Would you like to guest post on my blog?

Over the past couple of months I've received several emails from people looking to guest post on one of my niche blogs in return for a backlink . Now I love the idea of getting some free content, at least in principle. The problem is that I'm only interested in quality content - something that would be interesting and/or entertaining to my readers. The people who emailed me all provided a link to a sample of their writing which was on a very generic topic on a site completely unrelated to my niche. And they all request that I "assign" a topic to them.

Why do I think that's a problem?

My blog is in a niche that's both fairly small and technical, and I have knowledgeable readers who are often passionate on the topic. More importantly, it's a subject that I'm passionately interested in myself. The writing samples the emailers linked to don't give me any indication that their authors have any knowledge of my niche, or, more importantly, that they would be willing and able to do a the research required to write a quality post. A guest post that's just a regurgitation of a wikipedia article would not add any value to my blog.

So far I've responded to the requests by asking the potential guest poster to propose their own topic. And so far none have replied to that.

But it has gotten me to thinking about 1) going out and finding my own guest posters and 2) contacting others with blogs related to my niche to see if I can guest post for them.

Can any of you suggest approaches to finding or becoming a guest poster that have worked well for you?

- Peggy

and just FYI: I'm not trying to be cagey about my site's identity (which is not the one in my profile). I just don't want anyone to think I'm posting this for the back links or traffic. Ask and I shall tell you. I might even let you guest post