Matt’s Musings

Some of my job inquiries are a real hoot

Most of the work that I do is freelance writing with SEO and other marketing stuff secondary projects. Yes, I get the usual requests: please optimize my pages with select keywords, link these pages to other pages on our site and include outbound links, etc. That is a given when I write web content — my clients want an added benefit to go with the words that I write and I happily comply.

Not every job inquiry is something that interests me as the proposal has enough holes in it to walk through. Pay is too low, the research required necessitates using suspect sources, or the topic is simply not something I’m all that keen about covering — ladies hair products, for one!

Last week, I received one of those inquiries that wasn’t worth a response. Almost always I reply to messages sent via my contact forms or directly to my email inbox, but in this case I decided not to answer. The problem with the inquiry was this:

• We would like you to review a variety of car models and write these reviews along the lines of this site (withheld by me).

• Because it isn’t possible to actually drive each car, you can obtain reviews elsewhere on the internet and use those to write your article.

Well, in my book, what this person wanted was for me to plagiarize my work. Sure, I can certainly write about a car based upon the work available online, but I can’t “fake” driving one and basing my article on how a car sounds, feels, turns, starts, stops, etc. Moreover, the inquirer was from Europe and a number of the vehicles to be featured are not on American highways (Skoda, Fiat, Renault, and Peugeot to name a few). My ability to even write a halfway sensible article would  have to be based upon personal experience, not the review of another writer.

As I said, I didn’t respond to this person, choosing to laugh off his proposal with derision. I’ve had similar request to cheat in the past and I treat each one the same way — good-bye, so long, farewell….

Filed under: Communis