Not paying your writers SUCKS.
November 9, 2015 1:24 PM Subscribe
The Rumpus is not of the same world as The Huffington Post, and therein lies the problem with this conversation: somewhere along the line, in an important and valuable attempt to be pay writers better, the issue of what any given publication could legitimately afford was thrown out the window. Paying writers = the right side of history, period. If you don’t have the financial backing of venture capital or a man with a lot of money, you shouldn’t even exist. Your continued dedication to existence is in fact offensive to the very writers you claim to nurture. [...] I’m sensitive to this issue as a website that was unable to pay most of its writers from our inception in 2009 until late 2013. We didn’t have the money to pay them, that’s just a fact. The money did not exist, we could not summon it from the sky; we’re lesbians, we inherently lack rich husbands. Maybe that means we should’ve given up, I’m not sure, but that makes me really frightened for the future of independent journalism by and for populations even more disenfranchised than our own. How can we advocate for both disenfranchised writers and disenfranchised publishers? Because the thing is… Not paying your writers SUCKS.- Autostraddle: The “Who Pays Writers” Conversation Needs a Little Nuance
I make a (meager) living stringing together words, and I'm a little confused about the outrage at the moment surrounding magazines that don't pay their writers. There are certainly publications that will not pay, or will only pay a nominal fee, but nobody is forcing writers to write for them. There are still plenty of publications out there that pay, and pay well.
Other than posting and making comments on MetaFilter (which is essentially crowd-sourced content MetaFilter relies on to attract web traffic and ad revenue), I just ignore the publications and websites that want me to write for free. So far it's paying the bills.
posted by Nevin at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Other than posting and making comments on MetaFilter (which is essentially crowd-sourced content MetaFilter relies on to attract web traffic and ad revenue), I just ignore the publications and websites that want me to write for free. So far it's paying the bills.
posted by Nevin at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Obviously the institution of paying writers is great.
But open public debate, and open culture, are not only labor issues. Writers are both workers and participants in public conversation. If anything, writing as public conversation is more important than the class interest of writers as workers, not that I begrudge anyone the right to be paid for doing important work.
It feels absurd to have to write the above, but, as the linked piece perceptively notes, the public conversation on this has gotten twisted. Thanks to the pervasive "ink-stained wretch" discourse, many people will (in effect) assert that only commercially salable writing should be publicly available.
This comes in hand with a guild mentality, whereby "real" writers are those who get paid for their words, and other (non-real) writers should not be heard from, because the outlets where their work appears should not exist, because they don't (often can't) pay writers.
posted by grobstein at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2015 [9 favorites]
But open public debate, and open culture, are not only labor issues. Writers are both workers and participants in public conversation. If anything, writing as public conversation is more important than the class interest of writers as workers, not that I begrudge anyone the right to be paid for doing important work.
It feels absurd to have to write the above, but, as the linked piece perceptively notes, the public conversation on this has gotten twisted. Thanks to the pervasive "ink-stained wretch" discourse, many people will (in effect) assert that only commercially salable writing should be publicly available.
This comes in hand with a guild mentality, whereby "real" writers are those who get paid for their words, and other (non-real) writers should not be heard from, because the outlets where their work appears should not exist, because they don't (often can't) pay writers.
posted by grobstein at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2015 [9 favorites]
"we’re lesbians, we inherently lack rich husbands."
Yow, *somebody's* not a fan of The Toast...
posted by ominous_paws at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2015 [18 favorites]
Yow, *somebody's* not a fan of The Toast...
posted by ominous_paws at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2015 [18 favorites]
I make a (meager) living stringing together words, and I'm a little confused about the outrage at the moment surrounding magazines that don't pay their writers. There are certainly publications that will not pay, or will only pay a nominal fee, but nobody is forcing writers to write for them. There are still plenty of publications out there that pay, and pay well.
Other than posting and making comments on MetaFilter (which is essentially crowd-sourced content MetaFilter relies on to attract web traffic and ad revenue), I just ignore the publications and websites that want me to write for free. So far it's paying the bills.
The idea AFAICT is that writing for free drives down the wages for (other) writers. If only writers would all hold out and not write for free, goes the claim, they would be able to "collectively bargain" and get paid more and more often.
posted by grobstein at 2:04 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Other than posting and making comments on MetaFilter (which is essentially crowd-sourced content MetaFilter relies on to attract web traffic and ad revenue), I just ignore the publications and websites that want me to write for free. So far it's paying the bills.
The idea AFAICT is that writing for free drives down the wages for (other) writers. If only writers would all hold out and not write for free, goes the claim, they would be able to "collectively bargain" and get paid more and more often.
posted by grobstein at 2:04 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Idea: browser plugin that shows you the revenue of the site, and then how much it pays the writers. Obviously it would have to be manually entered and would only be doable for a few hundred large sites, but it might be eye-opening nonetheless.
posted by miyabo at 2:07 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 2:07 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
wait, you guys aren't get paid to post here?
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:08 PM on November 9, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:08 PM on November 9, 2015 [10 favorites]
Excellent analysis from Astrostraddle. My wife's been freelance writing for a while now, and the amount of work she has to put into every story for her pennies per word is astounding. The thing is, for a lot of writers, including her, there aren't many alternatives, and even when an outlet does pay its writers fairly, the trickle of revenue that comes in is often not enough to sustain the business model, especially when writing online has relatively low barriers to entry. Also, often times people aren't looking for great writing, or even good writing, but "content", the marginal value of which just isn't that much higher than what millions of people would write for free just for the satisfaction of expressing themselves and having their words read by someone else.
It's great that the crowd-sourced "who pays" sites are helping to give the writers leverage, but aside from the big greedy sweatshoppy outlets, it looks to me like so much of what people are reading falls into the Rumpus category of barely scraping by, and it's of course silly to blame them when they don't have the resources to pay. There's a lot of waste involved in the whole advertising / ad-blocking / ad-blocker blocking / SEO cat-and-mouse game that should rightfully be in the hands of writers and publishers instead of tech companies, advertising firms, and other various middlemen, but even assuming the existence of a ubiquitous, cheap, and seamless micropayment system that directly deposited money in the accounts of writers for each article that someone reads, I don't know that the value is enough to sustain everyone who wants to write for a living.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:13 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's great that the crowd-sourced "who pays" sites are helping to give the writers leverage, but aside from the big greedy sweatshoppy outlets, it looks to me like so much of what people are reading falls into the Rumpus category of barely scraping by, and it's of course silly to blame them when they don't have the resources to pay. There's a lot of waste involved in the whole advertising / ad-blocking / ad-blocker blocking / SEO cat-and-mouse game that should rightfully be in the hands of writers and publishers instead of tech companies, advertising firms, and other various middlemen, but even assuming the existence of a ubiquitous, cheap, and seamless micropayment system that directly deposited money in the accounts of writers for each article that someone reads, I don't know that the value is enough to sustain everyone who wants to write for a living.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:13 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
wait, you guys aren't get paid to post here?
Nope, not a penny. No siree. I'm totally not getting small-but-significant royalty payments auto-deposited into my Bank Of America account number 23498610888 on a monthly basis. Not me.
STFU roger ackroyd before you ruin it for the Guild
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:18 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Nope, not a penny. No siree. I'm totally not getting small-but-significant royalty payments auto-deposited into my Bank Of America account number 23498610888 on a monthly basis. Not me.
STFU roger ackroyd before you ruin it for the Guild
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:18 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Obligatory Mike Monteiro link. This remains a touchstone of my career, for better or worse.
posted by turbowombat at 2:26 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by turbowombat at 2:26 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
ominous_paws: Autostraddle really likes The Toast, actually - that's just a common gripe they've had for ages now even before The Toast was much of a thing.
posted by divabat at 2:27 PM on November 9, 2015
posted by divabat at 2:27 PM on November 9, 2015
Why do they go straight to VCs or rich husbands (VCs of love?) as the solution. How about subscribers and advertisers? If your editorial philosophy begins with "what will people pay for" you are a lot more likely to end up being able to pay your writers...
posted by MattD at 2:31 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 2:31 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
(they've even had Mallory Ortberg be a guest on their big birthday advice-a-thon)
posted by divabat at 2:31 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by divabat at 2:31 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
As a sometime journalist and writer, I've started to think of what I do as the kind of thing that novelists do. Which is to say, I try to find ways to pay for my low-paying journalism efforts because my journalism will not pay my rent. It used to many years ago. Back when there were still jobs available for copy editors and proofreaders, for example. One of the things posted today that I read here had a missing word and used role when roll was intended. Those aren't huge things; they are, however, the new normal. Maybe writers can still express themselves if they are willing to do it for free or very little pay. But few online publications take proofreading seriously. Who has the budget or attention span for that?
posted by Bella Donna at 2:34 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:34 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Why do they go straight to VCs or rich husbands (VCs of love?) as the solution. How about subscribers and advertisers? If your editorial philosophy begins with "what will people pay for" you are a lot more likely to end up being able to pay your writers...
Because they're drawing a direct comparison between themselves and sites like the Bustle (VC money) and the Toast (rich husband money).
posted by protocoach at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Because they're drawing a direct comparison between themselves and sites like the Bustle (VC money) and the Toast (rich husband money).
posted by protocoach at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
MattD: They've talked at length about how they don't attract the same sort of funding or advertising as similar sites despite having been in the space longer and how focusing on subscribers and readers is what they're doing but is dicey given their demographic. Here's a breakdown of their starting investments compared to other publications.
posted by divabat at 2:39 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by divabat at 2:39 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Subscribers as a revenue model has worked for very few places that I've seen, in recent history. Advertising only works once you're already big, and even there, it's a constant arms race. Revenue in all of this is always tricky. Money in most endeavors is always tricky. But I would distinguish between, say, if your local coop feminist bookstore needs somebody to volunteer to come in to help... and if Amazon asked for people to volunteer their labor. If you're creating it as a labor of love because your group doesn't have good media and you can't afford to pay people, that's fine. But if someone is trying to get rich off of this, other people had better be getting paid, equity or otherwise.
I don't think anybody has any illusions that Autostraddle is someday going to be a major media empire. I'm consistently surprised that it still exists. Meanwhile, like, I probably started reading Autostraddle at about the same time I started reading Lifehacker. Autostraddle still has stuff that interests me, although I don't read it as regularly anymore. (I'm not sure I could be said to visit anywhere but Metafilter and Tumblr regularly.) I now avoid Lifehacker like the plague, because it reads like someone out there is trying to mathematically determine the ideal way to extract money from content. For sites trying to get into that sort of business, to not pay writers should be criminal.
posted by Sequence at 2:46 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't think anybody has any illusions that Autostraddle is someday going to be a major media empire. I'm consistently surprised that it still exists. Meanwhile, like, I probably started reading Autostraddle at about the same time I started reading Lifehacker. Autostraddle still has stuff that interests me, although I don't read it as regularly anymore. (I'm not sure I could be said to visit anywhere but Metafilter and Tumblr regularly.) I now avoid Lifehacker like the plague, because it reads like someone out there is trying to mathematically determine the ideal way to extract money from content. For sites trying to get into that sort of business, to not pay writers should be criminal.
posted by Sequence at 2:46 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
I feel like, at some point, internet publications have to be honest with their readers about what it actually costs to run their site and then let people make their own decision about what they're willing to pay for and what they don't value that much. I figure the reason most sites aren't doing that is because the honest answer for most people is that they either don't have the money, or don't value the content that much if they do. That's sorta where I fall on most sites; I like a few of them enough to give them actual money, but most are pleasant diversions that I wouldn't miss that much if they went away. So we're just going to keep drifting along, ad revenue will continue to decline, ad-blocker usage will continue to creep up, and more sites will find themselves in the same boat as, say, the Dissolve and shut down. Which might not be the worst thing; there's more stuff being written right now than anyone could hope to read.
posted by protocoach at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by protocoach at 2:50 PM on November 9, 2015 [11 favorites]
This is spot-on. The real problem are outlets that could pay something to their content creators, but decide not to using the "exposure" excuse. And "exposure" is one of the biggest piles of bullshit in the land.
I've worked a few texts for the store website a friend of mine had for free (as well as plenty other things). It was fun writing and all, knew he couldn't pay me and I didn't mind creating some content. I've progressively stopped caring once his mother (physical store manager) decided to bring up a fucking calculator to know what to charge me on an article (and it was barely less than the public price, and around a 300% markup over what it cost).
posted by lmfsilva at 3:29 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've worked a few texts for the store website a friend of mine had for free (as well as plenty other things). It was fun writing and all, knew he couldn't pay me and I didn't mind creating some content. I've progressively stopped caring once his mother (physical store manager) decided to bring up a fucking calculator to know what to charge me on an article (and it was barely less than the public price, and around a 300% markup over what it cost).
posted by lmfsilva at 3:29 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
"...valuable attempt to be pay writers better..."
Pay writers‽ How about pay editors...
posted by Marky at 3:38 PM on November 9, 2015
Pay writers‽ How about pay editors...
posted by Marky at 3:38 PM on November 9, 2015
I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff like this. I ask people to do things for me for free on occasion. The illustrations on my websites were done by a friend for free. I get my writing edited for free. I use photos for free. If I had to pay I wouldn't be able to afford to do most of the creative projects I do. If people weren't willing to do things for free then there is a lot that wouldn't get done in the world. Yes, if I were making tons of money from any of my sites and refusing to pay that would be different, but everything I do online has lost me money.
Working for free is also not confined to writers. Talk to any IT guy and see how he spends his typical Christmas. Generally doing Geek Squad stuff for family members.
Illustrators, writers, photographers, designers, musicians, IT people, and many more often get asked to work for free. I view it like the friend who will help you move on a Saturday. If he's a good enough friend to ask to help move, then you can probably ask for something for free. Otherwise, you need to pony up.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:56 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
Working for free is also not confined to writers. Talk to any IT guy and see how he spends his typical Christmas. Generally doing Geek Squad stuff for family members.
Illustrators, writers, photographers, designers, musicians, IT people, and many more often get asked to work for free. I view it like the friend who will help you move on a Saturday. If he's a good enough friend to ask to help move, then you can probably ask for something for free. Otherwise, you need to pony up.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:56 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
Work freely given between friends is different from work freely given to a Faceless Corporation. Giving to a corporation is basically like giving to a sociopath.
posted by BungaDunga at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 4:17 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
I love that this long read was triggered by a one sentence Gawker post.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2015
posted by The Devil Tesla at 4:21 PM on November 9, 2015
cjorgensen, at least your IT people are making a living or above average wage in their real jobs. The can't necessarily be said for the writers and artists and photographers. Besides it's not just IT guys who do Geek Squad stuff for family and friends (or even co-workers).
posted by sardonyx at 4:48 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 4:48 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
The hilarious thing is that if we change the word "writers" to "musicians" half of the people in this debate change their opinions.
posted by mmoncur at 5:05 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by mmoncur at 5:05 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
As a sometime journalist and writer, I've started to think of what I do as the kind of thing that novelists do. Which is to say, I try to find ways to pay for my low-paying journalism efforts because my journalism will not pay my rent.
The above, from Bella Donna, is probably the best description of where's it's all going. People will pay for something scarce, and fortunately (for readers) or unfortunately (for writers), good free writing is not scarce. The world is drowning in writers. No union, no boycott, no collective action can overcome this fact. Colleges have been turning out battalions of journalism, creative writing, and communications majors over the past 30 years -- not to mention lots more lawyers, social scientists (and even some IT guys) who are actually good writers in addition to whatever else they do. Writing is a way overcrowded labor market. The day writers are as scarce as, say, advanced practice nurses or coders, that's the day they'll start making money.
posted by Modest House at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
The above, from Bella Donna, is probably the best description of where's it's all going. People will pay for something scarce, and fortunately (for readers) or unfortunately (for writers), good free writing is not scarce. The world is drowning in writers. No union, no boycott, no collective action can overcome this fact. Colleges have been turning out battalions of journalism, creative writing, and communications majors over the past 30 years -- not to mention lots more lawyers, social scientists (and even some IT guys) who are actually good writers in addition to whatever else they do. Writing is a way overcrowded labor market. The day writers are as scarce as, say, advanced practice nurses or coders, that's the day they'll start making money.
posted by Modest House at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
In tech a lot of people do free work online. Open source development, random packages on Github, answering Stack Overflow questions... nobody pays you for any of that. BUT there is a more or less realistic chance that it pays back in the long run by improving your stature in the community so you can get a better-paying job later. That's pretty much the same bargain made by blogs that don't pay writers, but the chance of it actually paying off is far smaller.
posted by miyabo at 5:07 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by miyabo at 5:07 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The idea AFAICT is that writing for free drives down the wages for (other) writers. If only writers would all hold out and not write for free, goes the claim, they would be able to "collectively bargain" and get paid more and more often.
It's tremendously annoying, but then again you get what you pay for. Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid. Well, actually, some of the writing by professionally-employed columnists and reporters at my local daily is just awful.
The challenge I have run into over the past five years is that in the world of marketing, the end client typically does not value good writing. While they'll pay for website content, they will pay what they consider the bare minimum to get it done. The great thing has been the ability to look at Analytics and analyze visitor behavior, and then present a good business case for optimizing content to keep people on the site.
So I think writers (if we're not talking about journalism or fiction) have got to learn how to add as much value to their writing as possible. I was actually recruited by a journalism client because I have a background in both journalism and online marketing, for example.
Besides the idea of learning tools and techniques that add value to the discipline of being a professional writer, personal contacts and personal trust is also pretty important. I'm working with a cool software client at the moment on all aspects of their "content", from website content to white papers and all that sort of stuff. It has taken me a while to research their product and their industry to be able go head to head with executives in the company when ghostwriting op-eds and so on for them.
But that's something intangible I have now that makes it harder (but not impossible) to replace me.
As I said, there is a ton of paid work available out there... maybe not as much for pure journalism that one can do full time.
And as the proud owner of a Creative Writing degree with a specialization in fiction, I can tell you that fiction writers have never really been able to earn a living purely from their writing. Most of them teach, which is another industry going through a radical transformation.
posted by Nevin at 5:15 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's tremendously annoying, but then again you get what you pay for. Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid. Well, actually, some of the writing by professionally-employed columnists and reporters at my local daily is just awful.
The challenge I have run into over the past five years is that in the world of marketing, the end client typically does not value good writing. While they'll pay for website content, they will pay what they consider the bare minimum to get it done. The great thing has been the ability to look at Analytics and analyze visitor behavior, and then present a good business case for optimizing content to keep people on the site.
So I think writers (if we're not talking about journalism or fiction) have got to learn how to add as much value to their writing as possible. I was actually recruited by a journalism client because I have a background in both journalism and online marketing, for example.
Besides the idea of learning tools and techniques that add value to the discipline of being a professional writer, personal contacts and personal trust is also pretty important. I'm working with a cool software client at the moment on all aspects of their "content", from website content to white papers and all that sort of stuff. It has taken me a while to research their product and their industry to be able go head to head with executives in the company when ghostwriting op-eds and so on for them.
But that's something intangible I have now that makes it harder (but not impossible) to replace me.
As I said, there is a ton of paid work available out there... maybe not as much for pure journalism that one can do full time.
And as the proud owner of a Creative Writing degree with a specialization in fiction, I can tell you that fiction writers have never really been able to earn a living purely from their writing. Most of them teach, which is another industry going through a radical transformation.
posted by Nevin at 5:15 PM on November 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
My rule of thumb on these matters is pretty simple: If anyone running a site is planning to make money from the writing on the site, then writers are at the head of the payment queue. Without the work the writers do, no one would get paid. Again, pretty simple.
None of this is new, mind you. Back in the mid-90s, the misc.writing newsgroup would get constant bombardment from "editors" who were planning literary sites of some description or another and would feel hurt and annoyed when they were roundly mocked for the "no pay yet but great exposure" line, just as they are now.
On the flip side of this, there will always be writers who are willing to be paid in "exposure" because of ambition and/or a need for affirmation, but it doesn't necessarily follow that every writer should be willing not to be paid. If you make the decision not to write for anyone who won't pay you, and if you're willing to try your hand at pretty much anything, then you can still find venues who will pay. I made the decision early on in my career that the only person for whom I would write for free was me; as a result I always got paid and my career tended towards sites and clients for whom paying writers was a given.
With that said, it's a legitimate criticism of me to say that the freelance market is different now than when I started. But I'll note I'm still a jobbing freelancer -- I did work for the Sundance Channel's web site as recently as July (they paid me pretty well). If you make the choice to pursue paid work, you make it easier to find paid work over time.
posted by jscalzi at 5:24 PM on November 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
None of this is new, mind you. Back in the mid-90s, the misc.writing newsgroup would get constant bombardment from "editors" who were planning literary sites of some description or another and would feel hurt and annoyed when they were roundly mocked for the "no pay yet but great exposure" line, just as they are now.
On the flip side of this, there will always be writers who are willing to be paid in "exposure" because of ambition and/or a need for affirmation, but it doesn't necessarily follow that every writer should be willing not to be paid. If you make the decision not to write for anyone who won't pay you, and if you're willing to try your hand at pretty much anything, then you can still find venues who will pay. I made the decision early on in my career that the only person for whom I would write for free was me; as a result I always got paid and my career tended towards sites and clients for whom paying writers was a given.
With that said, it's a legitimate criticism of me to say that the freelance market is different now than when I started. But I'll note I'm still a jobbing freelancer -- I did work for the Sundance Channel's web site as recently as July (they paid me pretty well). If you make the choice to pursue paid work, you make it easier to find paid work over time.
posted by jscalzi at 5:24 PM on November 9, 2015 [16 favorites]
It always makes me so angry when on one hand sites like these say that they're a business and on the other that oh but we can't pay for our product. I have no sympathy for the "oh but we're making SO LITTLE MONEY" line. So what? If your business can't handle the labor cost then get out.
Your business is not entitled to success or even existence, not even if you work long hours. It is entirely possible that your business plan is bad and/or not enough people want your product.
On the Autostraddle article the author says that getting a 10k donation (why not equity stake?) was enough to pay for content for almost a year. Maybe they should have thought about where that money came from before starting the site. If you really truly believe in your product you can put 10k on a personal credit card for crying out loud. Not willing or able to do that? Still not an excuse for not paying for your content.
If turbowombat hadn't already linked Mike Monteiro above, I'd do it again. Truer words never spoken.
posted by Soi-hah at 5:44 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Your business is not entitled to success or even existence, not even if you work long hours. It is entirely possible that your business plan is bad and/or not enough people want your product.
On the Autostraddle article the author says that getting a 10k donation (why not equity stake?) was enough to pay for content for almost a year. Maybe they should have thought about where that money came from before starting the site. If you really truly believe in your product you can put 10k on a personal credit card for crying out loud. Not willing or able to do that? Still not an excuse for not paying for your content.
If turbowombat hadn't already linked Mike Monteiro above, I'd do it again. Truer words never spoken.
posted by Soi-hah at 5:44 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
But the exposure thing is entirely real. It's the rule, not the exception, for writers staring out to work for free, or nominal fees that translate to less than minimum wage -- and the luckiest and most talented end up being able to write for a living, or even rich. Many of these initial efforts you are paying real money -- self-publishers who invest in editing and marketing, screenwriters who self-produce shorts.
Heck, there are whole well-beloved genres, say SF short stories or legit theater that is a bit too skew for Broadway, wherein you work for peanuts because that's what the market can offer, no matter how successful you are.
posted by MattD at 5:46 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Heck, there are whole well-beloved genres, say SF short stories or legit theater that is a bit too skew for Broadway, wherein you work for peanuts because that's what the market can offer, no matter how successful you are.
posted by MattD at 5:46 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
*Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid.*
Uhhhh...I would say that in fact the lesson of the past, say, 20 years has been that, in fact, there are tons and tons of people who are at least as good as the median paid writer in any given subject field or subset of writing who are willing to write for free because a subject interests them.
posted by protocoach at 5:48 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
Uhhhh...I would say that in fact the lesson of the past, say, 20 years has been that, in fact, there are tons and tons of people who are at least as good as the median paid writer in any given subject field or subset of writing who are willing to write for free because a subject interests them.
posted by protocoach at 5:48 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
Matt D:
"But the exposure thing is entirely real."
You can get just as much exposure -- if not more -- being paid than not, however. There is a fairly strong correlation between venues that pay and venues with significant reach.
Let's also take care to note the difference between someone doing their own thing and a site (or other organization) profiting from the labor of others while not compensating them for their work. As noted before, I write for free for myself all the time, and cheerfully. If someone else wants me to work for no compensation while they plan to make money off of my effort, my response is always the same: Fuck you, pay me.
Finally, let's not elide "work for peanuts" for "work for nothing." A 6,000 word science fiction story paid at five cents a word is $300. You can do a lot more with $300 than you can with no money at all.
posted by jscalzi at 5:55 PM on November 9, 2015 [13 favorites]
"But the exposure thing is entirely real."
You can get just as much exposure -- if not more -- being paid than not, however. There is a fairly strong correlation between venues that pay and venues with significant reach.
Let's also take care to note the difference between someone doing their own thing and a site (or other organization) profiting from the labor of others while not compensating them for their work. As noted before, I write for free for myself all the time, and cheerfully. If someone else wants me to work for no compensation while they plan to make money off of my effort, my response is always the same: Fuck you, pay me.
Finally, let's not elide "work for peanuts" for "work for nothing." A 6,000 word science fiction story paid at five cents a word is $300. You can do a lot more with $300 than you can with no money at all.
posted by jscalzi at 5:55 PM on November 9, 2015 [13 favorites]
I like a few of them enough to give them actual money, but most are pleasant diversions that I wouldn't miss that much if they went away. So we're just going to keep drifting along, ad revenue will continue to decline, ad-blocker usage will continue to creep up, and more sites will find themselves in the same boat as, say, the Dissolve and shut down.
It's tremendously annoying, but then again you get what you pay for. Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid. Well, actually, some of the writing by professionally-employed columnists and reporters at my local daily is just awful.
Maybe these concerns speak to a very common mechanism driving the perceived declining quality of writing linked across the web, as well as the ability of those outlets to hire talent.
- Install every ad and tracker blocker known to exist for every browser ever made
- Demand free 100% all access no-paywall availability to every content provider with a web address
- Belittle people at every opportunity (“lol barista”, etc.) who choose to pursue a liberal arts degree instead of a ‘real’ career in STEM
- Demand high quality journalism and exceptional writing in every local news story or opinion piece linked
- Complain virulently and often that journalism in local news is horrific and the title is misspelled and the opinion piece is written by a beat infatuated teenager and wonder wildly why the organization is unable to find quality writers
- Rinse and repeat
Payment may work if you get some user action in return, either perks or greater access, but invariably advertising could pay writers well and keep sites afloat.
Art has long relied on wealthy benefactors to fund its existence, from House Medici to Basel Miami - but maybe the distributed promise of the web requires basic tenets of consumer capitalism to connect their manufactured need and offered products to writers and publishing platforms and stories.
posted by four panels at 7:06 PM on November 9, 2015 [12 favorites]
I write for free. I also copy edit and do layout.
But I'm not a writer, copy editor or layout professional. I'll do these things for free for organisations I care about, as my contribution, but the quality and/or speed will not be the same as a professional. You get what you pay for.
I also crochet, knit & cross stitch for free -- or rather, for a loss. (Yarn is too expensive!)
posted by jb at 7:06 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
But I'm not a writer, copy editor or layout professional. I'll do these things for free for organisations I care about, as my contribution, but the quality and/or speed will not be the same as a professional. You get what you pay for.
I also crochet, knit & cross stitch for free -- or rather, for a loss. (Yarn is too expensive!)
posted by jb at 7:06 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The political campaign arena is chock full of unpaid opportunities. If you're looking for campaign work and just starting out, do a search, and replace the word "fellowship" with "sucker" because it means a longer-than-full-time job with zero pay, from which you can move up to "deputy field organizer" which will net you not enough money to cover gas. The next step up from that is field organizer, which, if it were averaged out, would pay sub-minimum-wage per hour. Really, the only people getting paid well in campaign politics are media consultants. Next time a "progressive" candidate hits you up for a donation, ask them if they are paying the $15.00 per hour that they are preaching. They will hem and haw about how they can't afford that, just like the private sector.
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:29 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:29 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I feel like this ties in with the "intern for free" model that has become rampant in general business. There is this idea that paying your dues means not getting paid.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 7:43 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 7:43 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
Maybe, if you can't pay people any money, you might consider not running a website of the complex sort that requires lots of content? Just write yourself. It's not as if there some magic right to running a popular blog that people expecting to be paid for their work is upsetting. I don't get the argument here at all.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:46 PM on November 9, 2015
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:46 PM on November 9, 2015
Payment may work if you get some user action in return, either perks or greater access, but invariably advertising could pay writers well and keep sites afloat.
I don't really want to wade into the whole ad-blocker debate here, but it seems that advertising that people will accept (like the Deck) cannot invariably pay well enough to keep sites afloat or else more sites would be using it. It certainly seems, at least from the actual lived experience of the last decade, that the only advertising that pays well enough to keep sites afloat is advertising that users find unacceptable in terms of the demands it makes on their devices/networks and in terms of the amount of data it collects about them. And the only reason it ever appeared otherwise is because users didn't know what they were actually trading for free content. I would suggest that a business model that only functions when the people paying for it don't actually know the value of what they're giving up is one that sorta deserves to be blown up.
posted by protocoach at 9:09 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't really want to wade into the whole ad-blocker debate here, but it seems that advertising that people will accept (like the Deck) cannot invariably pay well enough to keep sites afloat or else more sites would be using it. It certainly seems, at least from the actual lived experience of the last decade, that the only advertising that pays well enough to keep sites afloat is advertising that users find unacceptable in terms of the demands it makes on their devices/networks and in terms of the amount of data it collects about them. And the only reason it ever appeared otherwise is because users didn't know what they were actually trading for free content. I would suggest that a business model that only functions when the people paying for it don't actually know the value of what they're giving up is one that sorta deserves to be blown up.
posted by protocoach at 9:09 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
On the "rich husbands" thing, here's the Nicole Cliffe on The Toast's funding.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:13 PM on November 9, 2015
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:13 PM on November 9, 2015
Pay writers‽ How about pay editors...
I wish I could. I have a contributor budget for the site I run, and I can either pay for the content that keeps the money coming in, or I can slash my content to a fraction of its volume (and see the corresponding hit in metrics) and hire a PT editor. Editors don't come cheap; I had one contributor who agreed to write for $300 a pop but the freelance copyeditor who used to edit his work charged me $50/hour and claimed it took her 8 hours to do one article.
When faced with the budget reality of one $700 article bringing me in only 10,000 hits over a three-month period, or two $350 articles that bring me 25,000 hits over a three-month period ... sorry, editor. Flawless grammar isn't driving traffic.
Besides, there's a certain class of Internet commenters that lives for amateur copyediting and ceaseless pedantry. What would they have to live for if we didn't give them the opportunity to go hunting for a dependent clause prefacing an independent clause without a comma?
posted by sobell at 9:16 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I wish I could. I have a contributor budget for the site I run, and I can either pay for the content that keeps the money coming in, or I can slash my content to a fraction of its volume (and see the corresponding hit in metrics) and hire a PT editor. Editors don't come cheap; I had one contributor who agreed to write for $300 a pop but the freelance copyeditor who used to edit his work charged me $50/hour and claimed it took her 8 hours to do one article.
When faced with the budget reality of one $700 article bringing me in only 10,000 hits over a three-month period, or two $350 articles that bring me 25,000 hits over a three-month period ... sorry, editor. Flawless grammar isn't driving traffic.
Besides, there's a certain class of Internet commenters that lives for amateur copyediting and ceaseless pedantry. What would they have to live for if we didn't give them the opportunity to go hunting for a dependent clause prefacing an independent clause without a comma?
posted by sobell at 9:16 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
he only advertising that pays well enough to keep sites afloat is advertising that users find unacceptable in terms of the demands it makes on their devices/networks and in terms of the amount of data it collects about them.
Actual I would disagree. The move to content/ad blocking is presenting the "advertising industry" with a bit of an existential crisis. But everyone agrees that if the "consumer" is blocking the ads, the ads basically failing. So there is an ongoing struggle in the industry to reinvent advertising and make it more relevant. But everyone agrees that pop-ups and resource-consuming ads (the ads we want to block) are just not working.
The most interesting area in advertising right now is in mobile, such as interstitial ads in video games. The most innovative "ad tech" companies realize the opportunities offered by interstitial ads, and they also realize that people are going to get pissed off if they are served something that is irrelevant that is interrupting their game.
The other big innovation is attribution. Advertisers and ad networks have more information than ever before down to the device level they can use to target ads. But not everyone understands how to wield this information well right now.
Of course, not every "user" or "consumer" is going to be comfortable sharing that information about themselves.
Anyway, my point is that it's a transformative time in advertising right now. Whether it is an exciting time or not I guess depends on your opinion of advertising.
posted by Nevin at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Actual I would disagree. The move to content/ad blocking is presenting the "advertising industry" with a bit of an existential crisis. But everyone agrees that if the "consumer" is blocking the ads, the ads basically failing. So there is an ongoing struggle in the industry to reinvent advertising and make it more relevant. But everyone agrees that pop-ups and resource-consuming ads (the ads we want to block) are just not working.
The most interesting area in advertising right now is in mobile, such as interstitial ads in video games. The most innovative "ad tech" companies realize the opportunities offered by interstitial ads, and they also realize that people are going to get pissed off if they are served something that is irrelevant that is interrupting their game.
The other big innovation is attribution. Advertisers and ad networks have more information than ever before down to the device level they can use to target ads. But not everyone understands how to wield this information well right now.
Of course, not every "user" or "consumer" is going to be comfortable sharing that information about themselves.
Anyway, my point is that it's a transformative time in advertising right now. Whether it is an exciting time or not I guess depends on your opinion of advertising.
posted by Nevin at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Flawless grammar isn't driving traffic.'
Actually the Google algorithm is now sophisticated enough that it can spot typos and poor grammar. I'm not joking. And besides, people don't like to share and talk about content that has typos, generally speaking. Or, the better the quality the more traffic you will get.
posted by Nevin at 9:25 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Actually the Google algorithm is now sophisticated enough that it can spot typos and poor grammar. I'm not joking. And besides, people don't like to share and talk about content that has typos, generally speaking. Or, the better the quality the more traffic you will get.
posted by Nevin at 9:25 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The line about not having rich husbands has nothing to do with The Toast. It is a fact that queer women live disproportionately in poverty; here is some reporting from a site you may have heard of about it. I think this is getting lost in the conversation, but if you're just reading this now and have not followed Autostraddle's funding issues (as divabat linked to upthread), you may not know how dire the situation is for media outlets that are focused on minorities that don't historically have a lot of money and cultural power. Women's presses struggled even before the internet and the recession changed journalism forever. I don't expect the general Metafilter userbase to be especially sympathetic to this issue, but queer women need our own media because we're a minority that mainstream culture doesn't care much about, and typical revenue streams don't work well because we don't have lots of buying power (hence fewer advertising dollars and wealthy supporters). It's a shitty double bind.
posted by thetortoise at 9:28 PM on November 9, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by thetortoise at 9:28 PM on November 9, 2015 [13 favorites]
Of course, not every "user" or "consumer" is going to be comfortable sharing that information about themselves.
I feel like "not every user or consumer" could be replaced more accurately with "no accurately informed user". Even people who aren't fully informed about how much they're being tracked frequently express sentiments about how creepy ads are now. People who know how much they're being tracked are the ones stapling ad-blockers to every single thing they possibly can, which is why tech-oriented sites see 50%+ of their traffic coming from users with ad-blockers.
The line about not having rich husbands has nothing to do with The Toast.
Nicole went on a mini-rant on Twitter last week where she explicitly said that the Toast was partially started with and continues to be partially funded by her husband's hedge fund money. I think that's why people are assuming that line was in regards to the Toast.
posted by protocoach at 9:35 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
I feel like "not every user or consumer" could be replaced more accurately with "no accurately informed user". Even people who aren't fully informed about how much they're being tracked frequently express sentiments about how creepy ads are now. People who know how much they're being tracked are the ones stapling ad-blockers to every single thing they possibly can, which is why tech-oriented sites see 50%+ of their traffic coming from users with ad-blockers.
The line about not having rich husbands has nothing to do with The Toast.
Nicole went on a mini-rant on Twitter last week where she explicitly said that the Toast was partially started with and continues to be partially funded by her husband's hedge fund money. I think that's why people are assuming that line was in regards to the Toast.
posted by protocoach at 9:35 PM on November 9, 2015 [8 favorites]
" I ask people to do things for me for free on occasion. The illustrations on my websites were done by a friend for free. I get my writing edited for free. ...If people weren't willing to do things for free then there is a lot that wouldn't get done in the world."
Yeah, pretty much. In my experience, writing for work purposes is abundant and of low value. It's probably not worth my time and effort (especially after a draining day job) to knock myself out looking for paying clients. I might as well just slap anything I do online myself for my own benefit or lack thereof.
Sometimes I consider trying to pay someone to look over my personal writing and figure out why it sucks, and then I think, "but it's so bad, is it worth paying however much a page to a professional? No, it's freaking not."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:40 PM on November 9, 2015
Yeah, pretty much. In my experience, writing for work purposes is abundant and of low value. It's probably not worth my time and effort (especially after a draining day job) to knock myself out looking for paying clients. I might as well just slap anything I do online myself for my own benefit or lack thereof.
Sometimes I consider trying to pay someone to look over my personal writing and figure out why it sucks, and then I think, "but it's so bad, is it worth paying however much a page to a professional? No, it's freaking not."
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:40 PM on November 9, 2015
Actually the Google algorithm is now sophisticated enough that it can spot typos and poor grammar. I'm not joking. And besides, people don't like to share and talk about content that has typos, generally speaking. Or, the better the quality the more traffic you will get.
I will say that in the months since releasing the editor back into the wild and focusing on running more content, our natural traffic, SEO traffic and social media referrals have consistently trended up. And in the daily, weekly and monthly reports, what I see in terms of shared stories rarely comes down to the "good" or quality stuff we do; it's the quick-take stuff that people can easily skim and then add a "THIS" or "NOT" before posting it to social media.
The one thing I can conclude is that our readership is comprised of several overlapping constituencies, only some of which are prone to sharing and devour quick-hit information. It's been fascinating to do author and story analysis and see how a story can get a lot of social media pickup, drop down in the traffic rankings, then enjoy a respectable second act in SEO later on. And by that point, we've usually corrected the more glaring comma crimes.
The working reality for me as an editor of a website is this: At the beginning and end of each edit planning meeting, I'm still left with the reality that I have [A] in my monthly budget, writers who can command [B] per submission, and [C-M] in terms of metrics the site has to hit. When something bobbles in C-M, then I revisit how I'm spending A or assigning on B.
posted by sobell at 9:42 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
I will say that in the months since releasing the editor back into the wild and focusing on running more content, our natural traffic, SEO traffic and social media referrals have consistently trended up. And in the daily, weekly and monthly reports, what I see in terms of shared stories rarely comes down to the "good" or quality stuff we do; it's the quick-take stuff that people can easily skim and then add a "THIS" or "NOT" before posting it to social media.
The one thing I can conclude is that our readership is comprised of several overlapping constituencies, only some of which are prone to sharing and devour quick-hit information. It's been fascinating to do author and story analysis and see how a story can get a lot of social media pickup, drop down in the traffic rankings, then enjoy a respectable second act in SEO later on. And by that point, we've usually corrected the more glaring comma crimes.
The working reality for me as an editor of a website is this: At the beginning and end of each edit planning meeting, I'm still left with the reality that I have [A] in my monthly budget, writers who can command [B] per submission, and [C-M] in terms of metrics the site has to hit. When something bobbles in C-M, then I revisit how I'm spending A or assigning on B.
posted by sobell at 9:42 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nicole went on a mini-rant on Twitter last week where she explicitly said that the Toast was partially started with and continues to be partially funded by her husband's hedge fund money. I think that's why people are assuming that line was in regards to the Toast.
I'm probably wrong about that and it's an affectionate topical dig, but there's a deeper point there too.
posted by thetortoise at 9:44 PM on November 9, 2015
I'm probably wrong about that and it's an affectionate topical dig, but there's a deeper point there too.
posted by thetortoise at 9:44 PM on November 9, 2015
I'm probably wrong about that and it's an affectionate topical dig, but there's a deeper point there too.
Absolutely. I think Autostraddle has the right idea in terms of a membership of some sort (and obviously something like Patreon may figure into this somewhere as well). I don't know that advertising is the answer, though, especially in its modern variant - it strikes me that the profiles built by ad networks could just as easily be used for more nefarious purposes if someone wanted to do so, and that could easily hurt marginalized communities even more. I don't know. There's no easy answer.
posted by protocoach at 9:59 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Absolutely. I think Autostraddle has the right idea in terms of a membership of some sort (and obviously something like Patreon may figure into this somewhere as well). I don't know that advertising is the answer, though, especially in its modern variant - it strikes me that the profiles built by ad networks could just as easily be used for more nefarious purposes if someone wanted to do so, and that could easily hurt marginalized communities even more. I don't know. There's no easy answer.
posted by protocoach at 9:59 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The whole point of the article is that if you're expecting only fully-financially-flush outlets that can pay writers a lot all the time to exist, you end up missing out on media by and for minorities, precisely because those minorities face a lot of challenges with getting any sort of money in the first place. Jobs are low, grants are low, VC funding is low, resources are low overall. $10K on a credit card can be hell to pay off if you don't have a good source of income to pay it back.
Do you really want the only sources of media and analysis to be the same old privileged folk?
posted by divabat at 12:22 AM on November 10, 2015 [10 favorites]
Do you really want the only sources of media and analysis to be the same old privileged folk?
posted by divabat at 12:22 AM on November 10, 2015 [10 favorites]
(And for what it's worth, I've had more traction with stuff that I worked on for free, whether it's for a different publication or my own project, then with stuff that pays me.)
posted by divabat at 12:22 AM on November 10, 2015
posted by divabat at 12:22 AM on November 10, 2015
The Billfold: Which Of Your Favorite Websites Have Money And From Where
posted by divabat at 1:50 AM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by divabat at 1:50 AM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
used role when roll was intended
I saw that too. Strangely, the malapropism made kinda sense. Made me feel rather uncomfortable.
posted by telstar at 1:59 AM on November 10, 2015
I saw that too. Strangely, the malapropism made kinda sense. Made me feel rather uncomfortable.
posted by telstar at 1:59 AM on November 10, 2015
The problem is really that someone may build up a site from unpaid work, (which seems reasonable in the beginning when paying writers would mean non-existence of the site) but then 5-10 years down the "owner" may perhaps sell the site for some billion dollars to a media conglomerate.
In this case should not all those early unpaid writers be eligible for a "share" of the sales? if we replaced the "owner" with a "co-operative" model I think this sense of unfairness would be alleviated.
posted by mary8nne at 2:32 AM on November 10, 2015
In this case should not all those early unpaid writers be eligible for a "share" of the sales? if we replaced the "owner" with a "co-operative" model I think this sense of unfairness would be alleviated.
posted by mary8nne at 2:32 AM on November 10, 2015
I have a lot of friends who are trying to make it in the 'being funny and/or insightful on the internet' economy, and watching them be always 'on' on twitter, and having to buy them drinks no matter how many things go viral, has made me a lot more aware just how utterly shitty trying to make it as a writer is when you live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Every now and then one of them makes it! and gets a job at Buzzfeed or one of its much less solvent competitors and it's all amazing but omg I am still having to buy so many drinks. Which you know, I'm happy to. I'm an academic, and I am expected to write stuff that, like viral articles, may or may not hit the mark, but there's no way I'd ever be expected to do it for free.
As a baby lesbian autostraddle is the single most helpful and wonderful site that is so inclusive and genuine and I don't know why I didn't subscribe before now, but now I have. It is a gift and I am glad they manage to pay their writers, and honestly if it went it would be the website I would genuinely mourn.
I grew up on the older version of the internet where everything was free and everyone online was either a student or an adult with a job and there was no way of actually making real money unless you were, idk, making porn or coding porn sites, and there really wasn't any way to really support someone you did like just to keep doing what they're doing without causing them more labour in the form of sending out a CD or a tshirt or a print etc. I like that patreon and subscriptions do allow for this, even if its taken me quite a while to get over my old internet feeling of 'why is this not free??'. That said, I do use adblock, and I am going to have to think about that.
I'm genuinely skeptical that the massively VC funded websites will endure once they need to wean themselves off funding though. I do feel a lot of the internet is waiting for either advertising to be accepted as part of the landscape that people genuinely want to click on, find useful and are grateful for, or that the funding fairy will never die, or some mysterious third option that no one has really put their finger on yet.
posted by litereally at 4:28 AM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
As a baby lesbian autostraddle is the single most helpful and wonderful site that is so inclusive and genuine and I don't know why I didn't subscribe before now, but now I have. It is a gift and I am glad they manage to pay their writers, and honestly if it went it would be the website I would genuinely mourn.
I grew up on the older version of the internet where everything was free and everyone online was either a student or an adult with a job and there was no way of actually making real money unless you were, idk, making porn or coding porn sites, and there really wasn't any way to really support someone you did like just to keep doing what they're doing without causing them more labour in the form of sending out a CD or a tshirt or a print etc. I like that patreon and subscriptions do allow for this, even if its taken me quite a while to get over my old internet feeling of 'why is this not free??'. That said, I do use adblock, and I am going to have to think about that.
I'm genuinely skeptical that the massively VC funded websites will endure once they need to wean themselves off funding though. I do feel a lot of the internet is waiting for either advertising to be accepted as part of the landscape that people genuinely want to click on, find useful and are grateful for, or that the funding fairy will never die, or some mysterious third option that no one has really put their finger on yet.
posted by litereally at 4:28 AM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
As a former newspaper employee (not a respected writer, but a poor schlub who designed/scheduled the ads that used to help us make ends meet until y'all blocked them) I wish I could favorite four panels's comment a million times.
posted by kimberussell at 6:33 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by kimberussell at 6:33 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
In tech a lot of people do free work online. Open source development, random packages on Github, answering Stack Overflow questions... nobody pays you for any of that. BUT there is a more or less realistic chance that it pays back in the long run by improving your stature in the community so you can get a better-paying job later.
And I would argue that this is a rather unhealthy mentality within tech. It's basically the unpaid intern model, except that it's all distributed, so it's somehow not exploitation. Not only that, those beliefs are being exported to other communities, which is what has been driving the shift four panels mentioned above.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:11 AM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
And I would argue that this is a rather unhealthy mentality within tech. It's basically the unpaid intern model, except that it's all distributed, so it's somehow not exploitation. Not only that, those beliefs are being exported to other communities, which is what has been driving the shift four panels mentioned above.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:11 AM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Nicole went on a mini-rant on Twitter last week where she explicitly said that the Toast was partially started with and continues to be partially funded by her husband's hedge fund money. I think that's why people are assuming that line was in regards to the Toast.
That was after Mallory's XOXO talk in which she specifically said pretty much your only hope for starting a website was VC money and a rich husband. Previously.
I think the Autostraddle piece is jumping off from that point. It's not a rebuttal, it's just - as it says right on the label - an exploration of the nuances, but fully acknowledges the fact that if you're going to pay, the money has to come from somewhere, and it's probably not going to be from magical ad revenue.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:14 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
That was after Mallory's XOXO talk in which she specifically said pretty much your only hope for starting a website was VC money and a rich husband. Previously.
I think the Autostraddle piece is jumping off from that point. It's not a rebuttal, it's just - as it says right on the label - an exploration of the nuances, but fully acknowledges the fact that if you're going to pay, the money has to come from somewhere, and it's probably not going to be from magical ad revenue.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:14 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Do you really want the only sources of media and analysis to be the same old privileged folk?
No, but at the same time, I don't think it's altogether unreasonable to say "if you are building a website built on content, then you need to have a plan for paying for content in the long run."
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:15 AM on November 10, 2015
No, but at the same time, I don't think it's altogether unreasonable to say "if you are building a website built on content, then you need to have a plan for paying for content in the long run."
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:15 AM on November 10, 2015
Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid.
This is true, but people are willing to settle for a low quality product that is free. And there are lots of people willing to write for free because they have jobs and writing is just a hobby or because they have rich parents who can support them or because they really are just that "hungry" to get their work seen.
I decided to shell out the money to pay for a monthly subscription to Pando Daily because the journalism and writing are high quality and stuff I can't find anywhere else. They have investors backing them and are trying to build up enough of a subscriber base to pay their operating costs. But they are a small market publication.
In the early days of political blogging, it suddenly became apparent that a political blogger working for free (and having users generate content) could get a readership an order of magnitude larger than "prestige" print publications generating more-or-less the equivalent content you would find in The New Republic or National Review. The temptation of "eyeballs" is always going to be great for any writer and any online publication editor, more important than having enough money to paying your writers or writers getting paid.
posted by deanc at 7:20 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is true, but people are willing to settle for a low quality product that is free. And there are lots of people willing to write for free because they have jobs and writing is just a hobby or because they have rich parents who can support them or because they really are just that "hungry" to get their work seen.
I decided to shell out the money to pay for a monthly subscription to Pando Daily because the journalism and writing are high quality and stuff I can't find anywhere else. They have investors backing them and are trying to build up enough of a subscriber base to pay their operating costs. But they are a small market publication.
In the early days of political blogging, it suddenly became apparent that a political blogger working for free (and having users generate content) could get a readership an order of magnitude larger than "prestige" print publications generating more-or-less the equivalent content you would find in The New Republic or National Review. The temptation of "eyeballs" is always going to be great for any writer and any online publication editor, more important than having enough money to paying your writers or writers getting paid.
posted by deanc at 7:20 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
And I would argue that this is a rather unhealthy mentality within tech. It's basically the unpaid intern model, except that it's all distributed, so it's somehow not exploitation.
While I find the culture of "career development through open source contributions" pernicious, one of the driving forces behind the success of open source contributions is that a lot of programming involves writing tools for yourself or your own team. These tools essentially have 0 value on the market. No one would pay for them because they are task specific given what one person or a small number of persons would be capable of building. Bringing in custom developers is extremely expensive. However, bringing together a community of people willing to collabrorste on building the tools they need will create something of significant value that would not exist if left up to the commercial market or the individual tool-makers to build. By contrast, journalism is ONLY the result of a few individual contributors. There's no crowd sourcing whereby a bunch of people creating content of essentially 0 value to anyone else outside themselves results in something more valuable than the sum of its parts, except for things like metafilter and Daily Kos, where the comments and diaries are essentially worthless on their own, but are not journalistic enterprises.
posted by deanc at 7:32 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
While I find the culture of "career development through open source contributions" pernicious, one of the driving forces behind the success of open source contributions is that a lot of programming involves writing tools for yourself or your own team. These tools essentially have 0 value on the market. No one would pay for them because they are task specific given what one person or a small number of persons would be capable of building. Bringing in custom developers is extremely expensive. However, bringing together a community of people willing to collabrorste on building the tools they need will create something of significant value that would not exist if left up to the commercial market or the individual tool-makers to build. By contrast, journalism is ONLY the result of a few individual contributors. There's no crowd sourcing whereby a bunch of people creating content of essentially 0 value to anyone else outside themselves results in something more valuable than the sum of its parts, except for things like metafilter and Daily Kos, where the comments and diaries are essentially worthless on their own, but are not journalistic enterprises.
posted by deanc at 7:32 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's a little bit difficult to set up much of a plan if your options are "...hmm, no funding for people like us, and nobody wants to buy ads from us..."
posted by divabat at 7:57 AM on November 10, 2015
posted by divabat at 7:57 AM on November 10, 2015
Well, one model is "writing as loss-leader" for some other product or service. Revenue generated from products and services are used to pay for writing that draws people to the site.
My reply to people who complain that, "I can't sell fast food if we have to pay people $12/hr," is, "well maybe that means you should find a more productive business than selling fast food."
A content-only website may well not be economically viable. That means if you want to pay writers, you will have to find a model that is viable.
posted by deanc at 8:24 AM on November 10, 2015
My reply to people who complain that, "I can't sell fast food if we have to pay people $12/hr," is, "well maybe that means you should find a more productive business than selling fast food."
A content-only website may well not be economically viable. That means if you want to pay writers, you will have to find a model that is viable.
posted by deanc at 8:24 AM on November 10, 2015
They already have merch, but it's not enough. And merch costs money to obtain and distribute.
They started Autostraddle not because they wanted a money spinner, but because they were passionate about writing about and for queer women in ways that didn't really exist back then (asides from, say, AfterEllen). It was very much shoe-string, and still is. Autostraddle has grown to be this massive community that now does a ton of other things, such as an annual A-Camp and the aforementioned merch store, but again, this costs money and time, and they're doing the best they can with the resources they have.
Rather than being glib about how "well they should just do something that makes money" as though they haven't already thought about that, why not work to create better funding opportunities for minorities? Why not talk about how investors and grantors and foundations should be more willing to fund work by minorities, rather than the same old dudebros? Why not question why a guy can get millions to start a women's magazine (Bustle), and meanwhile actual women are still struggling? Why not ask why advertisers are so unwilling to buy ad space for queer-focused media, as though we've got cooties?
posted by divabat at 8:38 AM on November 10, 2015 [6 favorites]
They started Autostraddle not because they wanted a money spinner, but because they were passionate about writing about and for queer women in ways that didn't really exist back then (asides from, say, AfterEllen). It was very much shoe-string, and still is. Autostraddle has grown to be this massive community that now does a ton of other things, such as an annual A-Camp and the aforementioned merch store, but again, this costs money and time, and they're doing the best they can with the resources they have.
Rather than being glib about how "well they should just do something that makes money" as though they haven't already thought about that, why not work to create better funding opportunities for minorities? Why not talk about how investors and grantors and foundations should be more willing to fund work by minorities, rather than the same old dudebros? Why not question why a guy can get millions to start a women's magazine (Bustle), and meanwhile actual women are still struggling? Why not ask why advertisers are so unwilling to buy ad space for queer-focused media, as though we've got cooties?
posted by divabat at 8:38 AM on November 10, 2015 [6 favorites]
I am much more cynical than average, so my mindset is basically that the money in the field either exists or it doesn't, and in writing it doesn't outside of the availability of wealthy patrons, money losing labors of love, non profits supported by activist dollars and armies of interns, and data driven click bait. Most any online writing enterprise outside of large conglomerates will fit one of those models.
posted by deanc at 9:27 AM on November 10, 2015
posted by deanc at 9:27 AM on November 10, 2015
I think the kind of writing we're talking about is relevant too.
I am finishing up my dissertation research on freelance science news writers. The low-pay/no-pay question came up frequently in their interviews....and not so much from an "I need to make more money" perspective. There is real (justifiable) concern that long-form investigative writing is just disappearing in the 21st century. In-depth research and reporting on complex topics just can't happen in an environment where payment arrangements are loose, unclear, and constantly contingent. There used to be a dozen science news desks across the country....now there is really only the NYT. This space is dominated by freelancers now - who are constantly scrambling and lack meaningful institutional supports (yes, money, but also other things.)
These specialized areas of writing and reporting are not what they used to be - and that has a cost for all us.
posted by pantarei70 at 9:56 AM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
I am finishing up my dissertation research on freelance science news writers. The low-pay/no-pay question came up frequently in their interviews....and not so much from an "I need to make more money" perspective. There is real (justifiable) concern that long-form investigative writing is just disappearing in the 21st century. In-depth research and reporting on complex topics just can't happen in an environment where payment arrangements are loose, unclear, and constantly contingent. There used to be a dozen science news desks across the country....now there is really only the NYT. This space is dominated by freelancers now - who are constantly scrambling and lack meaningful institutional supports (yes, money, but also other things.)
These specialized areas of writing and reporting are not what they used to be - and that has a cost for all us.
posted by pantarei70 at 9:56 AM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
On this general topic, Wordrates recently went live after a successful Kickstarter. Part of its mission is to serve as a central place for writers to compare magazine rates, along with contract details and editorial contacts.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:56 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by gottabefunky at 9:56 AM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nicole went on a mini-rant on Twitter last week where she explicitly said that the Toast was partially started with and continues to be partially funded by her husband's hedge fund money. I think that's why people are assuming that line was in regards to the Toast.
That was after Mallory's XOXO talk in which she specifically said pretty much your only hope for starting a website was VC money and a rich husband. Previously.
Both of these things are true, but it is also true that the "marry a rich person" refrain has been sung in publishing for quite a long time. Even in my very pedestrian sector of the industry, where we are just regular joes in offices and not groundbreaking entrepreneurs, one mostly finds that the long-timers --regardless of gender or orientation-- are married to lawyers, trust fund kids, doctors, and tech millionaires. Most of the other folks get out, especially when the kids start to arrive.
Like teaching, it is a labor one is expected to do "out of love" and only during a brief historical anomaly was it something that could also sustain a life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:07 AM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
That was after Mallory's XOXO talk in which she specifically said pretty much your only hope for starting a website was VC money and a rich husband. Previously.
Both of these things are true, but it is also true that the "marry a rich person" refrain has been sung in publishing for quite a long time. Even in my very pedestrian sector of the industry, where we are just regular joes in offices and not groundbreaking entrepreneurs, one mostly finds that the long-timers --regardless of gender or orientation-- are married to lawyers, trust fund kids, doctors, and tech millionaires. Most of the other folks get out, especially when the kids start to arrive.
Like teaching, it is a labor one is expected to do "out of love" and only during a brief historical anomaly was it something that could also sustain a life.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:07 AM on November 10, 2015 [4 favorites]
Writing that is done for free is never going to be as good as writing where the writer gets paid.
This is true only under extremely strong ceteris paribus conditions that hold only sometimes.
For example, I would not replace the professors of medicine writing for free in The New England Journal of Medicine with freelancers getting even $1/word. In this case, writers writing for "exposure" are infinitely better than "professionals."
More generally, writing is too important to be left to the "professionals."
posted by grobstein at 10:33 AM on November 10, 2015
This is true only under extremely strong ceteris paribus conditions that hold only sometimes.
For example, I would not replace the professors of medicine writing for free in The New England Journal of Medicine with freelancers getting even $1/word. In this case, writers writing for "exposure" are infinitely better than "professionals."
More generally, writing is too important to be left to the "professionals."
posted by grobstein at 10:33 AM on November 10, 2015
from Riese (the writer)'s twitter (in reply to me griping about this thread):
@autowin: @creatrixtiara @Metafilter @Autostraddle also oddly determined to pit us against the toast when we are in fact madly in love with the toastposted by divabat at 11:00 AM on November 10, 2015
More generally, writing is too important to be left to the "professionals."
See, it's this crap that makes my bosses feel okay about the unsustainable wages they pay. Oh it's too fucking important to be bogged down in things like money!
Well I can't eat nobility and my landlord doesn't take rent payments made in social purpose, dude. If writing is so fucking important, then it seems pretty critical that we allow the people who do it to actually exist, doesn't it?
Plus it's pretty rich that you chose for your example of "not leaving writing to the contempt-quote professionals" a group of people who publish as part of A LITERAL PROFESSION.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:16 PM on November 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
See, it's this crap that makes my bosses feel okay about the unsustainable wages they pay. Oh it's too fucking important to be bogged down in things like money!
Well I can't eat nobility and my landlord doesn't take rent payments made in social purpose, dude. If writing is so fucking important, then it seems pretty critical that we allow the people who do it to actually exist, doesn't it?
Plus it's pretty rich that you chose for your example of "not leaving writing to the contempt-quote professionals" a group of people who publish as part of A LITERAL PROFESSION.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:16 PM on November 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
Plus it's pretty rich that you chose for your example of "not leaving writing to the contempt-quote professionals" a group of people who publish as part of A LITERAL PROFESSION.
This is a false irony, because the people in question are not professional writers and are not paid for their writing. Please do me the courtesy of portraying my comments accurately.
posted by grobstein at 12:49 PM on November 10, 2015
This is a false irony, because the people in question are not professional writers and are not paid for their writing. Please do me the courtesy of portraying my comments accurately.
posted by grobstein at 12:49 PM on November 10, 2015
I absolutely loved Nicole's Twitter series on funding the Toast, especially that bit about how indie media relies on patronage the way artists used to (and perhaps still do).
This whole discussion reminds me of that old Salon piece from 2000, Courtney Love Does The Math, looking at how labels fund new albums, and Taylor Swift's recent controversy with Apple Music over royalties and how she's fortunate enough to make enough from touring, something not true of all musicians.
Yeah, I don't want to pay for everything, either. But I'm not the only one who needs to put food on the table, and love and exposure don't always cover expenses.
posted by lhauser at 12:53 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
This whole discussion reminds me of that old Salon piece from 2000, Courtney Love Does The Math, looking at how labels fund new albums, and Taylor Swift's recent controversy with Apple Music over royalties and how she's fortunate enough to make enough from touring, something not true of all musicians.
Yeah, I don't want to pay for everything, either. But I'm not the only one who needs to put food on the table, and love and exposure don't always cover expenses.
posted by lhauser at 12:53 PM on November 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is a false irony,
Luckily I didn't say it was *ironic.* I said it was *rich*. They aren't actually the same thing.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:40 PM on November 10, 2015
Luckily I didn't say it was *ironic.* I said it was *rich*. They aren't actually the same thing.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:40 PM on November 10, 2015
Re the general back and forth related to this idea: It's a little bit difficult to set up much of a plan if your options are "...hmm, no funding for people like us, and nobody wants to buy ads from us..."
I think it runs deeper than that. I think a lot of the know-how for making a business model work is contained in the minds of mostly heterosexual men. The best of it can only be accessed by having a strong, trusting work relationship to one or more such men. For various reasons, women generally have trouble getting access to that know-how.
The assumption that a person should be capable of first dreaming up a profitable business model before writing about minority issues strikes me as all kinds of privilege talking. The problem goes well beyond inability to find funding (such as grants or VC funding) or ads for such an enterprise. Even people with access to business connections and brains they can pick can see their business fail. People who can't even get access to that kind of thing are facing much, much tougher odds of trying to establish a solid business model.
Profitable business models tend to be both complicated (having many moving parts) and difficult to figure out. If it were easy, we likely wouldn't be having any discussions about who to pay and why to pay them and blah blah blah because everyone would just be raking in the dough doing whatever it was they had dreamed up.
posted by Michele in California at 3:43 PM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
I think it runs deeper than that. I think a lot of the know-how for making a business model work is contained in the minds of mostly heterosexual men. The best of it can only be accessed by having a strong, trusting work relationship to one or more such men. For various reasons, women generally have trouble getting access to that know-how.
The assumption that a person should be capable of first dreaming up a profitable business model before writing about minority issues strikes me as all kinds of privilege talking. The problem goes well beyond inability to find funding (such as grants or VC funding) or ads for such an enterprise. Even people with access to business connections and brains they can pick can see their business fail. People who can't even get access to that kind of thing are facing much, much tougher odds of trying to establish a solid business model.
Profitable business models tend to be both complicated (having many moving parts) and difficult to figure out. If it were easy, we likely wouldn't be having any discussions about who to pay and why to pay them and blah blah blah because everyone would just be raking in the dough doing whatever it was they had dreamed up.
posted by Michele in California at 3:43 PM on November 10, 2015 [5 favorites]
MetaFilter seems to do well in part with polite placement of The Deck ad network.
With much fondness, MetaFilter pays moderators, not content creators. That's a different stream to manage than what it costs to pay writers, editors (if needed, see above) and to manage rights for images, etc. Although it's getting old now I think this Atlantic rant is one of the best discussions of web economics, except it predates a time when all the advertisers start to go "oh look, we can just hire writers to write crap on our own sites or buy cheap content from starry-eyed YouTube stars and then pay Facebook to drive traffic to them and bypass the whole cross-platform debacle anyway."
posted by warriorqueen at 8:48 PM on November 10, 2015
With much fondness, MetaFilter pays moderators, not content creators. That's a different stream to manage than what it costs to pay writers, editors (if needed, see above) and to manage rights for images, etc. Although it's getting old now I think this Atlantic rant is one of the best discussions of web economics, except it predates a time when all the advertisers start to go "oh look, we can just hire writers to write crap on our own sites or buy cheap content from starry-eyed YouTube stars and then pay Facebook to drive traffic to them and bypass the whole cross-platform debacle anyway."
posted by warriorqueen at 8:48 PM on November 10, 2015
Blast Hardcheese, I'm absolutely feeling that about publishing. I'm in the regular-joe end of things too, and despite the fact that we're paid peanuts, fairly regularly people will show a flash or some sort of tell of significant wealth, and you know it's spousal, or just family money. Especially given that in the UK 99 per cent of the jobs are in London. Approaching my mid thirties and with no similar recourse, I'm hitting the "get out" phase.
posted by ominous_paws at 11:21 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ominous_paws at 11:21 PM on November 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
You want to talk about "profitable business models" (and how they get trapped in the minds of heterosexual men - thanks Michele in California)?
Unicorns Dropping Like Flies: First Dropbox; Then Square; Now Fidelity Cuts Snapchat Valuation By 25%
Unicorns Dropping Like Flies: First Dropbox; Then Square; Now Fidelity Cuts Snapchat Valuation By 25%
And here is the stunner: the combined "valuation" of total US unicorns is $486 billion. Their combined profit? $0.posted by divabat at 11:47 AM on November 11, 2015 [4 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
It's almost too easy to find free, good, content on the internet. You need a motivation to actually seek out a service that requires you to pay to access it. I get enough out of Metafilter to contribute monthly to the maintenance, but I find it hard to bring myself to actually pay for content online. I blame it in part on the habits of being a broke student and pirating everything. Part of it is me being selfish and avoiding sites that require money to access. (A journalist friend of mine told me to just subscribe to the NYT when I complained about their paywall going up. I did not subscribe, but I think he was right. It's a minor hypocrisy that I'm living with.)
I don't see a way out. I keep telling myself that I will eventually go and find the money to subscribe to some of the publications, and maybe I will. But I fear there are too many people like me out there. And I don't know what that means in the long run for small publications online.
posted by Hactar at 1:43 PM on November 9, 2015 [2 favorites]