I'm Really Not EVER going to pay to write reviews.

I got an email invitation today, and I'm slightly annoyed about it. First off, I didn't sign up to be on this email list. I'm guessing the site is owned by a blog I subscribed to, you know, to help out a fellow blogger, who then took my email and published it in the CC column to everyone she's ever met EVER.

Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. Not the most annoying thing about it though.

Whoever this random person is, I'm not sure, wants ME to pay THEM for the OPPORTUNITY to do reviews. They want to charge the BLOGGERS since the COMPANY is providing THEM a service.

Really? My free ad copy on my web page and my time, and the companies are providing ME a service? No, they're providing me a sample, so I can then use my time and my circle of influence to promote their product if I like it. I take this pretty seriously. If I love something, I'll tweet about it and talk to people about it. I don't sign up for every opportunity that comes my way, because I don't want my blog to become some kind of giant tchotchke ad.

So now I'm supposed to PAY for the opportunity to write ads.

Yeah. About that? No. And I'm really exercising some restraint here, since my gut reaction was to copy and paste the email along with links to the site in question to give you all a warning, but I'm going to keep in neutral.

Don't pay to write reviews. If any money is changing hands, it should be going TO the blogger, not FROM the blogger.

Public service announcement over. I'll be blog hopping later, so see you all then!