Hey Julzwriter, since you've been here on the forum longer than me then I assume you know that your content needs to be really good in order to be approved for a guest post.
If you believe your content is not fluff then you might want to change your approach. Start by building a relationship with the bloggers. The best way is to start on their comment section, to build trust and establish your authority in your niche then add some valuable comments on top blogs in your niche.
But this strategy works best with blogs that are frequently updated and make sure that you do this while the article is still fresh and getting social media activity. What you want to do is to read their new article then in the comment section add anything that they missed.
You don't want to overdo this, just make sure you do it when you're 100% sure that you can add value to the post. To get even more out of this strategy you can even answer questions in the comment sections if you've got some value to add. Always follow up on every comment you create, maybe keep a text file with all links that you commented on and check them once in a while.
That's the easiest way to build your rep/authority and be able to approach the bloggers more easily. All you can do from here is to let them know that you've been following their blog for a while and you love their readers. Maybe even share a comment where you helped someone but as a story don't post the blog post URL in your message.
When they respond you can then build the relationship further and later pitch your guest post. This is a strategy I use on people who don't promote that they accept guest posts so it should definitely work on bloggers who already accept guest posts.
Doing this will help you stand out from other guest bloggers and you'll be like a friend to these bloggers because you communicate with them and you help their readers. But this is time consuming and requires patients.
Hope that helps
