What is one of the greatest rewards of a writer, publisher or blogger?

If your answer is advertising or royalty dollars, that’s only partly true and not sufficient to give you a kick out of your works.

It is readers’ feedback. I mean, unsolicited feedback with testimonials from happy and satisfied readers and users who go out of their way to leave you a heart-warming message but do not expect to receive any benefits in return.

No, I do not refer to the type of feedback with niceties posted in a website’s Comments but mainly intended to drive traffic to the commenters’ sites even if in reality the messages are irrelevant and irreverent ~ the give-aways of the tricks of comment spammers.

I refer to the feedback we regularly receive in this site and in our mailboxes or in Comments for two of our low-profile emanila websites. And these are the feedback I want to share with you, feedback sent to our Philippine Studies section at www.emanila.com/philippines and Food section at www.emanila.com/food and Wow, Sarap! at www.wowsarap.com.

Reading readers’ feedback in those websites is in itself a reward for the resources we expended in creating and maintaining those websites.

Here are samples of recent messages (unedited, translated where required):

Chie V: Thank you po! Very informative and easy to understand. I am a home school mom and I found the subject confusing until I found this site. I am now more knowledgeable to teach “nang and ng” to my children. More power and keep it up!

Alexa: It made our assignments easy and accessible. God bless and keep up the good work.

cruz: ang ganda ng website na to… yehey natapos ko na project ko thanks po more power and godbless. (This is a very nice website… good, I was able to finish my project. Thanks and more power. God bless.)

angel b: tnx poH dito meron na po akong project xha scol …hehehehe ang dami nyo na pong natulungan dahil dito…….. (Thanks to this website, I now have a school project… hehehe, you have helped so many people already becaue of this site.)

Auryse: Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe. I am heading to to grocery store to pickup the ingredients. I am so eager to start learning to cook cuz your food is so tasty. I wish I could see it on a Video and watching the procedure but I will settle with what you just send me. Again thank you so much. God Bless your with your generous offer for free recipes.

matt a: thank you so much for the email……i’m happy to those recipes you shared….thanks a lot again, more power

Lydia L: Thank you for sending me recipes. Your recipes was superb fit for Pinoy taste of food. More power!

True, the words are so simple. Yet, to me, they reflect the commenters’ sincerity and satisfaction for a service rendered.

These are the comments that I would like to keep in any website. Comments that came our way ~ voluntarily and with no gain expected by the senders for their efforts in sending the message.

To all our commenters, thank you.