put in links to products pages. I explain that, 1. mine is a book blog, which is there to review books – children’s books. 2. I don’t do ads, ever, let alon allow someone else to do them. 3. I do all my own posts, thank you, apart from the occasional guest post by a writer who wants to talk about their books.
That, of course, is when they address me by name, otherwise I don’t reply. And publicists for vanity presses – ack! No, no, no! Once a self published man impressed me with his nous, and I offered a guest post through his publicists, who asked me for a blog tour, warning that I don’t do press releases. He must write it himself and it must be something personal. And it would not be part of a blog tour, no time. Okay, they said… and sent me a press release and asked if it was going to be slotted into their blog tour. I said no. Thing is, they were being paid to arrange a blog tour, and I was presumably expected to do this for free. And they couldn’t even follow instructions… Since then, I haven’t dealt with publicists for self published authors. If they write to me personally and their book sounds like something my readers might like, I might offer a guest post. But no freelance publicists! Ever!
Oh don’t get me started on vanity presses! If they offered me double my fee I still wouldn’t recommend them!
I’ve took part in two blog tours, but both of them been where the author themselves have contacted me directly. One was a not for profit book where the proceeds where going to charity and I made an exception and posted their press release. The other one was happy to do something personal and I sent her some interview questions which she answered. Other than that, I tend to avoid blog tours too unless they just want a review of the book. The one you dealt with sounds like a nightmare though!
I do sometimes take part in blog tours arranged by the publishers with whom I deal on a regular basis, but there are services out there I have unearthed which charge the self pubbed authors so much for a blog tour, so much for pestering 250 blogs for you, so much for nagging 500, etc. And, of course, you are expected to let their paying customers on your blog for free. When the sent-to-everybody email indicates that they absolutely love my blog and it’s just perfect for their client, when they clearly haven’t actually read it, I delete without response. Once I asked if the person had read my guidelines and got the reply, “Yes, but I hoped you might make an exception.
Some of them are so damned entitled aren’t they! I always thought the ones who charged authors paid the bloggers – I’ve almost booked one myself as an author, glad I didn’t now I know I’d basically just be paying for someone to hassle bloggers into doing free work!
I have to say what you’d like to say is probably what I would be thinking if I was in your shoes.
I haven’t had any offers — good or bad — but thankfully I would not be financially dependent on this kind of offer. However, I would not do any promotional ost for less than I would charge for an article written for a newspaper, which I have written plenty of. The thing is I would assume these people contacting you would not work for such poor money themselves, or if they do … #BlogCklubUK
A quick Google search says PR salaries are around 22-28K going up to 40K after a few years and some even earn over 100K so most of them are earning a half decent salary and they’re certainly not going to do the same work for free.
Love this! I have had so many emails where they have said that they love my blog but the rest of the email shows that they have no idea what it is even about! I normally just ignore them #BloggerClubUK
Yes, either read it or don’t say you have!
I’m a new blogger but I’ve already come across emails like this. I know I shouldn’t be charging loads but I do what feels right for me the cost of my time writing a post, clicking photos, editing the photos, doing social media promotion. The genuine brands say yes please. But I love this and wish we could be honest!
Your time and audience are valuable to the brands – if they weren’t, they wouldn’t contact you so never be afraid to charge for that. As you say, the genuine brands expect it and the others don’t matter!
#BloggeClubUK
Aw Debbie this is too funny! But also really not funny at all, there are some crazy offers out there for sure. The worst is when you waste time looking at a site, picking things and emailing to end up with no agreement in the end!
That’s so annoying isn’t it! So much time wasted
I’ve had a few crazy offers for free work – I have to resist my natural response to tell them to get bent.
Sometimes I think it’s the only thing they understand!
I used to respond to every email, if only to say no, but now I find myself just deleting and moving on. If they chase then I’ll reply to say yes I got your first email but frankly your proposal wasn’t worth the effort of replying to, if you have a genuine opportunity than feel free to get back in touch, for you reference my rates are…..
It just gets depressing doesn’t it.
It really does. I think I might take that approach too – it wastes so much time responding to them and once you’ve replied they just won’t take no for an answer until several more email have been sent.
I love this…. its so infuriating! I once got offered a sample tube of nappy cream for a whole blog post with original photographs! I think your responses are very polite in the ciscumstances… but i love what you’d really like to say 😉
Wow, that’s so cheeky! I can’t fathom why some PRs seem to think bloggers owe them a freebie.
I really enjoyed this read!!! The wrong name thing is so accurate! We love your blog but weren’t arsed taking note of your name!!! 🙈
Thank you 🙂 Haha that sums it up perfectly!
You can see straight through the emails that don’t bother to even get your name right, I can understand why they’d provoke these responses within you #BloggerClubUK
They bother me so much!
Oh Debbie, this made me laugh out loud! Fortunately I’ve not been in any of these positions yet, but I do love those responses! Such a shame we can’t just say it like it is! Next time you get an email like that, why not forget the reply and send them a link to this post instead?! Would love to be a fly on the wall when they read it! #BloggerClubUK
Haha I just might! Instead of choose your own adventure, they can play choose your own response lol
Great responses! And kudos to you for being polite in response!
I can’t believe the cheek of some people! Most of the emails I get ask me to work for free: I love your phrase ‘realistic budget’ #bloggerclubuk
It’s so cheeky isn’t it – especially when they’re getting paid to do it!
My tactic varies from ignoring them to polite ‘I’m sure you understand I need to put food on my children’s table’ or words to that effect! #BloggerClubUK
That one works well as they can’t really claim that “exposure” will feed your kids!