Well, here we are on Guest Post Friday here at Construction Law Musings and I wanted to thank everyone who has posted in the past, committed to post in the future and in doing so made this construction law blog more interesting and a great place to catch up on everything from tech to substantive law in Virginia and elsewhere. Your posts have been interesting and I learn something new with each one. I do truly appreciate the efforts.
All of that said, I have also had a growth in the number of unsolicited offers for guest posts and a majority of these have been from folks with whom I have never had contact. While these offers are generous and most likely well meaning, the increase in their numbers has led me to feel the need for a set of guidelines (albeit a loose set). I want to keep the diversity of posts and subjects while making sure that the posts are relevant and at least tangentially related to the practice of construction law. I also hope that these will help to answer questions that I get from new guest posters and save them some time.
So, without further ado, here are my guidelines:
- If you are not specifically asked to post or offered the opportunity by me, please contact me to introduce yourself first. E-mails with “Guest Post” or the like as a subject and the body of which talks about how great your article will be are uniformly placed in the trash.
- The purpose of these guest posts is two fold. First to add something interesting for the readers and second to give some exposure and a platform to the person posting. Because of this, all guest posts will need a short bio (preferably with links that relate to you) and a head shot or logo. This is for your benefit and hopefully you, as a guest poster, will get some benefit from your generous donation of time and effort.
- While some topics are inherently political (see the recent posts on potential changes to Virginia mechanic’s lien law), I try and keep this blog as apolitical as possible. Your opinions and personal take on the legal and practice landscape of construction law (and even the occasional lawyer joke) are welcome and encouraged, just try and keep the commentary as apolitical as possible. For instance, your thoughts on recent green building trends are encouraged but political commentary on the particular individuals that implement these changes are not as encouraged.
I don’t want these guidelines to limit the great posts that I have gotten here over the last 3 plus years, and none of the posts to date fall outside of them in any way. In fact, aside from the occasional typo, I’ve had to exercise little or no editorial control and plan on continuing this trend.
What are your thoughts on the guidelines? Are they too strict (I sure hope not)? Anything here you see that could cause some posters to lose interest? Please contact me with any issues or suggestions that you have with or for this set of guest post guidelines.
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As always, I welcome your comments below. Please subscribe to keep up with this and other Construction Law Musings.
Too strict? Hardly! It is amazing the # of unsolicited offers that come around, isn’t it? I did a similar thing on my blog. Some folks write well and provide great content, but some are just plain bad! (I do my fair share of editing of them, as they bring out the English major in me).
Thanks Melissa. It was actually your post on guidelines that got me thinking about them and then the numerous unsolicited e-mails sealed the deal.
Really glad you lay out strict guidelines on this. I’ve been trying to find non “spammy” sites to contribute to, and its rare to see a blogger go through the trouble of actually spelling out what they want and don’t want.