Don’t forget to stop by Twitter today at 9 am PT/Noon ET for Anne’s and my free tweet-up chat. Using whatever Twitter reader you have, create a new column (I use TweetDeck) and use the #writingsquared hashtag to participate and post. Easy peasy.
I received an “offer” in email a few days ago. Instead of explaining it, let me just paste it below:
Dear Lori.
We want to reach out and share information about the Technorati Technology and Blogging Channels. We are specifically reaching out to technology writers/bloggers who may be interested in contributing articles to this area. The posts can be anything related to technology, including: trending news, technology/gadget/app reviews, opinion pieces, commentaries, and anything related to the technology industry.
To get signed up to contribute, simply complete this interest form by clicking here(link removed). We’ll rush your approval within a few hours and get you set up to begin publishing on the site.
Additional benefits to writing with Technorati:
• Millions of pageviews per month.
• Articles can be cross posted on your personal site/blog after launching on Technorati.
• Monetize your articles through AdSense.
• Work with a seasoned editorial team.
• Most important – have fun, showcase your work and be part of a fantastic community/site!
We certainly hope you will consider writing with us.
Respectfully,
Jill Asher
Publisher, Technorati and Blogcritics.org
While I use Technorati, I will not be taking advantage of their special offer. If I did, I’d be allowing them to take advantage of my skills without payment.
To me, it feels a bit like Technorati is coming late to the dance and trying to capitalize on a bad idea. Let me rephrase – they’re using Huffington Post’s nouveau-unpopular idea of not paying writers but offering them “exposure” and they’re doing so hot on the heels of those writers suing and causing a media uproar over their own late reaction to being used.
One difference I see – Technorati allows you to get all the AdSense traffic your little heart can imagine. While I don’t know how much “monetizing” that amounts to, I still prefer an actual check from the buyer rather than rely solely on the clicks of a reader.
Beyond that only hint of possible payment (and note that it’s not any guarantee you’ll get anything at all), the rest of the ad mimics all those offers for “exposure” and “traffic” and all those other favorite buzz words that attempt to mask the obvious – they’re not paying.
Just because he’s wearing a belt doesn’t mean the Emperor isn’t still buck naked.
Writers, have you ever worked for ad revenue? How did that work? What would you do differently? Would you ever consider working for ad revenue? If so, what would have to be in place first?
19 responses to “If It Didn’t Work With Huffington….”
Wow, they already know you're going to get "millions of pageviews" per month. Impressive. But, my favorite one is the "work with a seasoned editorial team". Does it get any better than that?
LOL!You're going to jump on this right? You can't miss out on the chance to be a part of a fantastic community! Wait, you already are…
I'm not a flasher; I don't need "exposure."
I need to pay my bills.
I'll miss your Tweet session — I'm taking company to the tip of the Cape today, since we FINALLY have some sunshine! Best wishes for a wonderful session!
PS — I do not work for ad revenue. I don't work on "maybe someday" vague payments. I either work for a select handful of pro bono clients because I'm passionate about their mission, or I get paid for my work appropriately.
Wendy, maybe by "seasoned" they mean they've eaten too many hot wings….
I plan to miss out on this fabulous opportunity. Doggone, it was so special, but I realized I had planned to do something the rest of my career. Like earning. 😉
Devon, sorry you can't make the tweet up! We'll have more.
Like you, I rather expect real payments as opposed to phantom ad revenue. I'm quirky that way. 🙂
Years ago I posted some of my articles on sites tghat promised ad revenue for my earnings. I never went beyond 5-6 articles before I stopped and the main reason was that many of them encouraged me to "promote" each article. I preferred a cash payment for my work.
So, you got ad revenue, but you had to do the promotion? Wow. That's probably the worst deal I've heard of, Damaria! Good for you to see through it. Funny how those offers back then seemed so cool, but in hindsight turned out to be duds. 🙂
Hi Lori: Early in my freelancing career, I looked at ad revenue jobs, but never did them. All the ones I saw were like Damaria's experience of them telling you to promote the articles. I found the whole scenario not worth my effort.
Some publishers who state per-word or per-article pay rates want to change that to ad-revenue-based pay when their cashflow is slow. (Had someone try that excuse on me this week.)
Hmmm, why exactly would your advertiser's failure to pay for their ads – for a different issue, no doubt – impact your legal and moral obligation to pay the agreed upon rate for work you've already published? Care to explain that to my attorney?
Too much Hot Wings! LOL! Maybe they should lay off the tobasco "Sass".
I've had revenue share work… about.com does it that way… or they did, not sure now. A base plus revenue share. That made sense.
I got the same offer from technocrati and if I take it it will go under marketing for me… and I'll do it for that reason alone… if I made an extra cash nickle I'd be surprised… and it might be worth it for page views.
But probably better to do a guest post here 😉
That's exactly what I do- but I do it on my own sites! Squidoo and Hubpages are fairly reliable, but even they aren't immune to the sudden payout structure changes that almost always bode ill for the payee.
Given that these places almost always believe that all traffic is equal, and don't understand strategic ad placement, earnings are usually abysmal. Remember Today.com? "We'll pay you $2 per post… I mean, $1 per post… I mean, $0.01 for every 5 page views… I mean, hey, we sold our domain to the Today show, sorry!"
Cathy, I did that same looking. And I was skeptical. Good thing. They were awful jobs. You're right – not worth the effort.
Paula, that's insane! If that happened to me, I'd be gone. In fact, I did have that happen once, only it was much weirder. The client owed me $2,500 roundabouts. After leaning on him for three months, he finally called. The reason wasn't to apologize or tell me the money was on the way, but to offer me a place in his affiliate program. I was given the "opportunity" to sell HIS products and get minimal profit. Fine, but the kicker – he was offering me a REDUCED buy-in rate! Huh? I had to pay to sell his stupid products! When he said I could get in for $500, which he claimed was much lower than the $2,000 rate, I said no, hung up, and sent my last invoice to him with litigation notice attached. He paid and never darkened my doorstep again.
Sass! LOL That's it, Wendy. 🙂
You're brave to try it, Anne. Let me know how it goes, but I'm not confident it's anything more than a waste.
Wordvixen, if you're in control of it, it works. If you're being dictated the terms by a stranger, it works for THEM. As you pointed out, there are places that change their minds as much as they like and it always spells less for the writers.
Woops- I didn't mean to post yet. I wanted to add that if you know how ad revenue works, then you certainly don't need to do it on someone else's site, where they make the rules and can change them at any time. Any time someone else has the final say in your income, it's a bad deal.
Like minds, WordVixen – we are once again of like minds. 🙂
Advertising revenue – kiss of death!
I hope all writers steer clear from this ridiculous business model!!
You'd be surprised how many writers whip out a calculator and try to justify it, Kagem. If you have to use math equations to make sense of the pay, pass on it, I say.
Writing for ad revenue is pretty much always a bad idea. Some of the big networks have been doing it for years, and the problems have been clearly visible for a long time now.
1. They may have millions of visitors. Great for them. What they neglect to tell the writers is that the vast majority of those millions will never visit your specific articles. Many go to the homepage. Others use the site for other reasons. They visit articles written by other writers. You can often monetize your own site much better within a few months.
2. You don't have any control over the ad placement to improve conversions. Again, you're better with your own site where you can diversify income streams and optimize your site to improve conversions if you want to make money through ad revenue.
3. If they're so confident in their ad revenue potential, they can keep it and pay you a fair market rate out of pocket, expecting to profit through the ad revenue over time.
4. Relying on 3rd party ad revenue means you also rely on 3rd party marketing. Your content is useless without visitors, and if the site isn't going to heavily promote YOUR content to get those visitors and drive ad revenue, that falls on you too. Yep. You're expected to market their site too without any direct pay.
5. Some of these sites try to suck writers in by saying they'll earn ad revenue indefinitely or that it will continue to grow over time. That's utter BS. It happens like that early on. But eventually the ad revenue drops unless you continually create new (relatively unpaid) content. Old articles drop in search rankings and lose traffic. They end up in an oversaturated pool of content on the site as opposed to when the program just began. And many articles eventually become outdated.
Bad deal for the writer. Great deal for the cheapskate site owners.
And this is why we love you, Jenn. You give it to us straight and with insight we need. If it smells bad, it's because it's a rotten deal.
I would agree with Anne here. If they are big brands, 'marketing' should be your focus rather than earning a few pennies. But if you want to earn solely on the basis of ad revenue share method, you are digging your own hole.