With the great content mill debate still fresh on my mind yesterday, I followed links left behind on Writers Weekly to see what the temperature was among writers across the Web.
While there were a number of “Love (insert content mill name)!” posts, there was a groundswell of posts expressing comments like “fed up” or “ridiculous” to describe their experiences and overall feelings about working for pennies for these places. I read many (not all) comments and saw a trend – even writers who aren’t interested in putting time into building their client bases are turning their backs on content mills. If you’re one of them and you’ve stumbled upon this site looking for help building a credible career, welcome. We’re thrilled to have you.
The old argument I keep hearing from writers across the board (and in private forums I belong to) is that my notion of working for newspapers is outdated and no better than working for content mills. Uh, how do you figure?
First, you have a credible news source. Newspapers are almost always run by larger publishing groups. Content mills are run by business people wanting to maximize profits, minimize costs.
Newspapers have staff editors who earned their jobs through education or career advancement. Content mills that have editors have ones that are business people or contractors who are paid roughly the same as their contributors. One will give you editorial oversight. The other will give you fits.
Newspapers print relevant, original copy that connects the community with its readership. Content mills print whatever they happen to think is the hot issue du jour, and if it’s rewritten from some other content, so be it.
Newspapers are connected to credible wire services that pick up and redistribute articles (and writers’ names). Content mills are connected to their own sites, loaded with advertisements, and they redistribute articles in order to grow their own profits (your name or not on them).
Newspapers pay low wages. Likewise, content mills. The difference is after a while, newspapers will give you a raise (I received two). Content mill prices vary, but usually downward. Remember, the idea is for the owners to maximize profit, minimize costs.
Newspapers give you usable, published clips. Content mills give you scores of churned-out content that employers see as proof you don’t value your career.
While newspaper jobs have disappeared, there’s still a need for correspondents (stringers, as they’re also known) to work on a contract basis. Or hey, there’s always gaining a foothold in the magazine industry by writing for lower-paying markets. Even the lowest-paying magazine market I ever worked for paid me ten cents a word. It takes just a few articles in credible publications to build a solid resume and move up the food chain. For those working for the content mills, they’ll be there a long while, churning out content, before they realize there’s no real career advancement possible in killing yourself for chump change.
Where are some of the places you started? How much better did they pay than content mills?
I started out ten years ago doing a regular local newspaper column for 10 cents a word. Got some magazine gigs for 10 to 25 cents a word. Within a year, after getting fed up with the whole query letter system, I realized the real money was in sales copy, and began networking with local businesses to write their brochures, web copy, etc. I started at $50/hour (but priced by the job). I found the ROI on my time finding work was much better going the copywriting route than editorial writing.
I started my freelance writing career by writing for a local alternative paper. It didn't pay great, I think you got $75 for a 500 word article, but I got good exposure and got to interview some pretty famous musicians. You won't get to do that writing for content mills.
Hi Lori,
I worked for a newspaper that kept lowering its rate as well. I left when they asked me if I would write each week for free. I took a $20 per article content writing job to pick up the slack.
I worked in publishing for twelve years. The company I worked for doesn't exist anymore. It didn't have any more money to pay staff and freelancers.
The New York Times just announced major layoffs and Conde Nast just folded a couple of magazines. I agree that chances for advancement are higher with other markets, but the world of print isn't always reliable. Not that it isn't more prestigious but in this day and age we can't say one form of writing is a better option than another. I'm all for seeking out higher paying options, and encourage writers to do so every day.
I'm not saying everyone should write for content mills, but to lump them all together is like lumping all print markets together. They're all different. I'm also not saying everyone should work for low pay or that they should aspire to reach the stars – just that there are good options and not so good options. All freelancers should weigh their options very carefully.
My biggest issue is with those who say content writers have no self respect or aren't credible. This simply isn't true. Last month I met journalists, educators, and even a couple Ph.ds who are using a content site to supplement their income after being laid off from their full time jobs. They need to pay their bills, who am I to tell them they're wrong?
And, also, contrary to popular belief, I don't think everyone should write content and I don't think everyone should write content forever. I think it's a good stepping stone or a way to supplement the income. I've always encouraged writers to do better and to go for the gold. I just don't knock them for their choices.
I received an email yesterday from a $15 per hour copywriter who left his job because he earned more writing content (after all his deductions) than he did with his full time job after all taxes and deductions.
I think we can argue back and forth over what is better, but times have changed and I think there's nothing wrong with finding new opportunities – even if some of them are content.
Eileen, that's maximizing ROI in the best way! Great to hear. 🙂
Chantal, to me it's the difference between a credible source and one that has a reputation for volume and not necessarily quality. $75 is still decent for that small a word count, and now you have a published clip that's worth something!
Deb, I stand by my opinion that these are not credible sources for the writer wanting to build and advance a career. And my biggest fear is already coming to fruition – employers are seeing the insanely low wages attached to content mill jobs and lowering their real-time rates to match. It's causing a real impact on the profession – one that affects all of us whether we write for content mills or not.
I’m going to agree with Deb on one point. All freelancers do need to weigh their options carefully and come up with their own decisions. I can talk until I’m blue in the face and I won’t be able to change some people’s minds.
I do, however, believe that in order for a person to make an educated decision on which path to go, they should know all the facts and what their options are. The good and the bad of any situation.
I’ve stayed out of the arguments before, because I didn’t want to damage the reputation and credibility I’ve worked hard to build back up. Yes, it was a content mill type job that hurt me as someone trying to break into web writing. I’m a recovering Keyword stuffer. Need I say more about that? LOL!(No, it was not DS. It was a fly by night business that isn’t around anymore)
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until recently that my blood started to boil and I blew. Nothing irritates me more about this situation then people over-dramatizing this job. I wrote on some other blog, that I’m going to scream if I see one more person say something like, “I love this job, because I get to work from home.”
I’m all for working from home, but it should be viewed as a location and not some huge benefit. I get the idea that some people will do any job simply because of the work from home aspect of it. It’s that thinking that hurts the telecommuting industry. But I won’t get into all that now.
So, I think that any opportunity someone is deciding whether or not to get into; should be presented to them as simple facts on both the good and bad sides of it. If they pay $15 an article, then state that. I don’t see why people push the “I can make $30 an hour doing this job!”, when not everyone is capable of creating enough articles an hour to do the same.
My list of things I don’t like about DS, or any other content mill places, go on and on and on, but my comments are long enough for now.
Repeating myself yet again, more and more employers who actually respect writers and pay them a fair wage are tossing out the resumes of job applicants who work for content mill sites or use clips from said sites because prior past experience with like writers taught them they can't deliver the goods. In the past three months, it's come up more than in the past few years.
I still stand by what I've said over and over again: If you're good enough and motivated enough to be paid a living wage, you go after the jobs and you get them.
Some print publications will continue to cut staffs and rates and still lose business because the overall quality goes down and readership falls away. And they'll go out of business. As they should. I've dumped several publications to which I had subscriptions because the quality's gone down so badly — you can tell where they made cuts — in paying qualified writers, so they're getting writers who aren't as good, aren't as engaging, and, instead of copy editors, they're simply running articles through Spell Check. That's not where I choose to spend MY money.
New publications will eventually rise out of the ashes, and the ones with long term vision will pay appropriately, survive and thrive. It'll be a 10-15 year cycle, but it will happen. If you look over the cycles of both newspapers and magazines, you'll see the various cycles throughout history.
I started working — for pay — on local papers when I was still in high school. I've worked in publishing. I've worked for foundations and in development departments of museums and for a wide range of publications from start-ups to well-established slicks. I've worked for small businesses and historical societies and rescue organizations.
The ones who stick around understand the concept of quality and a FAIR day's pay for a fair day's work. That's how they build their business. They are aware that, when they hire in someone else's skill, that skill is WORTH something, and when everyone is paid fairly, and the bills are getting paid and no one feels taken advantage of, that spills over into quality and something that engages and entices customers, which in turn, builds the business, and everyone continues to thrive.
I experience this on a daily basis.
But then, although I do work from a home office, I get off my duff and go out there, hunting down the good jobs. And getting them.
My first writing job was for a small local paper. This was nearly 20 year ago (egads!) and they paid $50 per article and $25 for short fillers. The clips I amassed there were good enough to get me into some national magazines, which helped form the basis of my career.
While large bloated dailies are slashing budgets and staffs in order to stay alive (or folding completely), small locals and weeklies are still hanging on. They crave original content that sets them apart – and above – struggling dailies who rely on cheaper wire service stories to fill pages once dominated by local human interest stories.
I always tell beginning writers to look at local papers as a means to gaining respectable clips. The problem now is that younger writers tend to view print pubs as dinosaurs, so anything online is somehow superior. They need to look consider the quality and reputation of any publication – print or online – because that means more than whatever format it is.
If I were a beginner, I'd rather be paid $25 for a solid feature in a local newspaper than have to crank out content for $15 of $20 a shot. (Once again, I will admit that as low as they pay, at least DS lets contributors know how much their efforts are worth. Some other content mills have vague pay scales that often mean a writer never gets paid.)
Wendy, couldn't agree more. I work from home. I work HARD. I make a lot more money than anyone working for a content site will. And it's because, as Devon said and repeated (she's the mirror image of me in this debate), I put the hard work and time into finding a better quality of clientele.
And working from home = quarterly taxes, no benefits, no perks, no office parties (we could also list that in the plus column, lol), no insurance, etc. We get to work in our slippers, but we pay for that privilege!
I'm sorry you were burned. I'm glad you're here now. 🙂 I'd love to hear more about that. What was the experience? How was it that you were marginalized (if you were) as a result?
Devon, exactly right. Publishing is unstable, but it's not disappeared. And frankly, the work is there if you're willing to get proactive. We as writers have the choice to do a passive job search – Craig's List and anyone offering a quick buck – or build a solid plan that lands us better jobs.
Paula, the younger set may think they deserve higher-paying jobs instantly. How misinformed youth are. 😉 Even newspapers have online pubs – no reason why they don't still need content!
Here's an idea. I haven't pursued it, and I'm not sure I will. So, let's call it a "thought experiment", instead.
We all know that the content mills have no pretensions of journalism. They have a business model for driving traffic to their sites so they can make a profit off advertising revenues or other sources of revenue if they are imaginative. The content that they are selling is hits and page visits, not information and certainly not journalism.
That being the case, does it really matter who pays the writer? What's to prevent a writer from finding a corporate, not-for-profit or government client to pay them to write articles for content mills? Think of it as writing news releases, only with better writing.
If you did this for a newspaper or magazine, it would be seen as a conflict of interest. But that's because newspapers and magazines aspire to journalistic or editorial principles. Content mills do not. It's just business. If it were me, I think I'd like to clear it with the content mill "editors" first, making sure they're okay with a writer paid by both the source and the publisher. I bet they wouldn't have a problem with it. They might even admire the writer's entrepreneurial initiative. The pittance earned through the content mill could be seen as residual, kind of like a tip, or the writer if feeling guilty could decide to decline the payment from the publisher. I don't think I would fault a writer who didn't clear it with the content mill publisher. It's just business.
Since the content mill publisher knows the stories have received the approval of their sources, they don't need to worry about threats of lawsuits. Besides, do you really think that the most cautious contributors don't already solicit the approval of their sources or collude with them to produce their content as quickly and cheaply as possible?
Ah, but what about the writer's reputation? Sure, if you think you're supposed to list the work under "journalism experience" in your resume or portfolio. But it's not journalism, even if the writer is only being paid by the content mill and no one else. It's corporate writing, either way.
You’ll get paid $2 for this 1,000 word article and it will take you at least 5 days to do it, but that’s okay, because you get to work from home!! Yeah, right. Give me a break.
The keyword stuffing job is a long story, but basically, I couldn’t take the stress of pounding out numerous articles with enormous amounts of keywords. I ended up being a grumbling, griping and growling grouch. The quality of what I was writing suffered. Okay, it was crap. But, amazingly, every one I wrote passed through their “rigorous” editing process. Imagine that.
I tried to get other jobs, but because I used the stuffing job as experience; I wasn’t given the chance to prove myself. So, I took on more low-paying jobs, which were just as bad as the stuffing job. Until, one day, I came across a potential client, through networking. They were willing to give me a chance. They just needed to see some clips to get a feel for my style. They also specified that they didn’t want any links to AC.
I wanted this gig so bad. I didn’t tell them about the keyword stuffing job; nor was I going to use any of the crap articles, I had written up to that point, as samples. So, I pulled an all nighter and concocted my own articles and sent them clips of them. In the end, they purchased the articles (after I told them that they hadn’t been published before) and they hired me. They sent other clients my way as time went on and they also gave me a lot of tips and advice as well.
Granted it’s not an approach that would work for everyone, but, then again, how do you know, if you don’t try. I took the risk and it paid off. I still have a way to go, but at least I’m going in the right direction and have transformed my growls into grins. So, keyword stuffing content mill sites- put that in your sock and stuff it!
Darrell, these sites ARE positioning themselves as journalistic pursuits. They call for writers to write articles. They call the articles "published clips" and they call their own overseers "editors." In that respect, they are pretending at journalism. Mind you, that's the writer-facing model. The client-facing model, who knows how they're framing it? That would be site-dependent.
Nothing stops writers from taking these jobs. But I object to the often-sleazy tactics – the promises of big bucks, of exposure, of clips, all for a few dollars and a ton of work. And news releases with better writing? Are you kidding? News releases are targeted pieces using very specific wording and industry terminology to capture a targeted audience (I bet you're wishing right now you'd chosen a different example! LOL). MUCH better writing than the average content mill article.
I agree with you strongly on one point – this is certainly NOT journalism. But it's something much worse. Hear me out.
About reselling a corporate client's article, you said, "I think I'd like to clear it with the content mill 'editors' first, making sure they're okay with a writer paid by both the source and the publisher. I bet they wouldn't have a problem with it. They might even admire the writer's entrepreneurial initiative."
And I'd bet they wouldn't even mind the writer's unethical behavior, even if the writer considers himself a business person INSTEAD of a writer. Taking a company's intellectual property (the article in question here) and reselling what ISN'T the writer's property to a content mill? Yea, that's so many ways not cool. And it's grounds for all sorts of legal action against the writer by said company – copyright infringement, breach of contract, theft of intellectual property, trade secrets theft…..
And there again is another issue surrounding content mills – if this type of thinking exists, it's illegal behavior run rampant. No way can you take another writer's – or another company's – property and resell it without owning the right to do so. When I'm paid by a corporate to write an article, that payment is for me to produce THEIR product and to hand it over to them in its entirety – not to sneak off to a content mill and breach my contract with them just to make an extra five bucks.
Also, corporates are not going to target a content mill even if you did do the right thing and attempted to convince them to let you do so. They're aiming much, much higher. The corporates I work for want press, but in credible publications, usually industry-specific ones. They're not interested in their article showing up on the Internet. It has to show up where their audience is. Their audience members are not cruising content mill sites. They're cruising industry magazines and journals, which by the way pay $1/word for the writer.
The real problem I see with this, Darrell, is not where to list this under my resume subheads, but why theft is now being framed as reselling. The reputation is surely going south, but not because the writer chose to work for a content mill – because the writer chose to steal copy in order to make a little more money.
You know, my freelance writing has been put on hold for a few years, and looking back and seeing articles like yours and on "Writer's Weekly," I don't really think that is a bad thing. Various things have kept me from my freelancing, but one of those factors was, indeed, these content mills. Is it better to have a questionable byline at crummy pay on an obnoxious site, or to take the time out that I've needed to concentrate on other things?
Thanks. This is a great blog. I found you via Writer's Weekly.
Jennifer Moore
JenniferLynn Productions, LLC
I agree with everything Deb said. Can't lump 'em together. When people ask what I do.. "Writer…" they immediately assume it's book and magazines. Few writers will profit from books in terms of money — books help boost reputation.
Sure, the papers are shrinkin' and pubs closin' — but many writers still succeed as full-timers.
I am busier than I have ever been in my life in my home office career. When I worked in the corporate world, there'd be slow days and I could catch up on many things. Not so anymore.
Like Lori says — despite quarterly taxes, no benefits, no paid vacations (I'm a mean boss to myself) — I LOVE what I do. Best job ever.
I think successful writers are more than writers today (except those best-selling authors who can just write and do nothing else). We market. We network. We manage business. We must stay updated on the current trends to keep on staying successful.
I've rambled enough… I think you the gist. Thanks for a great discussion, Lori.
Wendy, thank you for sharing your experience. I think it falls on deaf ears for us to say "It will harm your career." It takes the words of someone who's been there saying "It harmed my career" before anyone seems to take notice.
Jennifer, welcome! I hope you subscribe to the feed here and drop in often. I love having new peeps in the house. 🙂
Welcome to you as well, Meryl! Glad to have another voice and another opinion join the discussion. 🙂
You brought up great points. We DO work hard at our careers. So why not put that hard work toward higher-paying pursuits, I say? I have. There was a time last year (tax time, ugh!) when I held up two 1099s. One was from a publication that paid me 10 cents a word (this was my "break into the industry" gig). The other from a publication that paid $1 a word. I wrote more for Pub A (stupidly – stop at one article!) and more words per article than for Pub B. The difference? 1099 number 1 was for $1,350. 1099 number 2 was for $12,377.
It was my wake-up call.
I sense that many writers consider taking a writing assignment from a PR agency or corporate marketing branch to be demeaning and sleazy, and something to be avoided even if it pays better than editorial. Nonetheless, let me pursue this a bit further, with regard to content mills.
Content mills might very well promote themselves to prospective writers as journalism, but I would consider that to be nothing more than marketing hype, sales puffery. In any event I was not referring to the task of writing for them as journalism, but rather to the content of the sites. As Marshall McLuhan famously pointed out nearly half a century ago, the content of a particular medium is not the words it delivers to its audience, but rather the audience it delivers to its advertisers. For content mills, the audience can be inferred from page views and click throughs. Quality has nothing to do with it.
Now, I can't believe that there are not already corporations or advocates for some cause or another or staffers of some agency somewhere who are not churning out material on behalf of their employers or clients. And it wouldn't surprise me to discover that at least some of this material is making its way to content mills. To begin with, there's nothing any client or corporation would love more than to see their news releases used without modification. I doubt anyone would consider publishing a news release as plagiarism. They might have other words to describe a publication that runs news releases with little editing or independent research. Among more disparaging terms, they might even describe them as "small town weekly newspapers", "free community newspapers" or "cable news." I would be hard pressed to describe that practice as "illegal", however.
To take that one step further, an enterprising employer, let's say a local tourism authority or non-profit community group (because I know that most of you are imagining nefarious multinationals promoting highly politicized agendas), might assign one of its staff to write regular pieces about the community and push those out to the content mills. Of course, it would be a waste of resources not to distribute those canned articles further, say to weekly newspapers and cable outlets, but the content mills do present a tantalizing new medium to the mix. If they don't have a suitable staffer, they might consider contracting the work to a freelancer. That's not exactly illegal. More traditional media might run these items unaltered on their op-ed pages or they might publish the author as a regular columnist writing on behalf of their organization, say as a weekly tourism or business column. The problem then is how the story and author are represented, not the medium in which the story is published. Still, that's not illegal.
These are the kinds of problems that content mills invite, as writers-as-entrepreneurs are forced to seek out novel approaches to squeeze a livable income from their work. As traditional media continue to force staffers into contract positions at ever lower rates of compensation, these problems won't be limited to content mills.
Darrell, your initial assumption is incorrect. PR agency work and corporate marketing work is not "sleazy" work. I write for a number of companies – everything from internal newsletters to press releases.
You're correct. Circulating a news release is not plagiarism. These are pieces designed to be circulated. However, your initial post suggested taking articles and placing them in circulation on content mills. Much different.
While there is nothing wrong with circulating press releases anywhere and everywhere, you can't do that without your client knowing. You as the writer do not control the piece. Companies are very particular where their news shows up. With the clients I've worked with, I'd be out of work in a heartbeat if I took it upon myself to place their releases on content mill sites.
I'll say it even more plainly – content mills are not looked upon as trustworthy sources. No company with an ounce of sense is going to align itself with that sort of image. I can poll my current clients and ask them if you like, but I already know the answer.
There's no need to use content mills as circulation points when there are so many outlets already designed for press release circulation – PRN Media, BusinessWire, MediaBistro, etc., etc…. These are reliable, trusted media outlets.
There's that word again – trusted.
I'm a bit late to this party, but I have a few things to say.
First of all, I do agree with Deb on one point — that all writeers need to weigh their options carefully and make their own decisions.
I personally found that the content mill I used to write for paid better than the newspaper gig I had around the same time. Of course, there are two caveats: 1) As Lori said, the clips aren't that great, and 2) Times have changed, and it's extremely rare any more to find a content mill paying $15-$25 for a simple article (what I got when I started out). This one we've been discussing requires way too much extra work to make it worthwhile.
I do feel that in our discussion, there needs to be more differentiation between content and content mills. I think much of Deb's arguments (about lack of respect for content writers) have to do with the two being confused. I write content directly for clients and receive good pay and respectable clips. To lump writers who do this in with those who write for content mills is a mistake, in my opinion.
Hi Katharine!
I agree totally. There's web content writing, and there's content mill writing. I write for the former, not the latter. I make good money at it, too.
You're totally correct. They are two separate entities.