Supply and “DEMAND”
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I often joke with people that I write for content mills. For the uninitiated, content mills is writer slang which refers to those companies that hire writers to create content mainly for the purpose of creating massive quantities of it quickly. They are usually not very heavily focused on the content itself, instead working towards producing a lot of it cheaply at high profit to themselves. Usually, the rates paid to writers for producing this content are low and writers who work for them rely on providing content in quantity to compensate.
See how it works? Sorta like every regular job you ever had right?
As you can imagine, this opens the door to all kinds of controversy among writers.
For myself, I have little problem with companies that operate this way. I’m all for people finding an opportunity and making it work for themselves as long as it is legal. I see these companies as shrewd exploiters of opportunity who saw an opening and made it work.
Now, the controversy seems to center around the rates these companies pay, the individuals who write for them and the effect it has on the rates freelance writers are able to charge for their services. In her excellent blog “Words on the Page”, Lori brings up the contentious debate revolving around Demand Studios and points out that she feels those who write for them are making bad choices. She also mentions her concerns in replies to my comments that Demand and those like them may be encouraging writers to become dependent upon Demand for steady work, thereby contributing to their eventual failures to grow and improve. Since Demand arguably pays rates that are well below what a good Freelancer can obtain independently, the idea is that these Demand writers get stuck in a rut trying to churn out enough content to make a living from Demand work alone. All of which leaves them no time to hone themselves or their skills and aggressively pursue more lucrative opportunities. Apologies to Lori if I’ve summed it up incorrectly.
As you can imagine, being someone who writes for Demand Studios, I have a somewhat different take on things. First and foremost, I’d like to point out that before I even signed up I spent some time checking them out. I read some pretty horrible stories, as well as having come across quite a few satisfied employees. In my judgment at the time, they looked like a worthwhile opportunity. You write small pieces for them, they pay a flat rate, on time and everyone is happy. So what’s it like now that I’ve written for them for a few months? To sum it up, no big deal.
I still think they are a decent opportunity for writers to make some money writing easy content. I know for a fact that they pay on time, although I am presently annoyed with the length of time between getting an article approved for payment and the payment actually being sent. Nothing serious, just a trend that seems to slow down how much you can get submitted in a given period of time. I haven’t enough data to make a specific determination yet, so it could very well be my own perceptions and nothing else. The editors occasionally annoy the living hell out of me, but that’s what editors do right?
As far as the idea that writing for them blocks the growth of writers, I have to disagree wholeheartedly. In my experience, Demand has actually been a great help. Unless you’ve lived your entire life under a rock, you’ve heard the terms “starving writer” or “starving artist”. While I haven’t been able to avoid the “struggling writer” cliché, Demand has helped me avoid the starving part. Being a huge fan of eating and food, that’s a big plus in my book. Let’s face it, as bad as we all want to be writers who make obscene amounts of money with little effort, it just does not work that way. We bust our asses honing our skills, building networks, schmoozing potential clients and chasing every damn lead that looks like it has meat on it. Many of us find ourselves sitting at the keyboard from dawn until the am hours of the night. It’s just the way it is.
For writers who are just getting started, or writers who are enduring those lean periods where work just isn’t coming in the way we would like, it’s pretty damn nice to have something else that will bring in some bill money when we need it. Even successful writers rarely have one single source of income. That’s why you’ll often see writing guru’s touting the benefits of “multiple income streams”. When one is lagging, you have another to shore things up. That’s all that Demand Studios really is; an opportunity to improve your income stream. Internet connections cost money, web hosting costs money, everything costs money, and unless you are in a wonderful situation where you have at least a year’s worth of savings to draw on or don’t have to pay for things, you have to make money. And if you haven’t gotten enough work to pay those bills yet, things can get pretty tough.
In my experience, Demand has helped me to make money while I pursue my writing career. While I certainly don’t rely on Demand exclusively, they have been ONE of several valuable income streams. And one of the most dependable I might add even if they’re not the most lucrative.
Now, would I recommend writing for them exclusively? No, I honestly couldn’t; the amount of content you’d have to produce to make a good yearly profit just isn’t practical. For the arguments against those who do try to do this, all I can offer is this. It is the writer’s responsibility to manage his own career. Demand Studios and others do nothing to force a writer into a bad situation. Sure Demand puts out ad copy that paints them in a great light. They even claim writers can make them their full time job, which technically they can. So does every other business that has even an ounce of common sense. But it is up to the writer to make the best decisions regarding their goals and how they intend to accomplish them.
I signed on to Demand because they presented an opportunity that helps me make money while I pursued my true goals. Even if I become insanely successful next month, I’d likely still toss out some pieces for them now and then just because it’s easy. If someone wants to make writing for Demand their ONLY goal however that is their decision, on this I agree with Lori. It’s probably a bad decision. In my opinion, Demand is great for inclusion into your income stream, but not as the sole source of flow. I don’t doubt that there are those out there who can churn out tons of copy every week, enough to make writing at $15.00 per piece profitable and for those folks I say more power to em. But they are the exception, not the rule.
I’ll go a little further with this tomorrow and explain why I think Content Mills are of little threat to rates and pose little competition for freelancers. At this point I think it’s enough to say that much depends on the writer and the writer alone. Content Mills are just another opportunity that if accepted wisely, can be a valuable addition to a writer’s pool of resources. Like everything else in life, how far you go is up to you.
