Anyone making money?

[BWindham]

dev spam deleted

 

[Bob Maxey]

banned for dev spam

What PISSES ME OFF (Mods, you can delete the expletives) is the writing business on the web. Not sure how many of you write for a living, but some places sell your work for 1.00 - 1.50 for 500 words and when a "writer" sells his crap, he is oh so pleased that he actually made less than minimum wage.

But by God, he is a "professional writer." After that, he writes a book for sale on Lulu Press so now he is a published article writer with a novel. Too bad his work stinks.

He probably wrote the piece in fifteen minutes.

Basically, you join a content provider, get approved (sometimes they make you take a writing test) and once you are approved, you submit content. These providers than try to sell (actually, they do not try very hard) your efforts to web sites.

These sites that provide web content to web masters are screwing us over. Some say, well, if you do not want the low pay, do not sell. Stop bitching! The problem is, it devalues us all. It cheapens writers and their hard work. Why pay a pro 500.00 dollars when you can get five hundred articles on sale?

Trust me on this. Not everyone can or should be a professional writer. I want to believe there is some talent involved.

My rate for 500 words is a buck or so per word. That is $500.00. AND, I am not selling you all rights. I retain the right to sell it other places. Fortunately, the pay is a little better because I write for manufacturers and reselling is out of the question; my NDA says so.

In some cases, you are working under a modified Work For Hire arrangement which grants every possible right to whoever buys the piece. This means you cannot sell it to others. the Copyright Office/Law is very clear on work for hire agreements. Notice must be prominently displayed on the contract and it cannot be buried in the boilerplate. the problem is, those that buy only know the piece appeared elsewhere and you copied it and tried to sell it as your own.

These days, magic robots scan articles you submit to see if they appeared on other web sites. This means, you have a hard time selling the same piece to other sites because the FRIGGIN scanners say it appeared on other sites, so you are labeled a plagerizer. Then, because you steal, you are banned from such sites and the world thinks you are a bad guy.

Working freelancers specializing in magazine articles have always had the right to resell his or her work. It is called First North American Serial Rights. So if they are paid 1.00 per word, the rest is easy because the article is already written and the lower price editors pay forr a previously sold piece can often mean the writer actually earns five dollars a word or more when they resell the article to other markets.

All that is required is emailing the piece to the second editor after a proper query letter ad ONLY IF the editor knows the piece is previously published AND IF the publication buys reprints.

Making money is hard these days and there are far too many people failing at it than making a go of it. Have you considered other schemes, plans or ideas? There are some good ideas out there, but they are not well known.

Luck to you!

 

[Bob Maxey]

banned sock puppet

Just always wonder about those that show you video proof or a pile of PayPal statements. Lots of scams out there, I would worry about making lots of cash then not getting paid.

But some of you know more than me about this sort of thing,

Try writing a best seller involving wizards or dinosaurs and then sell it to Hollywood. Then merchandize the heck out of it - action figures, lunch boxes, iPhone cases, magic wands and the like. Before you know it, you will be making millions.

There . . . that was easy.

 

[EarlyMon]

Two accounts, same guy talking to himself, one objective - developer spam.

PM if the lock is a problem.