grumpyWriters - ripped off, chewed up and spat out!
December 31st 2007 22:47
I know I know. I wasn't going to write here again. But....
Last night I had a few minutes so I did a long google tour of the internet. The subject? My subject: writing. Its what I do for a living. I was interested; thought I'd cruise the sights, you know?
Looking around outside the areas of my own interest I passed by a lot of "writers wanted" ads and decided to drop in on a few. What a bloody joke!
It wasn't the extrordinary number of places (like this, for eg.) that falsely represent themselves as "writers markets" and "freelance opportunities" and even - insert choking laugh here- "news and information sites", it was the down and gritty "I need a writer" ads that really got me.
Reword any of these ads in plain english truth and they would all read basically the same. "I need some pathetic, ego driven sucker to slave over a hot pen for me, produce the eqivalent of War and Peace and the Principia Mathematica in a week, be prepared for me to decide it isn't good enough and also be satisfied with just doing it because I am not going to pay for it."
What really bothers me though is that I am absolutely bloody certain that these rip off artists are getting what they want. Why? Because they know perfectly well that most of the so called "writing community" really is made up of pathetic, ego driven suckers who would sell their soul for a chance to see their name in print.
The ever so slightly more reasonable offers I saw, requirements for paid articles, essays etc. all had one thing in common: the amount paid was about one hundredth of the true value of such work. Tell me: would you sit at a computer and work day in and day out for the chance to recieve the princely sum of $10 a page? If you answered yes, then place yourself either in the above category or in the following: you are not a good writer.
If you could make a living at $10 a page then your're just writing shit. Shit like this, which I, too, could turn out page after page of day in and day out. I would be quite happy to get $10 for this article. But I wouldn't call myself a writer if this was all I did for a living. They have a word for it: it's called hack writing - filling up newspaper space, shitkicking.
That's where these "blog" sites come in. I even went to a couple who represented themselves as quality information sites, where the writers were expected to go through a process of editorial management until they were "accepted" as worthy of having a subject of their own. Sure, this is only symptomatic of the fact that most people who want to write just want to regurgitate stuff they read or stuff they believe - or worse, like some here, who tout their bloody political opinions - which are worth less than zero, except to their own infated egos. But it is sad when you actually go and look then at the end result of this process and read some of the articles from these so called feature writers.
My subject is human psychology - that's where I make my money, and its where I am at least moderately well known in certain circles - so I naturally had to have a dekko at the available info.
Suffice to say it was a load of superficial, regurgitated rubbish. But that's what the internet is for a large part. A collective hard drive full of dis and non information produced for most part by the same writing junkies who would sell their grandmother's walking stick just to get another "me - look at me" hit.
Folks - I'm not saying that everyone is a hack or a bad writer. I am saying that, seeing what is out there, this is the apparent state of things: that the old problem remains and that writers are ever going to be at the bottom of the food chain simply because their need to write overshadows their need to be real writers; their need to produce original and worthwhile material and their need to demand proper compensation for the knowledge and time it takes to produce such material. Those who can't make such demands will remain just what they are; ego driven hacks who are ripped off, chewed up and spat out in the great game of internet "me-ness".
Last night I had a few minutes so I did a long google tour of the internet. The subject? My subject: writing. Its what I do for a living. I was interested; thought I'd cruise the sights, you know?
Looking around outside the areas of my own interest I passed by a lot of "writers wanted" ads and decided to drop in on a few. What a bloody joke!
It wasn't the extrordinary number of places (like this, for eg.) that falsely represent themselves as "writers markets" and "freelance opportunities" and even - insert choking laugh here- "news and information sites", it was the down and gritty "I need a writer" ads that really got me.
What really bothers me though is that I am absolutely bloody certain that these rip off artists are getting what they want. Why? Because they know perfectly well that most of the so called "writing community" really is made up of pathetic, ego driven suckers who would sell their soul for a chance to see their name in print.
The ever so slightly more reasonable offers I saw, requirements for paid articles, essays etc. all had one thing in common: the amount paid was about one hundredth of the true value of such work. Tell me: would you sit at a computer and work day in and day out for the chance to recieve the princely sum of $10 a page? If you answered yes, then place yourself either in the above category or in the following: you are not a good writer.
That's where these "blog" sites come in. I even went to a couple who represented themselves as quality information sites, where the writers were expected to go through a process of editorial management until they were "accepted" as worthy of having a subject of their own. Sure, this is only symptomatic of the fact that most people who want to write just want to regurgitate stuff they read or stuff they believe - or worse, like some here, who tout their bloody political opinions - which are worth less than zero, except to their own infated egos. But it is sad when you actually go and look then at the end result of this process and read some of the articles from these so called feature writers.
My subject is human psychology - that's where I make my money, and its where I am at least moderately well known in certain circles - so I naturally had to have a dekko at the available info.
Suffice to say it was a load of superficial, regurgitated rubbish. But that's what the internet is for a large part. A collective hard drive full of dis and non information produced for most part by the same writing junkies who would sell their grandmother's walking stick just to get another "me - look at me" hit.
Folks - I'm not saying that everyone is a hack or a bad writer. I am saying that, seeing what is out there, this is the apparent state of things: that the old problem remains and that writers are ever going to be at the bottom of the food chain simply because their need to write overshadows their need to be real writers; their need to produce original and worthwhile material and their need to demand proper compensation for the knowledge and time it takes to produce such material. Those who can't make such demands will remain just what they are; ego driven hacks who are ripped off, chewed up and spat out in the great game of internet "me-ness".
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Comment by D. Armenta
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Yes, it's disillusioning as hell to wade through all of the horsecrap and never find a pony. I trust absolutely nothing I find online for writing work, and view with a jaundiced eye any sites that claim money can be made by blogging.
In my more cynical moments, I am aware of the whole scheme; market researchers showing demographic figures to website designers, who build a blog or paid writing site that caters to all people between the ages of 24-65 who ever had a good mark on an English composition paper in school. To bored hausfraus who fancy "they could write Hollywood gossip as good as that Perez Hilton guy, and make money at home". To all the people who are in jobs that they hate and think that if only they could find an audience, their unique and brilliant thoughts would be embraced by the reading public.
It's the same theme as those old magazine ads that had you "draw Scruffy the Pup and send it here; we'll tell you if you have any talent or not"...funny how the meanest scribble with a crayon got a letter in the mail proclaiming "raw talent" that could be honed to make you rich if you attended this art school by mail!
Demoralizing thoughts...
..but then I remember that if you have to write, you'll write. Approval of others or monetary reward doesn't really matter in the end anyway; it's what your own opinion of your work is that counts in the final analysis.
I'll be back...time to rattle the hatemonger's cage again. It's my hobby.