Yes, we want your pitches for original freelance automotive news/feature contributions. And, no—we don’t want spammy requests to publish “automotive guest posts” with “dofollow links.”

This morning, I’m feeling a little sorry for my colleagues who are editors at much larger automotive news websites that have 10, 100, 1,000 times more traffic than ours. Why? Because I realize that their inboxes must be 10, 100, 1,000 times more inundated with spammy offers to contribute “automotive guest posts” to their sites.

There are freelance contributions, which we are absolutely looking for: legitimately original news and feature articles by writers who are passionate about cars and car culture, and that offer fresh, engaging perspectives and insights.

And then, alas, there is the sketchy world of automotive “guest posting,” which, though it can be a legitimate online publishing model, seems more times than not to be a sketchy SEO tactic that’s become almost as much of a cliché as the email from an exiled prince of some obscure country wanting your help in transferring quadrillions of his native currency.

Usually, the spammy guest-post solicitations are easy to identify. The sender fields often have only a first name and are rife with typos, poor grammar, and requests for the proverbial “dofollow link.”

But the one I got this morning initially looked promising as possibly being from the kind of freelancer I am actually looking for. It was written in such flawless formal English that it could have been from the pen of Queen Elizabeth herself, from someone claiming to be a freelancer in the U.K.

The sender field had a full name that sounded very British indeed, and the circle for the profile photo was populated with a headshot of a convincingly British-looking gentleman.

And even better, his pitch included a list of topics for potential automotive feature contributions that were entirely on-point and relevant to the editorial interests of AutoNewsblaster.

I was so impressed that I actually sent back my usual response to the pitches I receive that have a reasonably convincing air of legitimacy. That response explains our policy of considering freelance contributions only from verifiable named authors willing to sign an author’s copyright warranty attesting that their work is original, and to back that up with a copy of a government-issued photo ID that matches their byline as proof of identity.

For obvious reasons, that scares off the scammers and spammers pretty quickly.

After I sent my initial response, my “this is too good to be true” instincts kicked in. And took only a few seconds to find that the list of “prospective topics” that he was pitching to me were the verbatim titles of articles that had already been published under the bylines of contributing authors to other highly reputable automotive news websites like AutoBlog and Motor Authority.

Oh well.

I sent a follow-up email—in flawless, formal Queen’s English, of course—to the “British freelancer gentleman” asking for the courtesy of an explanation.

I’ll be surprised if I hear anything back from him, and that’s fine.

But, on the other hand, if you are indeed a legitimate freelancer looking to build your reputation and widen your exposure as an automotive writer, and you are willing to meet our signed copyright warranty and photo ID requirements, I absolutely do want hear from you.