Arts & Humanities >
Marketing & Selling Writing
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedIs it time for all websites to pay writers for their articles?
Results so far:
| No | 20% | 178 votes | Total: 874 votes | |
| Yes | 80% | 696 votes |
No
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesHelium 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.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Yes
Communications, entertainment, and web-based information platforms have finally evolved to a level of sophistication where free web based content has overstayed its welcome. For a decade now, free content information has been an important component in the evolution of web-based services. In fact the Internet is strung together by countless numbers of websites that feature free information derived mostly from the labor of webmasters and article writers.
Those days are over. The end of the writer's strike has opened the gates to a new era, an era where a writer can, and should, be compensated for their work. Webmasters have struggled for years now to find content in the form of articles that generate interest and therefore, traffic as a way to earn money or deliver useful information. Now there is hope that the writer's domain has finally been expanded to include the open spaces of the Internet frontier.
Google can take a large share of responsibility for this when it created Adsense, those all too familiar and irksome "Ads by Google" that clutter up the precious reading space on most WebPages. Adsense and its companion have provided created websites with a way to earn money by clicking on a three line advertisement that will wisk you away to some other website of interest. Along the way, the website and Google exchange currency for clicks.
Website content is king, yet for years the writers that have created the content have had to settle for adding a byline with an invitation to visit their own particular website where they hope to earn a pittance from Google's scheme. The profits have been appalling at best. As is typical in a free market system, those with the tools earn the money, while the miners keep buying tools and moving tons of earth that yields only a few flakes of shiny stuff. Most writers have found that you can chase your dream on the internet, but you shouldn't quit your day job.
Blogs and social networking sites are the two of the latest examples digital communications evolution. On these sites everyone gets to express themselves, although most go unnoticed unless they contain some form of sex and rock & roll. A few interesting niches have peaked only to fade from the public eye after only a few months. Bloggers have been left to wonder if any of it is worthwhile, while being bombarded with new schemes and opportunities to get rich with another Search Engine Optimization tool or article spinning tool. But times, they are a changin'.
Writers are professional word and story masters that deliver quality content in whatever format the information marketplace demands. They possess creativity and insight accompanied by an innate skill to weave subject, object and verb into meaningful phrases called paragraphs that are structured in interesting and entertaining ways. They know how to convey information, create interest, amuse, suspend belief, humor, and even counsel and terrify. Writers deserve compensation for their skills and the product of their gift to write for the rest of us less talented, obtuse folk.
The demand for intelligent writers is significant, yet there is little economic growth in the industry. The fortunate ones are still the novelists, the journalists, the short-story conveyors, and the editors that can make or break a career. Digital communications have caught on to the need for technology such as the Amazon Kindle, which can deliver thousands of digital books. Video and music have already made their way to the pocket of millions, mostly from the younger generation. Royalties are being paid and only the new creationists, a.k.a. writers, remain to be included in the revolution.
Free market forces will ultimately determine the economic future of a writer's profession. Compensation today is driven by supply and demand, with too much free supply for a growing demand. In a brave new world, writers will not be paid two cents a word for a 700 word article. Quality content will always be king, and a highly skilled writer will be the king maker, with a nice income to prove it.
Learn more about this author, Francis Jock.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Marketing & Selling Writing
- Is Publish America a legitimate publisher?
- Should you sign with a legitimate book publisher or self-publish?
