The emails every blogger dreads!

I've talked a lot about the positives and dramas of being a blogger. It isn't as easy as some people think. To the people not in the know, blogging is all about 'freebies' and 'avocados on toast' apparently, what they don't see is all the hard work that we put in behind the scenes and some of the stuff we have to put up with including the daily bombardment of crappy emails. 

Anyway, my rant of the moment is quite a common one. If you're a blogger you'll probably find yourself reading this blog, nodding your head and relating to a few things I mention (I hope). I want to talk about the dreaded emails we get in our inboxes everyday. I've seen a few tweets complaining about the things I will be mentioning in this post but I don't recall seeing anyone doing a post about it yet (link me to it if you have done or know someone who has).

It can be easy to think that bloggers get nothing but opportunities flooding their inboxes everyday, that may be the case for some people but the majority of the time from what I've seen, heard and experienced myself, 99% of the time is the following emails on my list below. See if you can spot any that you've seen pop up in your inbox.


Get 20% off blah blah blah!

First of all, I didn't subscribe to this brands newsletter so why are they bombarding me everyday with money off adverts and their latest products. I don't even buy anything normally from this brand or I've never even heard of them before. How have they gotten my email? You realise that they must have taken your email from your blog or twitter bio and subscribed you without your permission to their list. This can be extra annoying when you're trying to unsubscribe and their site keeps freezing up or referring you to something else so you end up giving up and sticking them in your spam folder. 

My name is Asif and I have 100,000,000 to put in your bank account, please send me your details!

I get quite a lot of these, always offering me money in exchange for my details lol or asking me for money. It's scary to think that there may be people out there who actually respond to these fraudsters. I just deleted straight away. I usually get 5 of these a week and they use different names and sob stories every time.

We would like to book your private jet!

I don't know if you get this lol, but there must be a private jet company somewhere called 'Caledonian Kitty' because I've had a few enquiries about my private jet plane (chance would be a fine thing lol). there was once an airline called 'Caledonian Airlines', maybe they think that's me lol. 

Can you send me free stuff!

I get emails asking me for free items all the time and you'll probably be shocked to hear that it's guys more than women that ask me for free stuff. The email usually goes along the lines of ''Do you get products for guys and if so, can you send me some''. 

We would love to work with you!

You're probably wondering why I've put that on this list, well I'm talking about the brands/PRs that contact you about a collaboration and when you say that you would like to work with them, You get a reply like ''Oh great, you can find photographs on our website, thank you''. So basically you've to do a review of their products (without receiving anything, no product, no payment, nothing) and expected to promote them. 

We are not interested in collaborating with you but thanks for reaching out, oh and we'll just use your email address without asking you to bombard you with future brand news, special offers etc! 

You've reached out to a brand in the hopes of a collaboration and you get a snooty email from PR executive Mary Quitecontrary basically saying that your blog isn't what they are looking for or you don't have the right number of followers etc. The next thing you know you're getting emails right, left and centre from this brand about their latest products etc when you didn't sign up for it. 

Sorry, we have no budget!

They reach out to you and butter you up with how much they love your blog and would love to work with you. Emails go back and forth and it's all nicey nicey. They say they want this and that and you respond with an enquiry about payment etc. You can just feel the tension through the email (lol) because they thought they had you over a barrel with buttering you up but now they see that you would like to be compensated for all your hard work. You'll get the 'We don't have a budget' but you can see that they charge ridiculous prices for their products and delivery. It's up to you at this stage whether you want to work with them and see it as a 'gifted' post (the product better be worth it, by the way') or to forget the whole thing all together but this email is quite a common one.

The disappearing collaboration!

This has happened to me a few times and it's odd! A brand /PR contacts you and would like to collaborate, emails go back and forth, it's all friendly. You send your address/details and they thank you. So, you expect a parcel to come through the door to do the review and.......nothing! A few weeks go by and you decide to contact them without a reply. You end up leaving it at that. I thought I was the only person to have this sort of thing but I saw some bloggers talking about it on Twitter the other day so I thought I'd mention it here too.

could you maybe change a few of the words or add this/that!

This happened once last year when I wrote an honest review about a product. It didn't work out with me but I tried to be as nice about it as I could. The item was gifted, the post wasn't sponsored. I thought it was a good post, they weren't so happy and asked me to basically lie that it was the most amazing product that I'd ever used in my life. I refused to change the post and it all became a bit of a drama. I ended up deleting the post.

Is the post live yet?

When you have a 'new brand' (nobody has heard of) with 200 followers on twitter contact you about doing a review. This was a year or two back, and they said they wanted to send me some makeup bits gifted. As they were so nice (I know, I should know better) I agreed to do the post. Not blowing my own trumpet but I had quite a number of followers and this brand was unknown, I agreed to do the review, no time or date was mentioned. As far as I was concerned he (it was a guy who owned this brand) wasn't paying me so there was no deadline. My plan was to properly test out the makeup and have the post up within a week or two. Well, the makeup arrived straight away and it had this strong scent of metal (you know cheap makeup, lol, that sounds bitchy but it was cheap makeup) and cheap packaging. The pictures on his site were photoshopped like mad. 

I wasn't sure how this review was going to go and was a bit concerned about putting it on my face to be honest. Well that was the least of my problems because the day it arrived I got an email asking if I'd received the parcel and I thought ''he's just checking if I received it, no big deal there'' but the next day I had an email that was sent at 7am asking If I'd done the review yet?  I told him that I needed time to try the products, take pictures etc and the tone of the email was basically ''hurry up''. 

It got worse! I got messages on twitter, emails ''When's it going live, when's it going live''. It was crazy! It became apparent that this guy wasn't a professional company and just some dude who tried to set up his own makeup brand. I couldn't believe how he was carrying on. By the way, his brand went bust and I think he tried to change the name but I haven't seen him anywhere since. I was harassed so much that I did the review in a short space of time (to shut him up) and told the truth about the strong metal smell and the bad packaging, It didn't go down well and gladly I didn't hear from him again.

Will you write about our brand/organisation and include links to our website!

These people must think we have the word 'mug' tattooed on our foreheads. I get these emails where they ask me to write about their brand/blog/organisation and include their links without any payment. What's even more strange is their company/organisation has completely nothing whatsoever to do with the topics/things that my blog covers. 


Can I do a guest post for your blog?

Let me be clear, I'm not talking about fellow bloggers collaborating on guest posts together I'm talking about these random people from nowhere who pop up in your inbox and want to post on your blog an article about car tyres or something random. 

Hello Caledonian Kitty, Miss Kitty, Hello Caled: 

We all love an email where they don't even bother to take the time to get your name right. I never respond to these. I had one the other day calling me ''Crazy angel''. I wondered if it was just someone trying to be funny cause they were too lazy to do their job properly or that they mixed me up with the tanning brand.


Well, I didn't expect that post to be that long but hopefully you had a cup of tea in your hand when you were reading it! If you've made it this far I salute you and thank you. Hopefully you can relate to some or all of these. At least you know now that you're not the only one to get these types of dreaded emails.


See you in the next post x 


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