Is it time for all websites to pay writers for their articles?

Yes

5 of 21

by Mariam Nundu

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It's rather peculiar to think that any self respecting author, especially one who use websites such as Helium to publish his/her work, would be supporting the argument against payment for authors for their work by websites. Perhaps it is the oxymoron nature of this subject that attracted me to contribute to this debate.

It has been my experience that most self respecting authors write for the love of the craft. Writing is not easy and certainly not everyone is fond of it. Indeed to write an article well, to be able to convey whatever message one wishes to convey to the readers in a coherent and engaging manner is not a task to be taken lightly.

Those that are able to do so take pride in their work and rightly so. It is through these articulate and informative articles that many others are able to learn. The use of websites increases the number of individuals that could gain in some way from such articles.

Whether it's new knowledge gained such as learning how to do something or knowledge for entertainment purposes like a fictional story, for example, whatever the reader's needs may be he/she is able to find it with a click of the mouse.

Those that run such websites also benefit financially from the potentially high traffic to their sites, the main attraction for such traffic is obviously the quality of such articles and also the subject matter. To therefore rob the author of a percentage (no matter how small) of such earnings is unjust. Any job well done should be rewarded; writing is no different.

Furthermore, for most such websites, it is indeed the efforts of the authors to promote their work that indirectly promotes the sites in question. Thus, aside from the usual costs of setting and running a writing/publishing site, the task of promoting the site is shared, too, with the authors. Hence, for many Internet authors, the success of their work is not simply a matter of submitting quality articles to respectable sites, but also the extra tasks in promotion and marketing the author's name and/or work, which in turn benefits, too, the sites themselves.

This extra tasks that is inevitable in the Internet writing business (it's no wonder promotion/marketing tools such as Digg it, Stumbleupon and such play a vital role in Internet publishing), requires extra time, effort and can even be daunting for some author's, especially those new/unfamiliar with Internet publishing/writing. Therefore Internet authors contributions to the various Internet publishing sites goes beyond writing a quality article and hitting the submit button.

This extra efforts/tasks must, too, be addressed and rewarded by the sites whose growth is tied directly/indirectly to the authors full participation, i.e., writing, submitting quality material as well as promoting, marketing of said material, which in turn promotes, builds and benefits site as well as authors.

In most cases trying to decipher how much the actions of the author benefits the site or vice versa is as confusing as determining whether the chicken or the egg came first. This is because the relationship between the author and Internet sites are so inter-dependent that one needs the other and vice versa.

The current financial instability should make even those who only write for pleasure or those who are apparently unconcerned with earning from their articles, aware of the potential income that they can generate for doing what they love. Isn't every man's dream to do what he loves and earn from it? Granted earning from websites even for the most prolific of authors may not yield large sums of money. However publishing articles on website (or elsewhere) has the benefit of longevity.

In other words, articles that are available to the public via websites and so on can continue to earn years after the article was published. Similarly to other creative formats like music, the artist continues to earn every time someone buys or requests his/her songs/album. Of course this will be depending on any legal/contractual obligation between the involved parties.

Therefore, no matter how little the earnings may be from any website to the author, the accumulative potential of such earnings could come to a sizable sum. Paying authors for good articles will also benefit the quality of the material written and published. Thus indirectly raising the general literacy standards. It's a win-win situation.

Learn more about this author, Mariam Nundu.
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