Is it a new business model to empower writers or a new way of making money off of writers?
After 28 years in the business (my first bylined article was published while I was still in college) I’m ASSUMING the latter. I’m just cynical enough to look through jaundiced yellow glasses at anything that promises writers a way of doing business that actually works for writers.
God knows it’s not happening in our traditional markets. The facts of the matter are that newspapers and magazines are folding, rates for freelance writers have not budged for the ENTIRE time I’ve been working in this industry, and in some cases, they’ve actually gone down. Ad pages are down, which means editorial pages are down, which means work available to freelancers is down. Contracts have gotten more and more restrictive and editor-writer relations are, across the industry, at an all-time low.
I’m lucky — I have some regular markets and some editors who like me. As long as they stay employed, all is well and good. In the last year, I’ve done stories about hiking in South Africa, England, New Zealand, Colorado, and British Columbia, helicopter adventure travels in 10 different countries, iconic music cities, helicopter hiking, beaches in Massachusetts, beach hiking in the Hamptons, winter hiking in five locations nationwide, and a host of other topics I can’t even remember.
But I’ve been looking at the future, and from where I sit, it seems uncertain, especially in the current economic situation. So I’ve been researching websites that act as a sort of online repository: They get writers to submit articles, then pay them a royalty based on how many people view the articles and click on the ads. In a sense, it’s not that different from a traditional book publishing arrangement, except there isn’t an advance up front. Then again, with the speed of the Internet, articles earn money the minute they hit the ether. Or, at least, that’s the point.
So I’ve signed on for one, called www.Suite101.com.
Here’s the deal: You have to apply by sending writing samples and a resume. Suite101 claims 12 million readers (whatever that means) a month, and they ask writers to submit about one 400 – 600 word article a week. You give them a year’s Internet exclusive (you can still sell print rights). After a year, the stories stay on Suite101, but you can republish them on other Internet sites. You get paid monthly, based on clicks.
It seems like there are upsides and downsides, and sometimes the mirror has two faces.
Upside: If you adhere to the basic template, the editors basically leave you alone.
Downside: If you adhere to the basic template the editors basically leave you alone. As someone who has to edit and re-edit blog posts for typos 20 times even AFTER spell check, I really DO appreciate good editing. Or any editing. Suite101 expects you to come in clean.
Upside: You can write anything you want, and as long as it fits the template, everything is fine.
Downside: Anybody else can write whatever THEY want, including something on the same topic you’ve just written on. And if their work isn’t clean, or well-written, it drags down the level of the whole site.
But here”s the beauty of it: No query letters. Someone else deals with the ad people and the money. Someone else deals with the search engine optimization. Instead of having to build a site and an audience from scratch, you hook in immediately to a market of readers. And your writing becomes an income stream that pays off as long as it keeps earning eyeballs.
Don’t we writers often whine about how all we want to do is write? Don’t we say that we don’t want editors making us tailor our copy to their advertisers or demanding answers to questions we answered in our first draft?
True, the templates are extremely limiting. I write a lot of service stories (meaning stories that offer useful take-away information to the reader), and I usually prefer to write them in first and second person. Suite101 requires all third-person writing, although a quick look shows that some editors are stricter than others. It’s a challenge for me to write in an engaging non-passive third-person style, and not resort to tired (but grammatically correct) language and lazy answers: “There is …” “There are…” “If one want to do this, one should do that…”
But I can only be what I am, which is a writer. So I carefully edit, and spend more time than perhaps I should.
And here’s the fantastic great news: I LOVE to write. That’s the not-so-secret secret these sites know about us writers. If they give us the freedom to write — we will write. And write. And write.
I feel like I’ve been let out of jail: All of these stories are springing forth; I’ve got a list of 100 topics to hit in the next year or two. I wrote seven stories this week alone — stories on diving in Belize and sailing the Grenadines and skiing in the Berkshires…
I have no idea if my enthusiasm will hold, if this will take root, or if the financial return will be worth the work. Like a book, there’s an element of risk for the creator. But I am amassing a huge amount of material I can repurpose later, I’m writing what I want to write about, and there is an income stream involved.
The Internet has been a double-edged sword to creators. It has decimated the recording industry, shaken the copyright laws to their roots, and is now taking on newspapers and magazines. It would be nice to think that it offers the creators themselves some opportunities: To reach audiences without a middlemamn, to profit from their work.
I don’t know if this is the answer, but it might be part of an answer. I’m willing to write… and see.
Check out my page at http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/karenberger
