Editing guest blog posts
Accepting guest blog posts for your blog can be a win-win-win situation if they are good quality posts.
Sometimes you will receive guest blog posts that are pretty good but not quite at the standard you want for your blog.
I know I have read blog posts that have great ideas and tips but are poorly written or posts that seem good but don’t quite develop the ideas enough to be useful.
The temptation is therefore to edit the posts so they also read well or make their intended point.
Is it ok to edit guest posts?
Yes and no!
If the guest blogger has made a simple error or two (for example you instead of your, busniess instead of business, or copywrite instead of copyright), then I would fix it for them.
A good writer would prefer you to fix that (or ask them to) then let them have public errors. And may not realise you have made the changes if they don’t go back to their original.
However, it is still polite to let them know you edited their work.
On the other hand, if the post has numerous and/or more serious issues, it is not ok to edit it without the author’s consent.
Remember that the guest blogger’s name will be with that piece so they have the right to know it is in their words – and you also enter into legal issues for what is called moral rights.
I think there are three ways you can get an edited post:
- Return it to the author with an explanation of what is wrong and ask if they are happy for you to edit it – offering to get their approval before publishing of course
- Edit it and return it to the author for approval before publishing it – make sure you introduce the subject nicely as some people will be offended at you doing this
- Ask them to edit it (and ideally explain why it needs editing so they have an idea of what to change)
Some blogs have a policy stating that they can edit the post before it goes live. Even with such a policy, I would not advise doing heavy edits to someone’s work without giving them the power to accept/reject those changes.
If you submit a guest post, how would you like the host blogger to deal with your work if it contained errors?
