Freelancers hit by poor rates and dot.com meltdown

Writers have been advised to "never, ever write for an e-zine" by the author of a guide to online markets.

Writing for the highly rated financial site GreenMagazine.com , 'Rough Guide to Money Online' author John Scalzi says writers are being "suckered in" by the promise of future payment when the web-zine becomes profitable.

"When multi-million dollar professional sites like APBNews can close up shop and stiff their writers, what are the chances a crappy e-zine is ever going to make any money?" he asks.

His comments followed an analysis of freelance online journalism rates carried out for GreenMagazine.com.

The analysis covered 50 professionally written and edited sites that pay for online content. Rates varied from 3 cents a word to between 50 and 80 cents. Only two out of the 50 sites paid $1.

The analysis found huge variations in rates among more established sites. While CBS HealthWatch pays around 66 cents a word HealthGate.com pays 80 cents. InformedInvestor.com only pays 20 cents per word while the business site AtBalance pays 60 cents. Rates of less than 10 cents a word were common.

To make matters worse, Scalzi says this year's online meltdown is making it even harder for online writers to make ends meet. It is estimated that in September alone nearly 5,000 online journalists lost their jobs.

Other US surveys have shown that freelance writing for new media is no more lucrative than for traditional outlets. Almost half of online writers surveyed by the Content-Exchange.com site said they would earn less than $20,000 this year.

Scalzi's answer is to specialise and identify sites that are doing well. He also suggests that developing multiple revenue streams is the best way to guard against exposure to sites that can 'vaporise' as soon as their venture capital dries up. "A well paying gig writing for a business site, for example, can give you financial headroom to take on a lower-paying but more fun writing assignment," he says.

Scalzi's 'Rough Guide to Money Online' is due for publication later this month.

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