by Eden Gardner

Created on: May 28, 2009   Last Updated: June 05, 2009

For the purpose of this article, I will be particularly discussing how to detect and avoid internet writing scams; which is fairly simple: Do not pay ANYONE for contests, submissions, manuscript reading, etc. In addition, never believe in online sites that promise payment for your articles. You will most likely lose the copyrights to your work, and they very rarely pay out for your time and talent.

Many of these sites will contain ratings, qualities and/or stars, which allow you to earn your money by submitting long-worked articles for very little earnings. If you happen upon a website containing publishers wishing to hire you for your super writing talents, working from home or earning money for your hard work, avoid these sites at all cost. There will be the occasional success story, but most of the time, you will be writing to promote others to profit from your work, and you will earn a mere $0.62 for your labor. Do not think this is a lucrative opportunity in which you will eventually obtain enough ratings to earn more. It's a freebee market; you doing the writing, while others are taking you for granted and keeping the rights to your best work. More disturbing, the so-called success stories that you will hear from board members are usually the result of the bonuses they receive for telling you about their "success." This takes only five-fifteen minutes; about the standard time for an article. In other words, you're being duped.

ALWAYS read the fine print; the agreement you're forced to sign before you become a victim to any website, is where the real hilarity begins. Most people (like me) skip over these agreements, eager to produce their first brilliant article and begin getting paid. I can tell you right now, it's a scam. Read carefully. They are making you sign the rights of your work to them permanently, to receive money for those articles for years to come, while you struggle as a writer trying to make ends-meat. Do read the User's Agreement and I'm sure you'll be quite surprised. If you won't believe me, log in to your favorite online writing forum. You can also Google or Yahoo existing complaints regarding these websites. I guarantee you'll believe by the time your research is complete. At the very least, you'll be skeptical before submitting your next article; which is a start.

Many claim to have done research on these writing for profit websites and claim to have found nothing amiss. Read the web now. I'm sure you'll find plenty of the same

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