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Is it time for all websites to pay writers for their articles?
Results so far:
| No | 20% | 209 votes | Total: 1039 votes | |
| Yes | 80% | 830 votes |
No
by Angela S. Young
Created on: July 13, 2007
Helium is a paying market for writers, but it is so much more than that. It is a community where you can hone your writing and still earn money for doing it. Other sites out there will pay for work, but I don't believe any of them operate as helium.com does.
If you look and work hard, you can make some money through other websites. You can also do that through looking at freelance sites that list writing jobs you can apply for.
That is well and good, but the question is whether all websites should pay writers for submissions. As long as these sites have writers submitting to them without payment, they will continue their non-payment plan. That is their choice. Each person should have the right to run their own websites in whatever way they want to. We have no right to tell someone they must pay or not.
However, we have choices too. We can refuse to submit our articles to sites that do not pay. Eventually, they would have to start paying in order to get material. We could do that, but I don't believe it would be in our best interests.
Sites that accept writing for publication without any payment, offer other things besides money. They offer an opportunity to get published. They help build a portfolio. They give you a chance to practice your writing. They provide a place to showcase the writer's work. They offer a place where the writer can get read. They offer a place for a budding writer to experiment with writing for different publishers.
Not everyone can write for a pay market, but many can write for a non-paying market. This could begin as a stepping stone into a more lucrative market, or it could remain a fun way to showcase your work. For some it's just an ego trip when they can say, "I was published." All of these sites have their reasons for how they run themselves, and they do something for the people who write for them and those who read them.
Now is not the time for all websites to pay writers for their articles; it is the time for people to accept sites as they are and make their own choices when it comes to writing for them or not. In a free market, publishers have the right to run a paying or a non-paying website. We cannot, nor should we try, force a paying market on them.
If you don't want to submit your work without getting paid, look on for a paying market, but leave website choices up to their creators. Allow these markets to do what they do and take advantage of what they have to offer if that is your choice. Eventually, they may become paying markets, but not because we regulate them into it. They will do it when they recognize the need.
Learn more about this author, Angela S. Young.
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Yes
by Ruth Belena
Created on: June 06, 2008 Last Updated: January 07, 2009
It is time for all websites to pay writers for their articles. All websites need content. The more pages of content, the more money can be earned from ads showing on those pages.
Websites that post fresh new content daily, or have new content added throughout the day, get higher search engine ranking. Busy sites attract more visitors, and earn a lot of advertising revenue.
Good writing sites like Helium, Triond, Associated Content and others, share their advertising revenue with the writers who provide content. The more articles published and read, the more money is earned. It is only right that writers receive a share of the revenue.
~ The Advantages of Paying for Articles
Bloggers and webmasters often fail to get quality traffic to their blog or site. They want to earn money from the ads and banners on their site, and to do this they need more clicks from visitors to the site. The reason why many blogs and websites fail to earn any revenue is lack of content.
A blog with a single post, or a webpage with one brief article about making money online, will never gain enough traffic to make much money. A monetized blog or website needs to reach out across the world wide web and draw in thousands of visitors. To do this a website or blog needs content, more content, and additional content, to be added as frequently as possible. Stagnant sites do not make money. A busy website can earn thousands in advertising revenue.
This is where the article writer can help. A good web content writer can supply articles for blogs, posts for forums and content for websites that people will actually want to read, featuring keywords that attract quality traffic to the site. Most visitors arrive at a site from search engine results. If the content matches what they are searching for, they will read want to click on relevant adverts or banners, and their actions produce revenue for the website owner, or blogger.
~ Free Article Sites
There are some websites where writers publish their articles and expect no payment. These are the article directories that writers use to get backlinks to their profile page, blog or personal website. Writers use free directories to submit articles with an author link, and anyone who publishes that article on their own blog or website must include the author's link.
Free article sites can be effective for getting web traffic, but writers who submit to them are also helping the directory owner to earn a huge amount of advertising revenue. You may think this is fair, as the site provides a service for writers, but what about all the visitors to the site who read the articles and leave without visiting the writers' links? Some people will be diverted away from an article page by an enticing advert, which they click, and never return to the original article.
~ Why Writers Should Be Paid for Providing Web Content
If the writer has earned nothing, but the website or blog has earned money for a click, that is not very fair. Surely anyone writing and submitting articles online ought to receive a share of the revenue their articles have helped to earn.
Big news sites and corporate businesses pay for articles, and buy exclusive content to feature on their sites. It is time for all websites to pay writers for their work. If a website is to go on earning advertising revenue, it is only right to pay for the articles that keep drawing visitors to the site.
Learn more about this author, Ruth Belena.
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