Bad Public Relations

Bad Public Relations

This is an example of what not to do:

Return-path: emily@perennialrelations.com

Hello, 

My name is Emily Olsen and I'm with Perennial Relations, a PR firm in NYC.

I have a client who is in the spirituality and personal growth industry, and is interested in doing a blog post on astrofish.net.

We're happy to write the post on any topic you suggest, or have you write the post that we'll sponsor (please just let us approve the topic prior to writing). One important note is we'll need a text link back to my client's website within the article.

I'm authorized to offer up to $40 for the post, and can pay via Paypal or check. Please let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

Emily Olsen

Since there’s been a recent spate of these things, I thought I would take time out of my busy schedule to return the note.

I suggest an article about doing research on websites, as a topic in general, and then, to get granular? How about research on websites that have material all by one author, no ghostwritten material, no other material on that site, and how receptive the author might be to such a query.

Not totally true, a portion of my bio was originally penned by an editor, but —seriously— the content on my sites is mine. By me.

Even a cursory examination would reveal that. So, my guess? It’s a numbers game. Probably have some canned material, with links back, it’s like a “link farm,” or a similar concept.

When I tried to chase down the website, that dead-ended pretty quickly on a Hostgator site. I liked Hostgator, not quite as much as I like my current host:

We Host Great Ideas.

I looked it up: one year, almost to the day.

Seriously? Previously?

So these dribble in, but every once in a long while, maybe once a year? It causes enough consternation that I’m willing to poke back.

astrofish.net

#haricort fou

About the author: Born and raised in a small town in East Texas, Kramer Wetzel spent years honing his craft in a trailer park in South Austin. He hates writing about himself in third person. More at KramerWetzel.com.

  • Michelle Jan 8, 2018 @ 15:26

    I’m glad I went checking and found your post. I just received a similar email from the same person at the same company wanting to guest-post an article to an old blog of mine. I most likely would have ignored it anyway, but was curious when the name that shows as Dana Cummings has Emily’s name in the response address and in the letter. Thanks for the heads-up!
    Michelle

  • Natasha Feb 19, 2018 @ 22:24

    I just got basically the same email, only they couldn’t even be bothered to list a category they were interested in writing about and apparently the going offer a year later is $50. I was already going to say no, I clearly write all my own content, but I was just curious if it was even a real company so I did a quick Google search and your post popped up.

  • Matt Sep 27, 2018 @ 6:30

    And I received essentially the same email this morning from the same person in late September of 2018; only offered $40 to me. Thanks for posting this.

  • joneytalks Nov 2, 2018 @ 1:37

    What is wrong with this, I received three of such messages in the last month! What is their point ? Indo not even understand the scam, lol