by Elaine Sihera

Created on: July 01, 2007   Last Updated: August 10, 2009

Yes, it is time, because the Internet has evolved rapidly into a global marketplace and, as in any commercial environment, services are usually paid for, otherwise it is simple exploitation. There will always be openings for new writers and those who need to develop their art. That is not a problem. The main issue is with experienced writers whose work is mainly accepted 'for publicity' mainly while a growing number of websites are making money from their work. Having a wider audience might help when you are new to writing, but when you are already a professional writer, your skills and expertise should be rewarded, as in any other job. My personal story shows why writers deserve much more from websites.

I joined the Ezine article site in January hoping for some publicity to my handful of articles. Not being sure what to expect, or how my offerings would be appreciated, I aimed to write a few items each week to develop my profile and improve my art. it has been quite a learning curve watching the growth of my audience and the unexpected exploitation in the process.

Five months on, the number of my articles runs into hundreds, and my page-per-view total has shot up dramatically to nearly 60,000 during that time, double that of most other writers on the site. Most interesting of all, is that my articles have been freely taken, to date, more than 2100 times by other ezines. I have worked out that if all of those ezines pay me just one cent per article per month, I would make a minimum of $25 regularly, pay 10 cents and we would be talking big money at $250 per month, which would do a hell of a lot to keep my motivation going and put food on the table!

$25 might not be a great deal but every little helps, especially when most of those websites are created mainly to take free articles and use them to maintain a constant income through Google Adsense. That is purely exploiting the author, never mind the publicity. There is a point at which publicity becomes meaningless if it is not carrying any payoff and should give way to tangible payments, especially for expert authors. I believe I hit that point ages ago. Back in January, publicity seemed a great idea because there weren't too many ezines taking free articles (only 34 I counted then). Now, with Adsense on the loose, everyone wants to make a living off writers through their articles while the authors, who are using up all the elbow grease to get those articles out, get nothing. Ezines should now be required to share all revenues with the authors they use, no matter the percentage, as some websites are slowly beginning to do. And if Helium can do it, everyone else should do that too.

It is no longer a small matter because I unexpectedly went into a website which was full of adverts yet which boasted no fewer that 40 of my articles! That might be flattering in one sense but deeply worrying, in another. Time for us authors to stand up and be counted now and stop the growing exploitation which is clearly wrong.

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