Blogging 101
I am constantly astonished by how many bloggers out there do not provide basic contact info, i.e. a simple email address, on their blogs.
It’s absolutely silly. I mean, I would guess that most blogs are out there because they’re meant to be read, and I bet many bloggers dream of having huge audiences. Why then, are you hindering yourself by not providing an effective way for your readership to contact you?
For instance, I am an avid news tipper. If I’m reading something that I think will fit into your niche, I’ll actually take a few moments to drop you an email and point you to it. There have been dozens of times when I’ve wanted to provide a news tip to a blogger only to not be able to find his contact info.
One could say that this is one of my main blogging pet peeves.
See also: why writers are amazingly stupid . My pet peeve is bloggers who link to you without mentioning your name. New York Times didn’t write something. Frank Rich wrote something (he just happens to be paid by the NYT at the moment). I realize that sometimes it’s hard to mention names in a blogpost, but writers don’t have much more than a brand name. (That’s why I find the Economist’s policy of stripping away bylines for its own staff members to be so offensive). I can’t tell you the number of times a publication has folded and I was able to retrieve an article only because I had the writer’s name when I blogged about him or her.
I expect it’s an attempt to avoid email spam, and an assumption that people will say what they like in their comments. I put my email on my About page, in the form of so-and-so AT such-and-such (hoping most of the spam email collection programs are going for actual at-signs).