Straying a Bit
October 29, 2006 by admin
Filed under Entertainment
Ok, so this isn’t Craigslist but I’m willing to stray a bit for the cause. Deb Ng sent this ad to me from FreelanceWriting.com.
Shall we?
"I need a couple of good, article writers who can handle up to 10 to 50 articles per week. This is a non-paying job so therefore, you want get any pay. However, you will get a byline for each project that you write for us. Please send resumes to Michelle in I will get back to you."
Come the frick again?
You know, I’ve been pretty darn patient, don’t you think? In fact, I show an amazing sense of restraint sometimes, especially with those 100 articles plus your first born needed in two days for $2 each type deals. Today the gloves come off. Today the politeness ends.
It appears Michelle here needs lots of articles written. Lots. She needs at least two good writers, both of whom can crank out 10 to 50 articles in the course of a week all out of the goodness of their hearts. How do I know this? From the wonderfully eloquent line "This is a non-paying job so therefore, you want get any pay." Thanks for clearing that up, Michelle. I was hoping this was one of those non-paying jobs that actually did pay. Redundancies aside, I’d like to know more about this byline thing.
Who are you, Michelle, and why is a byline from you so special? What is it about you that will motivate good writers to offer you a few hours of their time pro bono? The resumes you request, do you know what they are filled with? Paying jobs! Jobs offering an opportunity for advancement and compensation for efforts. Can you say the same, Michelle? In fact, Michelle, you don’t even offer exposure. Just a byline as if that should be good enough. Your ad doesn’t even explain why we should offer up so much of our time to you? The only thing you make clear is that you won’t pay. This makes you lower than the term paper mill people. It makes you worse than the slime looking for hundreds of articles and only offering fifty cents per piece in return.
And I don’t want to hear about how she’s taking advantage of writers, either. Any writer who responds to this ad will get exactly what he deserves.
Peace the frick Out.
You know what the real problem is here? That as long as there are starry-eyed wannabes willing to do this crap just to see their names in print and tell everyone “I’m a writer!”, there will always be ads like this. And they’ll get responses.
People like both the writer of this ad AND its eager respondents are responsible for the fact that real, professional writers find it hard to get work now. Because this is what’s out there. There’s always someone willing to undercut us and write for free, and the vultures love pitting us against them like this.
I’m a recent college grad, and I check craigslist and freelancewriting.com regularly for writing jobs. I don’t have a starry-eyed view of the world of journalism; I know it can be a downright brutal field to get into and requires skill, hard work and ambition.
I’m constantly on the lookout for an opening that will allow me to gain more experience and perfect my craft. However, ads like these continuosly piss me off because they let me know that these posters clearly have no respect for the amount of skill it takes to write a truly great article or peice of copy.
It’s frustrating, because crap like this will serve to disillusion thousands of good writers.
How good can a writer possibly be if he or she can churn out 50 articles in a week, and who has nothing better to do with his or her time (you know, like get PAID) than be Michelle’s unpaid article slave? I wonder what the folks who post these ads actually expect to get…