There was once a time when getting your writing published was a difficult affair. While you could always hand it out on the streets, to actually be published in a real book, magazine, or newspaper required a submission process, approval, editing, and eventual publication.

In the 21st century, anyone can publish anything relatively easily. Self-publishing, especially online, is quite popular. Millions of people publish their writing on blogs, social networking sites, and other websites, and a good number of them never receive a penny for their work.

Plenty of people write for free because they love writing. They may not have ever even imagined making money from their work. Web writing for them may be a hobby, a canvas for self expression, or an outlet for their anger, grief, joy, or other emotion. For others, however, writing may be enjoyable, but they have taken their writing to the web with the hopes of making money, reaching a wider audience, or building a writing portfolio.

The question in the title of this article is geared toward the second category of writers, those I call the hopefuls. If you are one of them, or rather one of us, you have around four options to start your writing career:

  • Start your own blog, build an audience base from scratch, and then monetize it.
  • Find companies and individuals willing to pay you to write on other blogs and sites.
  • Write for a content farm such as Demand Media or Associated Content.
  • Guest post for a major blog or company website for free.

Far be it for me to limit you, of course. You can do all four, and some people do so very successfully. But ultimately, one must be more important to you that the others. If writing is to be your source of income or the platform for your future career, the choice is very important.

Why Write for Free?

Number four on the list works like this. Numerous media websites offer free content creation for their members. Unlike blogging platforms like WordPress or Google Blogs, these websites promote the work of their writers and often include it among the regular news and editorial content of their sites.

There is no agreement for compensation and no promise of any permanent position. The writers are under no obligation to keep writing. What the sites offer is only the potential for recognition, the glimmer of hope that writing for a major online news source might jump-start a budding journalism career.

As someone who has never done this and never known anyone who has, I can only speculate if anyone has or has not achieved success using this method. But the amount of time and effort many people put into this type of free journalism is often astounding.

The perfect example of this is The Huffington Post. At one point, this news site counted over 9,000 bloggers in its volunteer army. These people wrote for a cause and a purpose. Its founder, Arianna Huffington, however, also wrote for money. In February 2011, AOL acquired The Huffington Post for $315 million, making her a very rich woman. To my knowledge, none of those 9,000 bloggers received a penny.

Shortly after the acquisition, some organized unions began to boycott the site, and one former blogger, Jonathan Tasini, filed a class-action lawsuit, demanding a cut of the sales revenue. These writers felt like they had put their long hours into The Huffington Post only to make other people rich. Unfortunately for them, they agreed to work for free, under no compulsion, and that means they will most likely not see any of that money.

Money and Respect

Whenever you provide a service for someone, you expect compensation and respect. A waiter expects a tip, and he also expects you to show him a degree of respect. When you write for someone else, for their website, you should at least aim for the former, the latter, or both.

Content farms pay because they make a lot of money from their writers, and they know the writers have no other incentive to write for them. You will not get much respect writing for them. You are expendable, and those who pay you probably do not even know your name.

Writing for major media sites for free may get you some respect, but that is doubtful. If you are one of 9,000, you are not much different than the content farm writer, except at least he got paid. You may write fantastic content that is worthy of respect, but that does not mean the site owners will value your contribution as much as they should.

If you write for third parties on their websites, you can negotiate your fee and get the amount you feel you deserve for your writing. Moreover, if they are willing to hire you over the many others they could have chosen, they obviously respect you and your work.

Finally, you can always write for your own blog. Actually, as a web writer myself, I strongly recommend you do this no matter what other kind of writing you also do. Do not neglect your own blog. If nothing else, it is the one outlet where you can be yourself. There, you always get the respect you deserve, and if you work at it, you might even make some money.

Tavis J. Hampton is a librarian and writer for WordPress web hosting company 34SP.com. You can read his blog at TavisOnline.com.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Search Engine People Blog

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4 Responses to “Writing for Free: Is It Worth Your Time?”

  1. Kari

    I have seen some people who seemingly write for free – period. They write articles on articles sites with no resources linked. They write on other people's blogs with no resources linked. I suppose they do it to expand other people's knowledge with what they know. They must be making money somewhere else and they are not concerned if their money makes money or not. To each his own.

    The story about the Huffington Post blows my mind! I would feel so guilty to take a huge payment like that and not give something to the 9000 people (or more) that partly made me that money. She had made more than enough to 'pay' these people some money. But, that's just me.

    Reply
  2. Tavis

    Kari, you would think they would at least link back to their own websites, but maybe they do it for the love of writing and nothing else, but I'm afraid that is probably not usually the case. Unfortunately, too many of them have been promised fame and even eventual fortunes if they write for sites that make money using their content.

    You also raise a good point about Ms. Huffington. I had never even considered how she must personally feel about the whole situation. You would think she would have some loyalty to her writers. In the end, maybe she will, but the lawyers will probably end up with most of the money. 🙂

    Reply
  3. @hupseymedia

    I am planning to create a local huffington post clone. To me it is a must for writers to get a cut of the cake, so I plan on a Google adsense revshare solution..

    Reply
  4. Nark Kans

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    Reply

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