"Are all non-paying writing sites a rip off to good writers?
It depends on the individual and what you're writing for."
This fellow Author/Editor concurs and puts your arguments forward, on our behalf.
ARTICLE CATEGORY: The View From Here
Are We Suckers?...It Depends
Angela Hoy of Writer’sWeekly.com has written an interesting article on non-paying writing outlets called “The Ultimate Insult to Writers.” This article makes some good points, despite some serious flaws. First, every writer has to know what he/she is writing for. Most of the authors on the net are, in fact, amateurs looking for feedback as much as anything else. It is the responsibility of the author to decide whether he’s writing for pay or for feedback or whatever.
The answer to the title question is, YES, polished writers who upload their work for free on various websites are, in a sense, suckers for providing free content that gets mixed in and overrun by so much of the verbal slop that's out there. Still, each of us probably has our own reasons for doing this. Some of our pieces don't fit into the narrow niches out there that pay and other pieces are experimental or in progress. Some of it might be the addictive connection to other kindred spirits and the enchanting feedback that validates what we write as readable and of interest after all. I'll even agree that in most cases it's the poor and lazy choice...in my case, often by someone who is virtually inept at marketing his own work.
My story is an odd one. In 1989, on a lark, I wrote a rebuttal to a pro-affirmative action piece by John E Jordan of the Urban League and it was published in the New York City Tribune and I got a check for $50 for my troubles. They had a large Commentary Section (appx 12 pieces a day) many of them freelance written and they paid! It was great for me. The editor there, Hal McKenzie seemed to like my stuff and I wound up getting my pieces in there two, sometimes three times a week.
After that newspaper went belly-up in 1991, I was hard pressed to find another outlet like it. I hooked up with a black conservative named Emanuel McLittle who published Destiny Magazine. I did a lot of work for Mac, most of it on spec. I’d say that in the four years I worked with him ’92 – ’96 I made less, for a lot more work, than I did with the NYC Tribune. I have and had no complaints because I believed in Mac’s cause, bringing the message of Libertarianism to a group that hadn’t heard much of it.
When I first got on the web in ’97, I gravitated to Zoetrope...a writing site set up by Francis Ford Coppolla. It was strictly a writing workshop – you put pieces up for feedback. I used that area to hone some of the Fire Department stories I’d been working on for a few years previous.
After Zoetrope I logged onto some of those purported “paying sites” like Epinions – more to see if I could actually write a credible review of a product than anything else.
When I found WBM, it was after all this and I used it as a feedback site as well...sort of like another Zoetrope. I met a lot of great people there. After WBM went down I’ve looked for some similar sites and found such venues as AuthorsDen, Stories.com and ThoughtCafe.com – of the three AD offers the most potential for hawking a couple of books I’m in contract for right now.
Here are the flaws I believe are inherent in Angela Hoy’s article – professional (paid) writers are NOT threatened by amateurs seeking feedback...even when they write for free. The Internet is the Wild West right now. People start up businesses with almost no background or experience in that area. I think that’s, on the whole, a very good thing. Sure, most of them will go under, but it keeps the soup churning and eventually something remarkable may come from this free-for-all. These shoe-string start-ups often can’t afford to pay until they build revenue and yes, it’s hard to build a readership or an ad base when your site’s filled with an overwhelming amount of novice level amateur writing. But that’s their choice to try...and the choice of all those novices to write for free. They’re not taking away potentially paying markets. These are markets that couldn’t start-up if they were forced to buy freelance articles at $50 or $100 each.
The Writer’s Guild (WG) has been very active lately in what I see as some very shortsighted endeavors. First, they’ve attacked the sale of Used Books (on Amazon & Half.Com) as “undermining the earning power of published authors.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The authors have already earned royalties on the initial sale of those books and the current owners have a right to do what they please with their property after purchase. Secondly, the more a book gets circulated, the more chance there is for others to see that work, often people disinclined to spend full price for an unknown author’s work. This often results in more sales as some of the newly exposed people buy the book as gifts for family and friends, and others buy newer copies for themselves.
The WG also wants to see an “industry standard” pay scale for freelance work. This is absolute folly. Newer start-ups cannot offer the same payment as older, more established outlets can. This is how New York’s Newspaper Unions unwittingly put ten NYC newspapers out of business in the 60’s. The Unions demanded “pattern bargaining,” which forced all newspapers to accept the same pay scale for pressmen, deliverymen, etc. The result was that big papers like the Daily News, the NY Post and the NY Times all could pay these high salaries, but smaller outfits like the NY Sun, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Mercury, the Journal-American, the Tribune and others couldn’t. Initially a few of these merged, but even that couldn’t fend off the wolf and eventually NYC went from a twelve newspaper town to a three paper town. The readers were shortchanged for sure, but so were those Union workers laid off by the smaller papers, but most of all, the writers – the new writers trying to find a niche, lost out. They lost out on numerous outlets that would’ve paid for their writing. Sure, a lot less than the Times, the News and the Post, but at least they would’ve had an outlet for their work. The only winners were the big fat cats (both the large newspapers and seasoned Union members) who thinned out the competition for their jobs.
Anytime I hear anyone arguing in favor of a standard pay scale for freelance writing, I see a fat cat trying to thin the heard. They obviously feel they’ll still get published because they know the ins and outs of the field, and as a bonus, it will discourage newcomers. It’s the height of selfishness and arrogance.
As for me, I want as many outlets out there as possible, so I want the freelance field unregulated and non-unionized. Sure, I’d like them all to be paying outlets and once it’s established that someone is turning a profit, they should pay or be abandoned by those who’ve supplied the content.
A lot of novice publishers mistakenly think that “content is secondary.” That is, if so-and-so leaves, another will take their place soon enough. The truth is that each outlet has its own flavor created by the mixture of its contributors and outlets that ignore the draw of that mix, risk losing their reading base and any interest they generated earlier.
Still, a businessman has a right to fail, just as sure as any writer does. Some businessmen are good at business and others aren’t. Just as some writers stay amateurs longer than others and others just can’t find outlets for their work. Should these people be penalized by established writers and established outlets that want to restrict start-ups (both new writers and new sites) to preserve and improve their own position? I don’t think so, but then again I don’t give a damn about the needs of established authors or established outlets.
In short, I think the current writer's dilemma is of our own making (at least mine is). I haven't researched the paying markets well enough and haven't exhausted my pursuit of them before offering up articles for feedback...I've only myself to blame. Still, I don't want that avenue taken away from someone else who may find him or herself in a similar position years from now.
From my view, and speaking only for myself, the problem isn't those who write for free, but the lack of an effective marketing strategy.
[A special thanks to fellow-writer, David Walters, for turning me on to Angela Hoy's article and website and for a letter that inspired this response.]
~ Joseph Kearney ~
Copyright 2002
The answer to the title question is, YES, polished writers who upload their work for free on various websites are, in a sense, suckers for providing free content that gets mixed in and overrun by so much of the verbal slop that's out there. Still, each of us probably has our own reasons for doing this. Some of our pieces don't fit into the narrow niches out there that pay and other pieces are experimental or in progress. Some of it might be the addictive connection to other kindred spirits and the enchanting feedback that validates what we write as readable and of interest after all. I'll even agree that in most cases it's the poor and lazy choice...in my case, often by someone who is virtually inept at marketing his own work.
My story is an odd one. In 1989, on a lark, I wrote a rebuttal to a pro-affirmative action piece by John E Jordan of the Urban League and it was published in the New York City Tribune and I got a check for $50 for my troubles. They had a large Commentary Section (appx 12 pieces a day) many of them freelance written and they paid! It was great for me. The editor there, Hal McKenzie seemed to like my stuff and I wound up getting my pieces in there two, sometimes three times a week.
After that newspaper went belly-up in 1991, I was hard pressed to find another outlet like it. I hooked up with a black conservative named Emanuel McLittle who published Destiny Magazine. I did a lot of work for Mac, most of it on spec. I’d say that in the four years I worked with him ’92 – ’96 I made less, for a lot more work, than I did with the NYC Tribune. I have and had no complaints because I believed in Mac’s cause, bringing the message of Libertarianism to a group that hadn’t heard much of it.
When I first got on the web in ’97, I gravitated to Zoetrope...a writing site set up by Francis Ford Coppolla. It was strictly a writing workshop – you put pieces up for feedback. I used that area to hone some of the Fire Department stories I’d been working on for a few years previous.
After Zoetrope I logged onto some of those purported “paying sites” like Epinions – more to see if I could actually write a credible review of a product than anything else.
When I found WBM, it was after all this and I used it as a feedback site as well...sort of like another Zoetrope. I met a lot of great people there. After WBM went down I’ve looked for some similar sites and found such venues as AuthorsDen, Stories.com and ThoughtCafe.com – of the three AD offers the most potential for hawking a couple of books I’m in contract for right now.
Here are the flaws I believe are inherent in Angela Hoy’s article – professional (paid) writers are NOT threatened by amateurs seeking feedback...even when they write for free. The Internet is the Wild West right now. People start up businesses with almost no background or experience in that area. I think that’s, on the whole, a very good thing. Sure, most of them will go under, but it keeps the soup churning and eventually something remarkable may come from this free-for-all. These shoe-string start-ups often can’t afford to pay until they build revenue and yes, it’s hard to build a readership or an ad base when your site’s filled with an overwhelming amount of novice level amateur writing. But that’s their choice to try...and the choice of all those novices to write for free. They’re not taking away potentially paying markets. These are markets that couldn’t start-up if they were forced to buy freelance articles at $50 or $100 each.
The Writer’s Guild (WG) has been very active lately in what I see as some very shortsighted endeavors. First, they’ve attacked the sale of Used Books (on Amazon & Half.Com) as “undermining the earning power of published authors.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The authors have already earned royalties on the initial sale of those books and the current owners have a right to do what they please with their property after purchase. Secondly, the more a book gets circulated, the more chance there is for others to see that work, often people disinclined to spend full price for an unknown author’s work. This often results in more sales as some of the newly exposed people buy the book as gifts for family and friends, and others buy newer copies for themselves.
The WG also wants to see an “industry standard” pay scale for freelance work. This is absolute folly. Newer start-ups cannot offer the same payment as older, more established outlets can. This is how New York’s Newspaper Unions unwittingly put ten NYC newspapers out of business in the 60’s. The Unions demanded “pattern bargaining,” which forced all newspapers to accept the same pay scale for pressmen, deliverymen, etc. The result was that big papers like the Daily News, the NY Post and the NY Times all could pay these high salaries, but smaller outfits like the NY Sun, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Mercury, the Journal-American, the Tribune and others couldn’t. Initially a few of these merged, but even that couldn’t fend off the wolf and eventually NYC went from a twelve newspaper town to a three paper town. The readers were shortchanged for sure, but so were those Union workers laid off by the smaller papers, but most of all, the writers – the new writers trying to find a niche, lost out. They lost out on numerous outlets that would’ve paid for their writing. Sure, a lot less than the Times, the News and the Post, but at least they would’ve had an outlet for their work. The only winners were the big fat cats (both the large newspapers and seasoned Union members) who thinned out the competition for their jobs.
Anytime I hear anyone arguing in favor of a standard pay scale for freelance writing, I see a fat cat trying to thin the heard. They obviously feel they’ll still get published because they know the ins and outs of the field, and as a bonus, it will discourage newcomers. It’s the height of selfishness and arrogance.
As for me, I want as many outlets out there as possible, so I want the freelance field unregulated and non-unionized. Sure, I’d like them all to be paying outlets and once it’s established that someone is turning a profit, they should pay or be abandoned by those who’ve supplied the content.
A lot of novice publishers mistakenly think that “content is secondary.” That is, if so-and-so leaves, another will take their place soon enough. The truth is that each outlet has its own flavor created by the mixture of its contributors and outlets that ignore the draw of that mix, risk losing their reading base and any interest they generated earlier.
Still, a businessman has a right to fail, just as sure as any writer does. Some businessmen are good at business and others aren’t. Just as some writers stay amateurs longer than others and others just can’t find outlets for their work. Should these people be penalized by established writers and established outlets that want to restrict start-ups (both new writers and new sites) to preserve and improve their own position? I don’t think so, but then again I don’t give a damn about the needs of established authors or established outlets.
In short, I think the current writer's dilemma is of our own making (at least mine is). I haven't researched the paying markets well enough and haven't exhausted my pursuit of them before offering up articles for feedback...I've only myself to blame. Still, I don't want that avenue taken away from someone else who may find him or herself in a similar position years from now.
From my view, and speaking only for myself, the problem isn't those who write for free, but the lack of an effective marketing strategy.
[A special thanks to fellow-writer, David Walters, for turning me on to Angela Hoy's article and website and for a letter that inspired this response.]
~ Joseph Kearney ~
Copyright 2002
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