One of the pleasures of having your own blog is that you’ll, from time to time, get pitches.

Perhaps it’s poetic justice that I get pitches, too. Part of my job, after all, is to cold e-mail total strangers. Sometimes, I’m sure, it’s unwanted.  But I try my hardest to make a serious effort to show that I actually care about the bloggers that I try to talk to. I use their name, I mention why I’m talking to them, I read what they’ve actually written about the subject, and I give them resources and offer them something that they’re actually interested in.

That’s not to say that this doesn’t SEEM like it’s a good product, or one that I’d be interested in. It’s about personalized news, which I like. They targeted correctly, sure. That was good, and I give them credit.

The subject, however, was this:

“Would you mind bloggign about us?”

Enter “copy-paste” command of the whole pitch. No “Dear Brad,” even. My name is plastered all over this friggin’ thing (just look to your right if you don’t believe me), and my e-mail address is actually my name, so there’s really no excuse. And it’s not even a good product, so I won’t even subject you to any kind of link that you might happen to click on, either accidentally or even (forbid) purposefully.

Besides the obvious typo which happens to be one of the worst displays of effort I’ve seen, there’s something larger here: where do you get off asking me what to blog about? As a blogger — and I’ve heard this from many others, as well — I find this insulting. Don’t tell me what to write. Sure, send me things that I might be interested in, and I’ll take a look. But it’s my call, you know? Don’t make it the typo-laden subject line of the e-mail you’re sending me. And even if I loved it, there are plenty of things that I like that I don’t happen to blog about. I don’t blog about, for instance, how much I happen to love Reese’s Cups. I can eat, I swear, 15 Reese’s Cups at a time without a second thought, just because they’re my downfall as a human being. But I don’t blog about that here — while it’s been the focus of many desserts, it’s not the focus of this blog. So, I don’t write about it. I could if I wanted to, but up until this last paragraph, I haven’t.

There are a few take-aways here:

1. Only talk to someone when you think you have something noteworthy to show them. And by noteworthy, I mean to both you and to them. You can check the latter through a variety of methods, so use them. The number of solutions are bountiful, but my dearest friends and colleagues know my preferred method (and the best kept secret of the Internet).

2. If you actually think you have something noteworthy, put some effort into it. A lazy typo without even my name tells me worlds about what you think about the content you’re providing me.

3. Never tell a blogger what to write. Even if they like it, it just might not be something they’d write about on your blog. Let them be the judge of that.  Your belief in the cause or the product and your willingness to show them that their opinion mean something to you will make insanely amazing inroads with the people you’re trying to talk to.

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