An Open Letter to “Content” Writers: Pay Me $1500 And I’ll Publish You

Recently, I’ve been receiving daily emails like this one:

Hi Carolyn, My name is Mary and I’m a writer for (http:[omitted]. I’ve been following your blog lately, and because we write on similar topics, I thought you’d be interested in a recent article we published, “20 Alternative Jobs For Law School Grads”.

If you think your readers would be interested, feel free to share it with them. Let us know what the response is, and thanks!

Though the request seems legitimate, it’s nothing more than a covert advertising request of the most insidious kind. That’s because on the scale of SEO effectiveness, nothing beats organic links from a highly ranked site like mine.

Which is why if you’re a legitimate writer, I might consider publishing your work. Further, my aversion to crowdsourcing and guest-posting notwithstanding, I might not even offer you pay for your work because you’ll derive real benefits from visibility at my site.

On the other hand, if you’re a content writer purely for advertising purposes, sure I’ll publish you. Just fork up $1500 – or better yet, just pay for an ad. Not only is it cheaper, but at least it’s honest.