But I digress. The point is, someone is making a profit and further, they’re not being honest about what it is they are selling or providing to you the consumer or you the writer. As the writer, you are, if you’re any good, providing them with a valuable commodity that in my case anyway, I would charge the Boston Globe or New York Times or Publishers Weekly several hundred to almost a thousand dollars depending on the piece.
If I review a book for MSN or Amazon what do I really get in return besides the exposure and gratification of being able to say what I want to say (I don’t undervalue this, I just know that it is not our bread and butter.) I don’t even get a discount from Amazon or MSN . More, and I find this frustrating just personally, I don’t even get enough word-space for my count: I get minimal space for my review which means cut cut cut) which is fine; brevity is key on the Web, though clearly, this writer cares little for that particular rule. But what am I getting? I’m helping move product again. For Amazon, my opinion will help make someone else money, for MSN, I am beginning to think that I that you that people and demographics are the commodity of the moment. That our personal information is being traded and sold like so much cattle herded in for the slaughter.
Why are we not making more noise? Why are we not mooing our little heads off? Why are we heading like sheep to the slaughter, kids?
Ourmedia is another great site as is Archive and the two are connected and who wouldn’t want to be on there. Ourmedia provides audiovisual blogging, photoblogging, text blogging and more, you can make it onto the front page if you are any good and why shouldn’t you? Again, if you are more than blogging; if you are writing opinion pieces, if you are a professional ecrivante, writer, etc., then you ought to be paid for your work ~ but here again, you are not.
You are essentially giving your work away in the hopes that, for me anyway, the exposure will make it worth my while because I am in the process of job hunting and I am a professional writer who makes a living evaluating and judging all manner of things. So here, I judge services (this particular article, which to me is worth it).
On Ourmedia, I may judge a film or I may simply put up a completely selfish (gosh!) audiovisual of myself reading a poem because, hell, nobody is paying me for this and if I want to write and post some love or it’s opposite, a revenge poem, then by god, I will and I have.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
I addressed this, partly and not quite so extensively several months back.
Basically there are a lot more consumers than creators.
There are even fewer .....
Well, I was going to say there are even fewer quality creators but I guess the market would ultimately judge that. Sort of. Kind of.
There's a lot of people who think they have something interesting to say, and fewer who do.
Still, in the meantime, the good is drowned by the junk. Still further in the meantime, the need for paid content is logarithmically diminished. And the freelance compensation goes down.
There are reasons - often to do with livelihood - why the idea of prestige is one best kept around. The quality of work demanded in print is also a factor.
[typos fixed - to terrible even for me to swallow]
2 - Eric Olsen
HI Sadi, very nice, persuasive post and I appreciate the special dispensation and spectacularly kind words for us!!
Yes, this is certainly an issue of concern and even alarm for real writers.
I was just talking to Natalie Davis about this yesterday, who is an excellent, experienced writer and editor who is having a very difficult time making a living in the new writers' economy, largely created by the Internet.
Temple is correct about the devaluation and it's hard to say exactly how the problem will be rectified beyond the boring, underpaying advertising-and-affiliate model. Something is missing - there is some way to make all of this work that no one has come up with yet.
3 - sadi
i think this will ultimately pay out by allowing writers several things instead of instant compensation:
1. write good stuff and think toward compiling those articles for a book project or an antholgy that is taking submissions.
2. use these writings as tear sheets when applying for new jobs or a promotion etc, as this kind of exposure and number of web hits lends you a legitimacy and authority that you may not otherwise have.
3. develop an expertise, as i sort of fell into, and b ecome THE authority on that subject on the Web and then start to try to get radio bookings or make it clear to television programs, new media and paying outlets that you are available to write about this issue for them,
&
4. if you do become an expert and a primary reference (your site, for example, gets thousands of hits per day), then you have a legitmacy right there that will help you get a real literary agent.
so there is compensation at the end, i believe. you just have to think about how you are going to apply the work that you are doing now in the future.
and too, not all of this work IS for free. Some is paid, but for the work that is free, remember that in the final account, you can make it pay off...
just my opinion and thanks to RJ for a real interesting conversation about this topic as well... it helped me to think about my own views on the topic and get going on this piece as i said i would and ~ ta dah! ~ did.
Eric, of course ~~` not special dispensation, per se, just a logical statement to me that follows from what you do and our many discussions about that as well... speaking of...... ring me sometime...
cheers all, and thanks for reading my absurdly long works.
sade