Writing for Suite101.com and About.com: Is It Worth It?

The problem with Suite 101 is that instead explaining their compensation scheme using numbers with dollar signs in front of them, they give you writer testimonials. Nifty trick, but it does nothing to tell you exactly how much you can expect to make as a new writer with them.
(b5 is much more transparent and honest about their payments. I’m saying this and I don’t even work for them!)

What about Written Road. Is it paid better than Suite101 or About ?

Anna, I think they wouldn’t be able to get a writer to join if Suite101 was that up front. Every new writer I speak with seems to get discouraged about not making any money and quit. The only people I hear really doing well are the ones that write 50 or 100 articles right away and keep up a steady pace. I think the only way to make writing for suite101 worth your time is by thinking long term. By the way what is B5? I never heard of it.

Merril, Written Road is paid only in self satisfaction. In that regard, it pays quite a bit more.

I’d like to take a moment and clarify a few things about how About.com’s hiring process and compensation plans work:

Hiring:

About.com writers (aka Guides) have a lot of freedom to create content that works for their topic, but with great freedom comes great responsiblity. We start by looking for writers with the expererience and/or credentials that matter for a given topic. Applicants submit writing samples to help us determine if they’re a fit for About.com; we then select up to five applicants to compete for each open site. During our three week training program, which we call Prep, Guide candidates learn our writing style and formatting standards while creating a sample site. Creating this site includes writing several articles and blog posts, all focused on the one particular topic they applied for before starting Prep. During that time the candidates work with an editor to ensure the clarity and accuracy of their published work. At the end of that three weeks we choose the candidate who will go live and become the About.com Guide to the topic.

Compensation:

As you noted, we recommend that a hired About.com Guide work 15 to 20 hours a week on their site . But we’ve found that the more quality content a Guide produces, the closer they come to hitting the critical mass necessary to generate a real income. We have a page view-based payment plan that rewards year-over-year growth with an incentive payment above a standard rate per 1,000 page views. To supplement that amount and encourage growth, we pay new Guides a monthly stipend of $725 (in addition to any money they receive from site growth) for their first 2 years. We’ve found that the average About.com Guide makes $1,000 a month by the end of their second year. I hope this helps clear things up. We look forward to seeing you in Prep!

Eric Hanson
Editor, Recruitment & Training
About.com

Hi Nick!

b5 (www.b5media.com) has an excellent travel channel and they always look for new, interesting additions. I like quite a few of their travel blogs, and yes, you get paid for writing for them. It’s not much (about $75 the first month), but they’re very upfront about it, the editor of the travel channel is a doll, and if I had more time on my hands, I’d join them just for the heck of it.

Have you guys ever seen America’s Got Talent? You should check it out Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC. How can you resist David Hasselhoff!???

http://www.nbc.com/Americas_Got_Talent/video/index.shtml#mea=262134

I have a blog that you can post on here, it is about travel to Australia. You are more than welcome to check it out on my site.

Bryan
http://www.wilddownunder.com

Suite101 is definitely a long-term planning sort of thing. I had to take a break writing there last year, but I’m still paid every month on the articles I already wrote. If you look at how much you make on an article in a month or two, it’s not much, but when you look at how much you make over a year or two it starts to add up. There are better paying gigs out there, but it’s nice to be able to write whatever you want, whenever you want.

About.com is a giant scam. What About will ask you to do for less than minimum wage is write articles, blog, create large directories, tag and perform other SEO operations to benefit the company, etc. You will be paid based on page views alone, and they will change the rates to their benefit as often as they wish, while you will have no recourse. You will be assigned an editor who will assign you odious, time consuming tasks which you are not contractually obliged to do nor compensated for, yet noncompliance (or any sort of disagreement with any company policy) is grounds for instant termination. Upon termination, About will remove your name and likeness from your copyrighted work, which they will continue to profit from. To ensure their profit, they will pay you a very small stipend. If you attempt to use your own materials, they will threaten you with lawsuits.

On top of all of this, you will be expected to pay for all of your own supplies and expenses, and pay a third of this meager income in self-employment taxes. You will receive no health benefits, and even if “employed” for many years, no unemployment benefits or other compensation should they decide to terminate you.

Additionally, there’s a ‘critical mass’ moment, at which they may decide it’s cheaper to keep your work but not your services- so if you don’t grow quickly enough, they’ll toss you overboard and continue to sell advertising on your content.

The short version: they’ll steal your work; you’ll make more money and better benefits working at Starbucks. Better to build your own blog/website; you’ll make more over time and actually get to decide what you want to write about, and you won’t be scrambling to pay the rent when they unceremoniously toss you.

About.com is a giant scam. What About will ask you to do for less than minimum wage is write articles, blog, create large directories, tag articles, and perform other SEO operations to benefit the company. In addition, you will be expected to attend “optional” conference calls, workshops, and daily listserv meetings, as well as voluntary “tool testing.”

You will have no control over your site, other than content creation. If they don’t sell ads, you won’t get a livable pv rate. They may decide to allo corporations to post content under your byline. They will promote and advertise some sites but not others, usually based on outside advertising or “partnership” deals that guides do not benefit from.

You will be paid based on page views alone, and they will change the rates to their benefit as often as they wish, while you will have no recourse. You will be assigned an editor who will assign you odious, time consuming tasks which you are not contractually obliged to do nor compensated for, yet noncompliance (or any sort of disagreement with any company policy) is grounds for instant termination.

Upon termination, About will remove your name and likeness from your copyrighted work, which they will continue to profit from. To ensure their continued profit, they will pay you a very small stipend. If you attempt to use your own copyrighted materials, they will threaten you with lawsuits, as part of your contractual obligation is to allow them to “license” your materials forever, for whatever they wish to pay you.

On top of all of this, you will be expected to pay for all of your own supplies and expenses, and pay a third of this meager income in self-employment taxes. You will receive no health benefits, and even if “employed” for many years, no unemployment benefits or other compensation should they decide to terminate you.

Additionally, there’s a ‘critical mass’ moment, at which they may decide it’s cheaper to keep your work but not your services- so if you don’t grow quickly enough, they’ll toss you overboard and continue to sell advertising on your content.

The short version: About makes millions of dollars off of the work of a few hundred overworked, under-compensated slaves. Guides have zero legal rights and don’t even get the courtesy of a Christmas card while the officers are awarding themselves nice bonuses for growth.

Better to build your own blog/website; you’ll make more over time and actually get to decide what you want to write about, and you won’t be scrambling to pay the rent when they unceremoniously toss you.

I wrote for About.com long, long ago, when it was still called the Mining Company, so things have obviously changed a lot. Given the workload, no financial upside to it then or now, although you may get some “exposure.” I wrote on a particular topic for about a year and made some valuable contacts through that gig. Made virtually no money, though. Good thing I had paying work coming in from other sources. I don’t regret the experience, but couldn’t recommend it.

Thanks a lot all for posting, Im currently looking for a hundred bucks per month or more because I still live at my parents house and will enter university next year. By doing my research in a few hours, I arrive at the conclusion that associatedcontent.com is best in terms of flexible commitment and on long term pay for pageviews.

Anyway I might open my own website too, Id like to hear more or just talk business email me at uncle.2can@gmail for any answers or questions or just plain talking!