by Jodee Redmond
Leads…
Good morning FWJ Friends! Here are your job leads for today.
As always, I hope you find something interesting on today’s list.
Telecommute
- Do You Love Sports? Do You Know the Web? Can You Write?
- Grant Writer
- Looking for Freelance Writers
- Writing Projects
- New Online Magazine Needs Writers
- English to Portuguese Translation Needed
- Business Plan Writer
- Reviewers/Writers for Web 2.0 Startup
- Survival by Storytelling Magazine Seeking Submissions
- Press Release Writer Needed
- Quiz Writer ($100 per quiz)
- Need a Feature Length Script
- Looking for Short Horror Scripts
- Grantwriting Guru Needed
- Experienced Blogger Needed
- Experienced Sales Content Writer Needed
- Freelance Writer with Jewelry Writing Experience Wanted
- Technology Startup Seeks Brochure & Website Re-writing
- Exceptional Writers Wanted
- Looking for Green Energy Freelance Writers ($0.06 per word)
- Freelance Design Blogger @ Hecta Media Inc.
Site Specific
- Freelance Multimedia Writer @ WUSA News Now - Washington, D.C.
- Business Writer Needed – Atlanta
- Freelance Copywriter – Austin
- Freelance Blogger for Chicago Real Estate Blog
- Technical Writer (Contract) – Minneapolis
- Pharma/Healthcare Copywriter - Manhattan
- Speech Writer Needed – Manhattan/Long Island
- Holiday Help Needed – Website Copywriter – Encinitas
- Writer for Real Estate Company – San Diego
- Microsoft Networking Expert to Write/Edit Online Course Content – Santa Cruz
- Nail Services Expert – Toronto
Internship
- NBC/Oxygen Looking for Interns – Winter/Spring Semester – New York (College Credit)
I am looking for a little advice. I have been wnating to start my own blog. My original thought was to get it going through WordPress and then use Goodgle Adsense to generate revenue. I just signed up to blog for Today.com and can blog on any topic I like.
Here are the terms: “Payment terms are $1 per post of 100+ words plus $0.002 per impression.”
I know that most blogs don’t generate much revenue, but this payment structure seems really low. I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea as to whether or not Googel Adsense (or any other revenue generator) would be better than these Today.com terms.
When Today.com first started out, they were paying all of their writers $5 per post. You had to accrue $50 before they would pay you. My blog was launched and for the next two weeks, I started building it up. By the end of the second week, I was up to 100 visitors per day on average. That same day, they sent a mass email out to all their writers stating that the pay was being dropped to $1 per post because blogs were not gaining enough traffic. I wasn’t willing to work for that little. The $5, while lower than I’d like, was a good deal because I was blogging on a topic near and dear to my heart so the posts were done quickly, within 10 – 15 minutes usually. I refused to post after that. I did receive my first paycheck, but when I stopped posting I had earned another $20. Sadly, I hadn’t accrued $50, so they never paid me the remaining balance.
At the time, they did require daily posting, even on weekends and holidays. They said they’d help promote your blog on their network and that never happened. All in all, I didn’t enjoy my time with them and feel bad that the 100 or so people that were reading my blog were then left high and dry.
I also signed up fort Today when they promised $5 a post and, like Ann, within 2 weeks was told that would be dropped to $1. They did nothing to promote my blog but started bugging me to add video as well. I dropped them.
Speaking of blogs, Pure Content recently contacted me about writing assignments for them. Does anyone have any experience with them. They emailed me today asking for 22 500 word book reviews at $6 per review. That seems incredibly low to me but I wanted others’ thoughts.
Hi Fiona:
Too low – mind you I always think book reviews are too low because I factor in the time it takes me to read the book. I have only had one book review that paid me what I was looking for – $75.00, $20.00/hr to read the book (which I pre-estimated at 2 hours) and the rest to write the review. Don’t sell your time short. At 6.00 per review that’s 3.00/hr to read the book (assuming it takes you 2 hours – more if it is longer) and nothing to write the review. No way Jose!
Though some bloggers are doing quite nicely for themselves, I think it’s important not to look at blogging as some kind of get rich quick scheme. One of my sites is a specialty site that’s been around for more than three years. Traffic is still in the 5-6,000 per month range and I’ve probably made no more than a few hundred in revenue. Of course, there may have been things I could have done to improve that.
Anyone else get a weird feeling with the New Online Mag? I don’t want to waste my time and it seems a bit off. If anyone disagrees please speak up. The content it right up my ally if it is legit.
Thanks for the job posts!!!
I wrote for Today.com and was paid well for awhile until, I am guessing, their money ran out.
I had the same problem with Today.com – couldn’t generate enough traffic quickly enough to meet their unreasonable expectations, and wasn’t willing to do if for $1 per post. Crazy talk!
@Jodee -Just as an FYI – The Job Listing “Looking for Freelance Writers” is an affiliate program. They ask you to submit your name and email address, and then it’s a paid list they want you to sign up for – not an actual job.
@Fiona. As a general rule, book reviewers do not get pay. I’ve been reviewing books for eight years and despite being on many sites and having quotes from my reviews on the covers of books, I’ve never made a penny doing a book review. I was accepted as a book reviewer at Publisher’s Weekly a few months back, but their terms were to do six non-paid reviews in their “training” before getting paid. I did the six and never heard another word from them. I had a feeling it would happen when my editor was laid-off shortly after he hired me.
The perks to book reviewing for me are simple. I get free books. I’ve met some incredible authors. I have hundreds of personally autographed books in my library and even more first edition hardcovers. I love reading, so I’ve saved a bundle reviewing books.
In general, book review sites are sent a box of books from the various publishers. In return for the free book, they’d like a review. Book review sites do not get money from a publisher or author, so any money they make comes from book sales or advertising. If a person reads your review and then buys the book in a local store rather than online through your Web site, you don’t gain a cent.
I know some magazines do pay, as do newspapers, but of all the online sites I’ve seen that promised pay, none ever came through.
Re: Looking for Freelance Writers
The job post is a scam. You have to enroll at Freelance Home Writers.com. It asks for your name and email before you even get to look at the site, so I bypassed that I did a search. Found that once you give them your name and email, they ask for $3 right off the bat to join and then state there is a $47 monthly membership fee to look at job postings.
I wanted to say the same things as Ann.G. Also the ‘Writing Projects’ ad that says ‘Write for Fortune 500 companies’ tries to sell you an ebook. We spend precious time crafting applications and compiling relevant samples only to find out that we could have spent that time working! Grrr…
As far as pure content. I signed up with them on two separate occasions. The first time they didn’t contact me back for a long time and by the time they did, I had too much work to take on such a low paying project, but what they wanted me to do was at $3 a post too.
The next time I contacted them was after an ad that is posted on here for poker writers at $20 a post. I contacted and again waited and waited and waited and they finally wanted me to start but at $10 a post. I considered that a bait and switch and didn’t bother to proceed. When I asked about it they said after the first few that we could discuss salary. No. The ad said $20 and then they offered half that. So I never bothered pursuing it further.
I have a legal question for anyone who might have experience in the copyright area.
If there is no specification of rights being sold and no signed contract, do the rights remain with the writer or are they transferred to the publisher? A lot of the work that I’ve done is web work that is pretty casual without contracts or any discussion of exclusivity, so I’m wondering if the onus is on the buyer to specify that they are paying for full rights or on the seller to state that he’s only selling first-time or limited rights. I’ve realized a lot of the articles I’ve done could be republished for some easy extra money and I have not specifically given the rights away, but don’t want to have any issues either.
I thought perhaps someone had more experience with this than I. Any info would be appreciated.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/wrg/907051796.html
seems like a scam – he just sent me an email saying he didn’t need any writers “right now” and pushed me to his website, where he’s selling his ebook for $47.
@ Ann G–$47! That’s outrageous. I doubt you’d make that back with their leads either. I applied for a different ad yesterday and definitely thought it sounded shady. I did a search and found out about the $2.95 but not the $47/mo. It’s always a great indicator when you do a Google search on the company name and Google’s intuitive feature types out “XX Company Scam”.
@ Ann – re. this book reviewing gig. I wouldn’t mind if I got free books but they’re not providing any. They just want random book reviews. Sounds very disorganized and unstructured.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/wrg/907136981.html
this one just wants to sign me up to a costly website. is this normal, or just a scam?
NEVER pay to get a job! I ran across that ad too. I read it, shook my head, and exited OUT. I get so tired of all the writing scams out there. And they are making money off of unwitting, honest people.
Fiona,
Just wanted to add to Ann’s comments re: book reviews. I haven’t done any for online publication but I have done reviews for three print publications that all paid me $25 per review. Two of the publications were in areas in which I buy books anyway so, like Ann, I am willing to take the low pay for the books. The other publication is well-respected in its field, and I accepted the pay for that because of both the books and the opportunity to list it on my resume.
In general, book reviewers don’t make big bucks – maybe big books –but not big bucks…
Hope that helps.
Paula
Does anyone know why the quiz writer post was flagged? Does anyone have details of what the post said that they would be willing to share?
Thanks for all your hard work Jodee!
@Fiona:
Hey if you don’t want that book reviewing job, please send them my way!
I don’t mind taking somewhat lower paying jobs when I know that I can get them done fast. I read about ten books a week so I know it wouldn’t take me long to do. So seriously, if you say no to them it would be a perfect gig for me. (Normally not this forward, but hey CHristmas is coming!)
Colleen
Hi Guys, I own purecontent.com and while reading some posts came across the discussion about our company. We are a very large buyer of content and in turn have lots of writers. My team work hard to make the writer experience as good as possible and I would like to apologise to James for any problems he has encountered. As you can imagine, dealing with a database of over 1000 writers is challenging and we are working to improve our processes to ensure you (the important guys) have a positive working relationship with us. With regards to different offers being made, our line is if a writer has made the effort to contact us and a particular job has gone, we offer them an alternative. In james’s case a smaller blog. We buy articles at varying rates depending on how much me can sell them for, just like any business. We appreciate that our work is not for all writers but please be rest assured if you work with us we are not here to rip you off or mislead you, we are a bonafide company who looks after their writers. I always look at it like an ebay rating, you may look at a trader and he has 1 piece of negative feedback but he has sold to over 5000 people. We have varying comments pop up from time to time and we like to deal with them so if James would like to mail me through http://www.purecontent.com I will deal with his questions personally.
Have a good day
David Hobart