Amazing Disgrace: The ‘Pride’ of The Huffington Post
By Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) | February 19, 2016 |
Image – iStockphoto: Toth Gabor Gyula
‘But What Can We Do?’
It’s one of the longest-running shrugs in contemporary writing life, the vexing issue of The Huffington Post not paying a reputed 100,000 bloggers who write for it.
The matter was blown open again two days ago when Steve Hewlett on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show (audio) interviewed Huffington Post UK’s editor-in-chief Stephen Hull.
The handle for the appearance on the show was the “guest-editing” stint done by HRH Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, at the Post for the launch of a “Young Minds Matter” series of articles addressing children’s mental health. Let’s be clear that the controversy here is not about the humanitarian intent of that effort.
Stephen Hull
During the course of the Hewlett conversation with Huffington Post UK’s Hull, Hewlett brings up the question of unpaid labor on the glowing pages of the big medium. Hull puts on his game voice and toughs it out this way, as quoted by Brendan James at the International Business Times (IBT) in Unpaid Huffington Post Bloggers Actually Do Want To Get Paid:
If I was paying someone to write something because I want it to get advertising, that’s not a real authentic way of presenting copy. When somebody writes something for us, we know it’s real, we know they want to write it. It’s not been forced or paid for. I think that’s something to be proud of.
Parsing the three key points here, then, Hull is proposing that:
- If you pay a writer and take advertising dollars, you are not publishing that writer in an “authentic way” (there goes The New York Times, let alone the Post’s own paid editorial staffers);
- If a writer gives his or her work to you free of charge, you can then know “they want to write it” (paying a writer gets you a mercenary);
- Not paying writers is “something to be proud of” (let’s drive the car right on over the cliff).
A brief update here: In responding to many of the comments on this piece, I think it’s worth clarifying that The Huffington Post does hire and pay editorial staffers, Stephen Hull being one of them. The issue here has to do with its use of unpaid blog work. For the record, the Post has the right to set and maintain its policies, just as others have the right to disagree or agree with them.
Chuck Wendig
The real currency of debate here is this latest characterization of the rationale for the Post’s policy, built around what’s “authentic,” what writers “want to write,” and “something to be proud of.” That triply explosive comment has set off responses up and down the writerly drum line, perhaps most eloquently and energetically from author and avid commentator Chuck Wendig in Scream It at Them Until Their Ears Bleed: Pay the Fucking Writers.
I’ll give you just a bit of length here on Wendig’s Munch-esque scream:
Hull is, to repeat, proud that they do not pay writers. HuffPo is owned by AOL who is actually Verizon. Not small companies. The audio link notes from Hull that they are a profitable business.
And yet, they do not pay the writers.
And yet, they are proud not to pay the writers.
PROUD.
Because it isn’t “authentic.” To pay writers…
Let us expose this hot nonsense for what it is: a lie meant to exploit writers and to puff up that old persistent myth about the value of exposure or the joy of the starving artist or the mounting power of unpaid citizen journalism.
Provocations graphic by Liam Walsh
Huffing and Puffing at HuffPo
In 2011, there was a failed effort to sue The Huffington Post on this issue.
The case was thrown out (and here is Reuters on it), as James’ adept IBT article reminds us, when the judge ruled that no one had forced writers to work free of charge for the site that Jonah Peretti, Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer founded in 2005. That was certainly a logical legal determination: bloggers provide their material there by choice.
And there’s the crux of my Provocation in Publishing for you today:
- Since no one is forced to write free for The Huffington Post, then they are making the choice to do so voluntarily. We can do no less than hold our writing colleagues responsible for enabling The Huffington Post to use their work free of charge. If they stopped giving the medium their work, it could no longer take advantage of their work “for the exposure.”
- If we read unpaid writers at The Huffington Post, and if we tweet their unpaid work and quote their unpaid work and otherwise support their unpaid work there, then we, too, are complicit in the “pride” of The Huffington Post in not paying our good colleagues and our friends.
In short, I and others may strongly regret this use of unpaid writerly labor (and you may disagree, that’s fine); what we’re considering here today is how much thought writers put into agreeing to be unpaid by the Post and other media.
During the 2011 affair, a journalist friend of mine and I agreed that we didn’t feel we could, as a rule, engage with The Huffington Post’s output because it doesn’t pay writers. This was when the issue came into focus for me. We both had been at CNN for many years, a company owned by Time Warner, which was for a time owned by AOL, which owns HuffPo and the parent of which is Verizon. So we were watching closely. (“AOL Time Warner” came about in what is considered by some to be among the biggest merger blunders in US business history. Not enough Campari in the world to fully grasp that one.)
My decision about how I handle—or decline to handle—Huffington Post material has occasionally been challenged, of course, by my need to report on something, this happens in my business. You take it case by case.
More frequently, however, that decision has been challenged by my wish that I could in good conscience tweet and otherwise support the writings there of blogging colleagues whom I respect and like. There’s a fine marketing specialist, for example, who works hard on her or his column there, for which she is unpaid and for which I feel that I cannot indulge him or her the support of my social media work, not in good faith. And that makes me feel bad at times.
But if you write without pay for The Huffington Post, you have willingly deprived not only yourself of the payment you should have, but you have also helped to deprive others: You have perpetuated this cult-of-free-work among writers and, worse, among the employers and consumers of writers’ labor.
The Post is different from a blog site like Writer Unboxed or an author’s site or a non-profit organization’s site. It’s a commercial site. It has the money to pay. And its policy of using unpaid writers helps to impoverish the art and business of writing. Here’s Wendig again:
The lie is this: writing is not work, it is not fundamental, it is a freedom in which you would partake anyway, and here some chucklefuck would say, haw haw haw, you blog at your blog and nobody pays you, you post updates on Twitter and nobody pays you, you speak words into the mighty air and you do it for free, free, free. And Huffington Post floats overhead in their bloated dirigible and they yell down at you, WE BROADCAST TO MILLIONS and DON’T YOU WANT TO REACH MILLIONS WITH YOUR MEAGER VOICE and THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU. But it is an opportunity for them, not for you.
Chuckie’s in love. A good fight. And he’s right.
The Post is not alone in using unpaid writers, of course. But it has made itself the mothership of this trend, the icon if an what many see as an awful practice. And Stephen Hull may have just offered a strained enough enunciation of this issue that we can stop for a moment and think through it.
Amazing Disgrace
It’s a lovely and curiously outdated word. We speak little of grace these days, let alone disgrace. Funny when so colloquial a term seems to be precisely on target. Dis-grace is a giving up of grace, a falling from grace, Merriam-Webster tells us, “usually through some indecorous, dishonest, or immoral action.” If you believe that writers deserve to be paid for their work as do any other laborers in our economy, then you may see so rich a medium handling writers in so vulgar a way under so dubious a pretense of pride as a disgrace.
As a quick aside, I can tell you that I feel for Stephen Hull. He’s in the bad position of having to defend an indefensible thing. I don’t hold this against him. He’s as caught in the corporate crush as any of us has been at one time or another.
And The Huffington Post may be more interested at this point in ill will than it has been. IBT’s Brendan James also reported last October that, “The Huffington Post has seen a major decline in its monthly traffic coming from within the U.S. over the past year, while competitors such as BuzzFeed and Vice Media continue to grow, according to data provided by comScore to International Business Times. In September of last year, HuffPost pulled in around 113 million unique visitors and hit 126 million last November, but then steadily bled visitors into 2015 and throughout the year. Last month, it was down to 86 million.”
But what’s needed here is less related to the Post’s eyeball ratings than to your perception of it. What’s needed is that you take a moment to review this issue quietly, privately, for yourself. You have a right to a personal understanding of this issue and to act on it, or not, as you see fit. Agreement with me or someone else is not at issue. The key is to think about it for yourself, to make a conscious determination of your own stance, rather than brushing past.
I invite you today to consider how you feel about supporting The Huffington Post. However you feel, I recommend that you suggest that others think about it. I also recommend that you be in touch with people you care about who write free for The Huffington Post to explain. I will do this with the marketing ace I respect, and I wish I’d talked with her or him about this earlier.
No one needs to be demonized. The problem is the policy, not the people. Everyone has needs. We can all respect that.
“But what can we do” about The Huffington Post if we feel we need to honor the needs of writers overall to be compensated correctly for their work?—we can stop clicking.
What’s your take on this?
[coffee title=”Wish you could buy Porter a glass of Campari?” icon=”glass”]Now, thanks to tinyCoffee and PayPal, you can![/coffee]
@Porter_Anderson is a fellow of the National Critics Institute. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and independent authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller‘s The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations’ WFP in Rome. is a recipient of London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. PorterAndersonMedia.com
I am seeing the HuffPost rants a lot lately. 95% of what bloggers published there is previously published content. HuffPost is fine with that and doesn’t ask for work to be original. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything original from a blogger there (from their paid staff writers and freelancers, yes, but not from a blogger). The web standard is not to pay for previously published work. I wrote an article about places that pay for previously published work once and after days of searching was hard pressed to come up with a handful of places (most audio podcasts – a different medium). Are you saying that HuffPost SHOULD pay for previously published work? Curious to hear your thoughts.
Susan, I know a lot of writers who write for HuffPo and none, that I know of, send in recycled material.
Agree, Therese, thanks.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
My husband has been blogging for the Huffington Post for a number of years, and every one of his blogs has been original content.
Hi, Linda,
Thanks for the input. My understanding falls along the lines about what you’re saying about your husband’s work for The Huffington Post.
Good of you to read and respond, cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
HuffPo sets itself up as comparable to print markets, which do consistently pay for reprints — not a lot, perhaps, but actual pay. If a publication finds enough value in material to reprint it, it should pay, and that applies even more to a recasting of previously published material for a new market.
Hi, Leslie,
I think you put very well what I was saying a bit less deftly in a comment above. I agree, that even if material is being repurposed, that material — if deemed valuable enough by the medium in question to publish — should be valuable enough to pay for.
And you’re correct that syndication of content is not unusual in newspapers. Syndicated material is paid for by each medium using it (or by a corporation for all or some of its media).
Multiple use in such settings shouldn’t devalue the writer’s content.
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Exactly what Susan Macarelli said. I do not send original content to Huffington Post. Not once. Why would I? I run it on my own site or as a guest post, then why the hell not put it on HP? At that point I’ve got nothing to lose and can only (hopefully) gain exposure.
I’d also like to point out that the idea to not support or share posts that our blogging/writing friends publish there leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. It’s antithetical to the community that I have grown to love. The support we give our fellow writers is critical. Refusing to share what you would normally share is a slippery slope to fractured relationships and burnt bridges.
Hi, Gretchen,
This is useful input, your ratification of Susan’s comment about previously published material.
In my mind, this doesn’t make it any less something The Huffington Post should pay for. It’s one thing when you run it on your own blog, another thing when it’s used by a corporation as one way to attract paid advertising without paying you anything for it.
And I think I made it clear in my piece that I don’t feel good about not being able to support colleagues who give their work to the Post. My feelings about that don’t exonerate me from doing what I feel is the right thing. I can’t in good faith support them there.
In fact, I’ll pick up on your comment about community just long enough to say that I think there is, in some instances of writers’ community, a tendency toward an over-weaning emphasis on support. I’ve commented at times on how frequently authors seem unable or unwilling to give each other truthful feedback if the news is negative. While I realize we probably differ on this, I don’t believe that such community — which I think is founded on false expressions of regard — is useful or even valid. In an industry in which there are far, far too many people trying to operate as writers (and far, far too many books already), I think truth is more important than ever. And I regret it when I see authors following the old dictum, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” I’d like to see more truthful exchange among our writers, I think it would make the creative corps stronger, leaner, healthier, more productive and prosperous.
Needless to say, my own determination of what I feel is ethical and what isn’t, however, need not have any effect on your own ideas and, I presume, likely won’t
That’s fine. As I said, you have the right to make your own decisions, just as I do. I respect that, and I appreciate the chance to have this exchange with you.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, I think this is spot on: “…a tendency toward an over-weaning emphasis on support. I’ve commented at times on how frequently authors seem unable or unwilling to give each other truthful feedback if the news is negative. While I realize we probably differ on this, I don’t believe that such community — which I think is founded on false expressions of regard — is useful or even valid. ”
As I writer, I want truthful feedback. Yes, it sometimes stings, but it makes me better in the long run. And I will not bloat up another author with flattery or false praise when asked for my opinion on their work. There are nice ways to say that something just isn’t quite there yet, and young writers need that. Otherwise, you are just cheering someone along the path toward disappointment and depression when agents and editors continue to reject them over something you, as a critique partner, should have had the balls to help them with.
(I realize this is slightly off topic of the post…) :)
Hi, Erin,
Really appreciate this comment and sorry I’d missed it. (With conference season starting, it’s taken me a laughably long time to respond to everyone’s comments on this post.)
I’m with you, and am quietly researching what I believe could be a helpful alternative to the tradition of authors appraising other authors. In an earlier post, my too-quickly-chosen “truth bureau” name for this was wrong. It’s not that authors trying to advise other authors can’t be truthful (and sensitive, as you describe so well, for younger, newer writers), but that authors simply cannot help reading each other AS authors. And, in fact, the thing needed is the readership of readers, the appraisal of readers — experienced, yes, but people who can form a sort of focus-group response without any need or desire to be authors, themselves. Just readers, actual consumer evaluators, possibly trained to some extent by a program to express clearly what they see as drawbacks or strengths but not driven by their own (perfectly understandable needs) of authorial success and comprehension.
In short, I think the reader-critic is a different intelligence from the author-critic, and the industry is almost entirely without a reader-critic service.
Here’s the piece I wrote here at WU about this topic, introducing the idea of a “truth bureau” — a kind of double-blind board of readers who are carefully matched to the material brought forward for critique and respond strictly from the stance of seasoned, engaged readers, not as aspiring or practicing authors, themselves: https://bit.ly/1JEzUHi
The whole topic is interesting and pressing, especially as the “Wall of Content,” as I call it, keeps getting taller and taller and authors’ ability to get over, under, around or through this glut of material evaporates.
All the best in your work, and thanks again for your good thinking here, it’s appreciated.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Gretchen,
Just one question, and apologies if it is artificially polarizing. Do you in fact support Huffington Post’s business model, of not paying you and your blogging/writing friends for the content you post there for the Post’s profit? Or are you in favor of you and your blogging/writing friends getting paid for that profitable (to the Post) content? (deliberately quoting your terminology, “blogging/writing friends”).
Hi, Susan,
I concur with our colleagues here, I’m not personally aware of previously published work being what unpaid bloggers supply to The Huffington Post, myself.
Even, however, if something were to be “repurposed,” to use a comfortable term, I’d still want to see a writer paid, yes. If a commercial medium is interested enough in a writer’s work to publish it, then that medium should be willing to pay the writer for it.
There are, of course, precedents in other art forms. A visual artist’s lithographs in a limited series — each copy pulled from that series is expected to be marketable, not just the first.
So while I think that less of the content may be re-used than you think, I don’t — to answer your question — feel that this would change the balance of responsibility to pay the author of that material.
Thanks for reading and commenting,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
The Corporate Crunch. That jumped out at me, Porter. We are living in a corporatocracy and looking for sanity. Kind of makes for a Mad Tea Party. Our media and our government have, on so many levels, been bought and paid for, so who do I trust to tell me the truth? Who am I going to look to for facts and transparency ? Writers who have made their bones, who have proven their nerve, skill, vision and professionalism. They are worth their weight in gold. Thanks for the provocation.
He’s caught the corporate crush, not caught in a corporate crunch.
Ever the eagle eye, Tina. :) Thanks and that corporate crush can sure feel crunchy at times, I can tell you that from first-hand experience.
Good to see you here, hope you’re well,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Susan,
Thanks for this. It’s definitely true that a great deal of our society’s foundation on free enterprise has led to a huge overhang of corporate drive and culture. It’s good to remember that a corporation’s essential goal and intent is to produce profit from some form of service and/or goods. This, of course, is how we come to see so much uncomprehending corporate ownership of one kind or another. It’s a fascinating study in itself to look at the holdings of large corporations — the range of businesses umbrella-ed under one corporate parent can be vast and, at least on first glance, incredibly disparate.
What I learned in my own years in various corporate settings is that a corporate parent doesn’t have to corrupt or demean or damage its holdings. There are cases of extremely fine corporate stewardship of valuable properties. But this is a hard thing to pull off, an even harder thing to sustain. The basic model simply isn’t perfect, not by a very long shot, and what is a human creation takes on a life of its own awfully easily.
I like to think that there are people working in the industry today whose efforts are meant to provide you and other writers with “facts and transparency.” While at Writer Unboxed we have an agreement among our contributors that we won’t promote ourselves, I think I can tell you without violating that agreement that the intention of The Hot Sheet, which my WU co-contributor Jane Friedman and I produce, is to give writers industry analysis with, as we put it “no drama, no hype. Guidance, not gossip. Analysis, not agenda. And we are not alone. There are others whose earnest interest is in valuable “clean” support.
But you could not be more right to feel at sea at times, nor are you wrong that finding and sifting through the services you may need is difficult, time-consuming, stressful and anything but easy.
I wish you well, and thank you for the honesty of your comment here, it says to me that while you correctly identify many slants and angles around you, you’re hanging on to your own need for something better. Good for you, and all the best with it.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hello Porter,
Passion seems to do something efficacious for your own writing
–this is a compelling post on something you obviously feel strongly about.
My first reaction is that the problem you’re discussing has a generational foundation. I’m old. I read a morning newspaper every day. Of course I take it for granted that the writers for my local daily are paid to produce the copy I read.
But when I walk my dog at six-thirty in the morning, I see no newspapers on the front porches of any of my younger neighbors. These are the folks who listen to something or make phone calls while walking their own dogs. They get their news on cable, or from online sources like Huff Post. Many of them made The Daily Show their principal source of news. They also post lots of short copy/photos about themselves, and text messages throughout the day, etc. They never expect to be paid for doing any of this. By extension–unconsciously–I have to think these same young people don’t know why others would expect payment for words and images posted on the Internet.
Unlike me, you have kept pace with the frenetic process of change in “information delivery systems.” But it’s clear from your post that you’ve remained true to the Old Time Religion and its values–and I thank you for that.
One more thing.
I just finished watching an interview with Joe Nocera about his book INDENTURED. His thesis is that everyone in college sports is making lots of money–the schools, the coaches and athletic directors who are paid handsomely. Everyone, that is, except the labor force, the athletes themselves.
Nocera asserts that something like 13 billion a year is generated by college athletes. The inducement to play college sports is the possibility of ultimately being “hired” by the NBA or the NFL. The athletes spend their college years slaving away for The Firm, usually working 50-hour weeks, with education all but ignored. Ultimately, only 5 percent of this labor force ever makes it to the pros.
On a much smaller scale, writers who write for free are doing the same thing. They cling to the gossamer thread of hope that somehow “exposure” in Huff Post and elsewhere will lead to a pay day in the misty future. The chances of this happening are about as good as those facing college athletes.
Hey again, Barry,
And yes, a very apt comparison, I think, the college sports world and the writers’ arena today.
There’s an important parallel here, too, that is not easy to talk about because so many writers (and a lot of university athletes) will take umbrage at it. But amateurism plays a role in tall this. Clay Shirky has talked of the “mass amateurization” of publishing that the digital dynamic enables. This is not unlike the abiding “mass amateurization” of sports, when legions of young people are ready and eager to take on those 50-hour work weeks for that skinny shot at the majors. We’re seeing this now among people who arrive, by the busloads, convinced that they’re writers who have a chance at the bigtime. As we learn, they’ll give away a great deal for that perceived opportunity that probably will never materialize.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Barry, your point about print journalism is well taken, given that it’s been so heavily impacted by the changes in online/internet publication. I live in Chicagoland, and both the major newspapers have seen significant reductions in regular/salaried staff. (Full disclosure: a relative of mine is an editor at one paper, and his newsroom staff has been cut to about 1/3 of what it used to be–while trying to keep the same pace and quality of publication.)
Admittedly, I’m one of those folks who gets my news online for the most part. But there’s no denying that all the “free” content (and it’s never *really* free) out there has made it even easier for profitable companies to avoid paying the content providers. Me, I’d like to get paid–and I don’t blame the college athletes for wanting to get paid, either.
Hi, Alisha.
Your relative’s experience at the newspaper is quite common. And in fact, he’s one of the lucky ones because he hasn’t been washed out in one of the waves of layoffs. And yet he’s left doing the work of three people (at least) and trying to hold it together. It’s the plight of the people who aren’t laid off in corporate layoffs, seldom perceived or understood. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s amazing that there are still two papers there. This won’t always be the case, I’m afraid.
I sometimes wonder if authors realize, in parallel, what happens in the expectations of the public when books are offered free of charge or for very small amounts of money. The lay public’s concept of the value of a writer’s work takes a tremendous hit, surely far more expensive than a quick gain of 30 or 50 copies sold can make up for.
Like those college athletes, there’s always somebody ready to step up and do it for even less.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
“I sometimes wonder if authors realize, in parallel, what happens in the expectations of the public when books are offered free of charge or for very small amounts of money. The lay public’s concept of the value of a writer’s work takes a tremendous hit, surely far more expensive than a quick gain of 30 or 50 copies sold can make up for.”
Try telling an author who leaves their first book in a series free to entice buys for the following books that offering books for free undercut their value. They tell you that they make money that way. Try battling publishers’ mentality that people who get your book for free wouldn’t have paid for it anyway, but they’ll buy your other books because now they know/trust you as an author.
Try telling that to readers when they say that if it weren’t for free books, they’d have never learned of a new author and tried their books to start with. Now that they know the author, they’ll purchase more of their other work.
When you have thousands of authors offering any one of their million books for free, that makes for TONS of free books, thus setting up the “free” mentality.
As an author, I’ve just completed a month and a half of offering my books at reduced prices or nearly free (99cents). They’re now back to very slightly reduced prices. Part of me abhors giving away free books because I think it perpetuates the free mentality. But I swear authors and publishers fight that notion constantly.
Hi, Scarlet,
Thanks for your important input.
I think you make your points well here about the wider questions of “free” for authors and how they distribute their books.
In fact, I can’t counter any of the effects or considerations you’re mentioning. From a single author’s viewpoint, each of these perspectives you’re offering is clear, understandable, and no doubt right. In fact, some of my recent articles (one in particular written for a German publication) has been about what I call the “Wall of Content” facing authors, publishers, everybody. This is that “TONS of free books” you talk about, as well as books that are selling for a price. And it is a terrifyingly tall, sheer rock face, as I like to describe it. That;s a fancy (or not) way of saying that the competition is incredible. More than any of us can really get our heads around.
So from where you stand as one of our authors, you’re on the money with every single point.
The tricky part for those of us who cover the industry has to do with the wider view of what that “free” mentality does to the public’s concept of books’ value, including your own books’ value, your writing’s value. (And that’s the buying public, I might add, as well as the reading public — this is affecting not only what people think of as correct pricing but what they consider to be the place and purpose of literature of all genres and types.)
We see happening to books what happened to film, for example, when movie rentals created a market for “straight to video” movies — a sudden sector of the film industry, cheaply made shows with actors who looked oddly like famous actors but weren’t them, remember when all that came in? The whole continental shelf of B and C and D and worse movies that now populate DVD and streaming services because the demand for cheap film is so big. In the worst cases, the endings are never right, the acting is creepy, the dialog is weird, the stories are….strange. Not only does that stuff do something to the question of how much money anybody can expect to make when the cheap work is so prevalent (and SO cheap), but what does it also do to our concept of the art of film? Hollywood and its awards grow farther and farther from this sea of lesser content — not unlike the way major trade publishing and literary awards grow farther from the world of 99-cents and free books.
Don’t take what I’m saying here to mean that you’re doing anything wrong, have done anything wrong, or will do anything wrong. You are that single author, that lone operative who has to make her best calls as she can. Those calls may mean free. And God, yes, I get it when you say that part of you abhors giving away free books because of what it does to promote the free mentality — if anything, Scarlet, that’s a very gracious statement from you.
We don’t have any easy answers here. And historically, we’re in fully uncharted waters. What some in the industry don’t like to admit is that never before has it been possible for everybody who want to put out a book to do so and to sell it, or try to, in the same channels as the majors. (Think what would happen if every one of us could create, build and sell our own automobiles — the auto manufacturers would be staggered, just as publishing is.)
What’s more, never before have authors and publishers worked at the foot of that astonishing Wall of Content that digital has thrown up in our faces. Digital means never going out of print, remember. Your books are in competition with those written hundreds of years ago and with everything churned out last night at Amazon. It’s an unspeakably tall order, trying to punch through all this and find readers.
More power to you, keep making the hard choices as you can and need to do. We’re all learning, and we’re better for it thanks to input from folks like you.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Alisha–
With a relative in the newspaper biz, you have an insider’s view of what’s happening. There’s no point in weeping and gnashing over it, but facts are facts: print resources are in decline, and the result is not value-neutral. It’s a dumbing-down process.
In his reply Porter Anderson refers to Clay Shirky’s term, the mass-amateurization of publishing. Who can deny this is happening? The effect, in my view, is for the dog–books or journalism–to be wagged by the marketing tail.
Hey, Barry,
Many thanks for your kind words. My own industry’s runover by digital (major news outlets started being hit in the early 1990s) has probably had something to do with my efforts to pace developments. Today, journalists must work within these channels fluently or our days are sharply numbered. So I can take little credit. It’s a sink or swim imperative.
And your perceptions are right on the money. Pew Research might have a job for you. :)
They’re reporting that in this presidential election cycle, for example, their studies are indicating that social media are the second way that Americans are getting their political news (cable TV news being No. 1). Cable accounts for 24 percent of the political news audience’s sourcing of this material. Social media pick up the next 14 percent.
I agree with you — and I think Lee Rainie and our other friends at Pew would, too — that there are certainly generational factors at play here.
This is one of the interesting charts that Pew has produced recently on where Americans are getting their election news. And one of the ways they’re interpreting they’re data shows very clearly what you’re putting your finger on: Among 18-29-year-olds, social media account for 35 percent of the respondents’ sourcing of politcal news. In the next bracket up, 30-49-year-olds, only 15 percent cite social media. By the time you get to the 65-and-older group, just 1 percent of respondents say that social media are their main source of presidential election news. Forty-three percent of those over-65s are getting it from cable TV.
All of that’s here if you’d like to read more, it’s really interesting stuff.
And I believe that you are correct about there being generational differences in what’s expected to be valid work for payment, too. A riveting incident a few years ago at NPR revealed (rather courageously, I thought), a young intern’s assumption that there was nothing wrong with ripping and trading music with her friends without paying for any of it. She produced an unforgettable statement of how she had had to be shown that there was anything whatever wrong with taking any content she could get free online.
We’re a species of many different mindsets and generational gulfs seem to widen by the day.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’ve written three posts for HP: basically, one a year. Two were my own idea. One was “commissioned” (also for no money) by a third-party. They all were tie-ins to something I was doing/publishing.
Do I mind that I’m not paid? Of course I mind. Do I make it crystal clear to anyone who asks that I’m not paid (and they won’t be either)? Of course I do.
My posts there fall under the category of “marketing” for me. I don’t get paid when I guest on another author’s blog. I don’t get paid for being at a local author event. Hell, sometimes I have to pay to be there. I weigh each opportunity before agreeing.
As offensive as his statements are – and they are because they show such disrespect for the people responsible for HP’s success – I find the candor somewhat refreshing. There’s no fine print, no reading between the lines, no insincere “gee, I hope someday we have the money to pay someone besides ourselves.”
Chuck’s right: it sucks. The arrogance is breath-taking. It’s a business model that depends on volunteers to keep it afloat. And as in every creative field, the artists are expected to be the volunteers.
Does that mean we don’t click on their posts? I’m not willing to go that far. I share posts by friends and colleagues, but I don’t share others. In fact, I rarely read HP unless it’s a post by a friend or colleague. I’ve only used them as a source once – and paid for the privilege (no irony there).
Maybe I sound wishy-washy about this. But it doesn’t change my opinion of HP or their place in my marketing efforts. I’m glad, though, that now there can be no doubt about their business model.
I can relate to Victoria’s wishy-washiness on this. It’s grating and offensive to hear Hull so gleefully defending/exploiting his volunteer workforce. But I suspect for most people who post in HP, they’re doing it with the hope or belief that they ARE getting something out of it. Mostly it’s the dreaded E-word (exposure), but hey, the reality is that as artists, we DO need exposure.
So I think it comes down to a “cost of doing business” mindset. I may not like the existing system, but it behooves me to become familiar with how the game is played, and then play it to my best advantage.
I mean, I’ve given thousands of copies of my debut novel away, back when a high-exposure free giveaway on Amazon could generate months and months of paid sales. I resisted that move for a long time, but ultimately I’m glad I got in on that strategy back when it was a real long-term sales booster.
So while it’s annoying, painful, and sometimes flat-out humiliating, I suspect that many HP posters – and other people who make their writing available for free – simply view their unpaid work as marketing: something that they may not like, but that needs to be done.
Hull’s smarmy rationale is bullshit – no question. But while he’s busy getting something from his posters, I think most HP posters are busy getting something from him. Is it fair and equitable? No freaking way. But it’s just another aspect of how business works, particularly in the arts.
Hey, Keith,
Thanks for the input, none of which I disagree with.
However, the fact that this is “just another aspect of how business works, particularly in the arts” — you’re absolutely right — doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t point up how unfortunate a reality that is and ask if it isn’t possible for a commercial entity like The Huffington Post to do better.
At the very least the “smarmy rationale” that’s “bullshit” could be set aside for a little real-speak so that writers didn’t have to suffer the indignity of such ugly bromides about “pride” in taking advantage of the situation, right?
Maybe the only difference in our stances here is that I’m not willing to dismiss it as “but what can we do?” at least without calling the Huff Bluff what it is and asking more writers to put some thought into it.
I think that’s worthwhile, and I appreciate your engaging.
Thanks for your input, always good to have it.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hey, Viki,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
As I said in my piece, each person has to come to his or her own terms about what’s worth it about working without pay and what isn’t. I hardly think this is wishy-washiness.
Taking news stories on a case-by-case basis is the same thing. If there’s a report I need to handle originating at The Huffington Post, I may have to handle it. No easy answers, no blanket responses.
Knowing you, I’m comfortable assuming that the choices you’ve made at various times to have your work appear at The Huffington Post were the right choices for you. Part of my understanding of what you’re saying — this is not wishy-washy, it’s careful consideration — has to do with the keen effort you bring to your marketing efforts, which ones you choose, how you do them. I don’t think it’s wrong to assume that at times and for certain authors and topics, the Post’s reach could be beneficial, “for the exposure” might be a right choice.
I think that as I said in the article, what I’d ask, and what I appreciate your stance for, is that authors think about this and not just jump in, willy-nilly, without having given the question any thought and without having weighed what it means to them. Obviously, that’s exactly what you’ve done and are doing. What I’m sorry about is that you have to debate this in your career at all.
Cheers!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I agree. I think it’s important that terms and conditions be well-known upfront. I got a “offer” just yesterday to submit an article but could find nothing on the entire website about compensation. (If they say it’s “great exposure!” then you can be pretty sure there’s no money involved.)
Sure, I wish everyone paid for content. I still think HP is a good marketing resource, if used properly (like anything else).
Right, and that element of its being a good marketing resource is nothing to be sneezed at.
The question, then, for each author is can they reconcile the bigger picture of the cult-of-free-work and The Huffington Post’s place in that picture with what they feel they need to do for marketing reasons?
Hard questions, thanks again for the input, Viki,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’m pretty sure nobody held a gun to the head of any writers published on HuffPo. They have their own reasons for using the platform, and they have a right to choose to publish there, instead of posting on their own blog, for example. Personally, I got paid to publish on HuffPo…. as a ghostwriter. My client paid me and he got the byline. But I can provide a link in my portfolio. Best of both!
Hi, Mia,
I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that anyone doesn’t “have a right to choose to publish” at The Huffington Post.
In fact, if you’ll read my article again, you’ll see that I wrote this: “You have a right to a personal understanding of this issue and to act on it, or not, as you see fit. The key is to think about it rather than brushing past.”
You’re right. You, they, and all of us have every right to do so, and the decision is up to each of us. But having the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
And what I’m asking is not that people somehow divest themselves of a “right” to publish where and how they want to, but to think about what they’re doing — not only in terms of their own careers, but also in terms of what their actions can mean to how the rest of the creative corps is perceived.
The value of creative work is run over by such situations as this. As Chuck Wendig tells us, “work” is no longer what it appears to be — as a doctor’s work is work or as an air-conditioning repairman’s work is work. They get paid, right? They don’t consider handing out their work free of charge as writers do.
I believe this is the wrong thing for authors to do and I don’t think your or anyone’s “rights” come into it unless I make the mistake of saying — and I did not say — that you don’t have a right to do this.
You have the right to do many things, even if they’re wrong.
All I’m asking is that you rethink. And I thank you for being in touch.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
All true and very well stated, Porter. Except the fact that we indie-authors, at least, give away our work on a regular basis. For free, and for a whole lot less exposure than HuffPo gives. Thing is, we decide, and it’s our agenda, not theirs, when we participate. So THAT makes it not a dis-grace?
Hell, we give away the whole BOOK sometimes, right? The series-starter, the teaser/taster, the blog posts are all on spec. And again, who gets as much meaningful exposure from a whole career of that, as they might from one funny article that gets picked up, shared, goes viral… if I knew ahead of time what would happen, it would be career-suicide not to say yes. I’m having a hard time seeing that as immoral.
And if the guys at HuffPo ever lose their frickin’ minds and contact an unknown, pretty conservative, epic fantasy indie author to ask for a post? I will very, very likely say yes. Hell yes. I’d give them a taster just like I do my readers, those who follow my blog, and about anyone else who’ll pay attention. At least once, for free. Hell yes.
Hi, Will,
Thanks for your input.
Just to be clear, I do say that each person has “a right to a personal understanding of this issue and to act on it, or not, as you see fit. The key is to think about it rather than brushing past.”
In other words, I’m not asking you to adopt my position on this. I’m asking you to think about it, which you’re doing here in your comment, and I appreciate that.
What I’d say back to your point about free distribution of work being common, especially among independents, is that it’s a different thing when you distribute copies of your books free to readers who might become buyers and when you distribute writings free to a profit-making corporation that will be earning revenue — which it will not share with you — on your material.
In fact, the one certainty in the occasion (since you rightly mention “if I knew ahead of time”) is that a commercial medium like The Huffington Post IS making money from the work it doesn’t pay for. Advertisers pay it to be exposed to the eyeball traffic that comes to it. And those eyeballs are drawn to it by the unpaid work of writers who give it to HuffPo free.
That’s the distinction in my mind. A book giveaway is a direct outreach to your readers. As an indie, you will be the one who gets any revenue generated when those readers become buyers (and I hope they do). But a gift of your work to The Huffington Post will not come back to you in terms of revenue if you’re an unpaid blogger there. Any revenue your writing earns them there stays with them.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thank you so much for this thoughtful post, Porter! I always enjoy the insights from your perspective of the industry.
I love that this issue is getting more attention now. Just yesterday, I posted about how we could judge when a “work for exposure” opportunity might be worth it (and how to get the most out of it if we decide to say yes): https://jamigold.com/2016/02/working-for-exposure-get-the-most-out-of-it/
So I don’t fall into the “never work for free” camp, as that attitude could be just as limiting as never getting paid. But as you said, there’s a big difference between a small (personal-ish) blog and a big, income-generating one like HuffPo. Thanks for sounding the choice before all writers so clearly!
Hi, Jami,
Thanks for the good input here and the link to your piece. I agree completely that a writer may make decisions that make sense about working without pay — and absolutely, as you say, the key to doing this well is making sure you’ve assessed how that exposure is expected to pay off and why you’re going for it, as you say in your piece.
I do think the key in The Huffington Post scenario is that we’re talking about such a large company, a fully commercial corporation, and one that takes advantage of free content from so many people. Many if not most other instances in which a writer will have to sort this out are in much less potentially lucrative settings — guesting at friends’ sites, etc.
Once we’ve stepped into the for-profit corporate arena, the picture changes, at least in my interpretation, and this is why the HuffPo stance is so insupportable — in my own take on it, of course. (As I seem to need to point out a lot in these comments, I’m really not trying to dictate Think Like Porter Day here, lol, but think-for-yourself behavior.)
Clearly, you’ve put a lot more thought into this than most, and thanks again for sharing it with us, good to see someone working through the issue in such detail.
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Agree completely about HuffPo, Porter. If a company’s business model relies on guest content and they’re making money–lots of money–on that content, there’s no reason not to pay except for greed. Thanks again for sharing your insights here!
Great article. I shared Chuck Wendig’s piece yesterday, and agree 100%. It’s also why I Kickstarted Gamut magazine, where we’ll be paying author TEN CENTS A WORD. HuffPo is predatory, they will sponge off of authors for as long as the authors will continue to submit. Many of us start out desperate for coverage, exposure. Hell, I reviewed books at The Nervous Breakdown for three years, and I didn’t get paid a cent. I wanted to support voices that weren’t being heard. But in the end, I had to stop if I wanted to be a full-time author, editor, publisher and teacher. I hope HuffPo will change their policies. I did write for BuzzFeed and Flavorwire, as a freelancer—and they paid.
Hi, Richard,
Many thanks for your comment. I think a lot of us in journalistic roles can find ourselves giving our work away because of our love of an art or other field, and in order to lift up good work for special attention.
My own entry into the business was as a critic and although I was on the staffs of mainstream newspapers and television networks as such, I always worked well beyond my brief — taking up art forms we didn’t cover otherwise, for example, widening coverage to include performance companies and event in far-flung locations, generally running myself ragged at times. I don’t regret it but I do regret that so many fine people working to support artistic elements of the culture in news-based settings have to do so much extra, using their own time and funds to get it done well. (At many points, I’d use my sick-day allotments, being very fortunate health-wise, to make trips to cover events on my own dime. And I’m mentioning this not to toot my own horn but to reflect the fact that this is the way it is for many, many critics: they may be paid for about half of the work they do in these understaffed settings.)
As you say, at some point, this is almost impossible to sustain.
Thanks again and best of luck with Gamut.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thanks. I’m reminded of Harlan Ellison’s rant about PAY THE AUTHOR. When we don’t value ourselves, our work, then it really does emotionally and mentally reinforce the idea that we aren’t professionals, that we aren’t worth it. I think most authors, and I’m sure journalists, too, start out taking any break they can get. It’s not about the pay. And then, if they work hard and have a little luck, they break through. And they get their first paycheck and they think, “Wow, I’m getting paid to do something I love! What a crazy idea.” This isn’t some tiny literary journal that publishes 100 copies and is run by students (although, don’t get me started on literary journals, with thousands of them out there, and only a handful paying professional rates) it’s a huge company that’s bringing in millions (billions?) of dollars. I will no longer click on or share HuffPo articles until they change their policy. Oh, and thanks for the kind words about Gamut, we just crossed over the $35,000 mark.
Indeed, our reader Narda has dropped Harlan Ellison’s great rant on the topic into our comments here. Great minds thinking alike, Richard. :)
Congrats on the Kickstarter progress for Gamut,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
One other thought. Have you noticed a trend in people who are commenting on how great HuffPo has been as a launching pad? What do they all have in common? THEY LEAVE. For what people are calling “real gigs.” Right? Because, I don’t know about you, but I have a mortgage to pay. And as much as I might love getting 40,000 hits on an article at HuffPo, I can’t pay for my food, utilities, rent, mortgage, education, and/or retirement with hits, or page views. Sure, it may lead to other opportunities, but the key point here is that eventually, if you can get paid elsewhere, authors will LEAVE. That, to me, is really the heart of what we’re talking about. If what HuffPo was really offering here had value for everyone concerned, the writers would leave a lot less often. I routinely got 40k, 60k, even over 120k for essays, lists and articles at BuzzFeed and Flavorwire. And I got paid, too.
Porter, I agree, it is a disgrace that writers are not being paid at Huff Post. Thank you for highlighting a serious problem in the industry.
Having come from a profession with a steady pay check into one in which those who labour get few if any monetary rewards, I’ve been stunned to see how many are willing to give their hard work away for free. You’ve zeroed in on Huffington Post, but the same climate exists in the indie book world.
It’s been an eye opener. Earlier on in my life, I wrote a few newspaper articles and was well paid. Now, as a novelist, I’m stunned to see so many books given away for free or discounted to .99. Desperate to climb up Amazon’s sales ladder, authors willingly do this but by doing so, they devalue their writing in pursuit of a bigger share of readers. They may get more visibility in the short term, but in the end, it’ll be their work that resonates, not how many books they’ve managed to get into readers’ hands.
As you point out, all this unpaid for writing benefits Huff Post, that’s owned by AOL, a profitable company that can well afford to pay its writers. But as long as writers are willing to work for free, nothing will change.
I’ve resisted joining that writers’ club. I’m about to self-publish my second novel, another book that took more than ten years to write. There is no way that I’m going to throw it into the bargain bin, the place where promoters make more bucks than the authors.
I also wonder if writers are fooling themselves by writing for Huff Post, thinking they get more publicity for their brand.
Yes, I blog and tweet and no one pays me. I see that as exercising my writing muscles and part of marketing. But I draw the line at giving my books away for nothing. Or writing a free article for Huff Post. I know how much sweat I’ve put into my stories. If writers don’t put a value on what they do, readers won’t either. Nor will those who can afford to pay but don’t.
I haven’t written anything, but as a reader I will say when I see a book on amazon for .99, I figure it’s worth .99. And I don’t buy it. The first person to set your value is….you.
The last time I read Huffington Post was about 10 years ago. I was reading a blogger from Finland regularly when HP decided one of his posts were offensive (which it wasn’t) and against their policy (which I interpreted as their bias). He quit writing for HP, and I refused to read HP. Mostly because he said he wasn’t even getting paid for the content and they were punishing him for the free lunch he was giving them. What nerve. The whole exposure argument is bull. If you value yourself you should charge accordingly.
Hi, Kit,
Just want to thank you for your points here.
It’s incredibly helpful when readers take the time to stop and give the people of publishing some good angles on issues we’re dealing with. In fact, in another article here, I’ve proposed a double-blind board of seasoned readers who are NOT writers as the best possible pool of “beta-reader ” talent, offering critiques from their perspectives as readers.
(Much of the author community, as you may know, depends for feedback on critique groups and beta-readers who are, in fact, authors. I maintain that this is a failure to perform actual market / focus-group style research, which could be far more useful to our writers than the opinions of their fellow writers.)
Great of you to take an interest in the working conditions and challenges in publishing today, thanks again.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Diana,
Wonderful to see this clear-eyed assessment of where you are on these issues.
And while it’s awfully easy for me to say this—I’m not an author trying to punch through the Wall of Content as you and so many are—your stand on the importance of that 10+ year effort in writing— and how that investment of your creativity and skill and time is not to be tossed directly into the bargain bin—is great to hear. Really great. Really great.
Inasmuch as you can, Diana, talk about this with colleagues. Your stance — which takes nerve, let’s face it, when all about you are going down the free waterslide — is something everyone can benefit from hearing about.
You’ve captured the argument against free exposure right here:
“If writers don’t put a value on what they do, readers won’t either. Nor will those who can afford to pay but don’t.”
That’s it, well and succinctly said. And what I’m finding is that the ability to get this higher view depends on how well a writer can look beyond her or his own workaday issues and take in the author industry as a whole. Not everyone can get “outside themselves” and consider making decisions for their own marketing that take into account that bigger picture.
Great to hear from one who can, and thanks for that, and for sharing it with us.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thank you, Porter. At times, I’ve felt like the lone voice, so it’s nice to see I have company. :)
You have legions of company, Diana, but like many difficult, persistently troublesome issues in publishing, so much emotion swirls around this topic and several like it that many who may feel like you—or counter to your reasoning, as well—don’t always feel they have the time and stamina to raise these matters for debate.
Putting one’s head above the parapet, as it were, was never something to be done lightly. Thanks again for popping up. :)
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’m not certain, but didn’t Harlan Ellison ‘say it’ first?
Hooray!!
Narda!
I can’t be certain, either, that Harlan Ellison said it first. But I’m entirely ready to attest that he said it best. :)
This is a marvelous clip and precisely on-topic for our discussion here. Thanks so much for bringing it to us, much appreciated!
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson (and the man of those 3.25 minutes of incendiary logic on video is @HarlanEllison9)
Hi Porter – what a can of worms! In my work publicizing authors (as in my past life publicizing corporations), I see writers day after day who are willing to kill to get pieces published on both HuffPo and all the other various outlets that pay absolutely nothing to run their thoughtful, well-crafted pieces. In this world of online content and content marketing where everybody is vying to be heard, the visibility, the cachet and the satisfaction of having a piece run in a high-profile outlet has put these outlets in the position of, quite simply, being ABLE to say “sorry, no pay.” NextAvenue, ThirdAge, Parenting.com, Motherlode, Psychology Today, CNBC.com…. These are but some of the high profile outlets where I’ve helped clients place articles in exchange, financially, for absolutely nothing. The two very small exceptions I’ve encountered are The Atlantic, which offers an honorarium of…$100 per article….and Cognoscenti, which offers an “optional” honorarium of $50 with a disclaimer that writers are free to decline the honorarium since Cognoscenti is run by WBUR, a non-profit organization. Yet writers continue flocking to these sites’ submissions pages in the name of visibility and having a voice, and I don’t think that’s going to stop anytime soon.
Hi, Sharon!
Thanks for your input.
Yes, yes, and yes, your depiction of the allure is right: “In this world of online content and content marketing where everybody is vying to be heard, the visibility, the cachet and the satisfaction of having a piece run in a high-profile outlet has put these outlets in the position of, quite simply, being ABLE to say ‘sorry, no pay.’”
I even agree with you that this isn’t “going to stop anytime soon.”
And.
It’s good for us to think it through, to stop and bring it to consciousness when we get a remark like Stephen Hull’s that throws this pattern into such sharp relief.
I don’t think we should expect to change the world in a Friday article, lol.
I do think we need to stop and think about what our decisions mean in terms of the wider economic and cultural effects of the cult-of-free-work. That, you’ve helped us do, and thanks again,
And.
We could stop clicking. :)
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, the thing you’re not recognizing is that the exposure the Huffington Post offers really is as valuable as they say it is. My husband has been blogging for the Post for almost six years, and during that time, it’s opened doors for him that we could not have imagined when he started. The blog led to a little bit of paid work, then more. And then the paid work started to get a little more well-paid. At this point, he’s a recognized expert in his field who gets more offers of paid work than he can accept. And that’s all due to the Huffington Post. I hear a lot about how Post bloggers are exploited, but I can tell you, my husband doesn’t feel exploited. He feels like the Huffington Post is the best thing that ever happened to his career.
Good to have your input, Linda, thanks for it. And I’m so glad to hear of your husband’s success, that’s terrific.
I think that if you read carefully, I haven’t said that there’s no hope of that lucky lightning striking thanks to blogging for The Huffington Post. Its reach is enormous, even as its traffic appears to be weakening, and I don’t doubt for one minute that others have, like your husband, found doing it “for the exposure” can actually paid off.
I’ll also say that I think your husband’s fine experience is not the rule but the exception. With a reported 100,000 bloggers doing this to one frequency or another, we know that most will not be able to enjoy such a felicitous result.
And secondly, I’d point out that our discussion here is also about what the cult-of-free-work can do to perceptions of the value of writing, what it can mean culturally. That’s a wider issue, of course, than any single failure or success story, a wider issue even than many success stories or many failure stories.
None of this means or is meant to indicate that your husband’s good outcome isn’t grand. It is, and I congratulate him.
The bigger debate, however, remains important. And I’m glad to have had you add your voice to it, thanks so much.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter-
If HuffPo were a community, a collective, like WU, run by many to serve the many, not for profit, or not much for profit except the occasional cup of coffee or glass of Campari (Cheers, Porter!) then I think we’d have no problem.
HuffPo is not that.
As others have said already, giving writing away for free can be seen as promotion. Publishers have been doing this forever. Bound gallies (now called ARC’s), goodie bag giveaways, “big mouth” mailings, and so on.
I am handed, posted and e-mailed free copies of novels every single day.
And I’m fine with that.
And I’m picking up Chuck’s habit of one sentence paragraphs.
So since HuffPo’s practice of non-payment is not illegal, and participation is voluntary, I propose the following principle for writers:
If you give something away now for free, do so only if you believe that later you will get back something material (i.e., real).
For me, WU is a laboratory for new ideas about the craft of fiction. One book (soon two stay tuned) has come out of it. That’s real. I would write for WU regardless, I love this community, but posting here rewards me on many levels, including material.
Does HuffPo do that? For 100,000 bloggers? They must think so. I hope they’re right. Meanwhile, if Huffpo is making money for AOL Time Warner then, indeed, shame on them. Or maybe how smart of them to be manufacturers whose suppliers charge nothing.
In which case, shame on writers for not charging when someone else is making money off them.
Just. Don’t.
Hey, Don,
And big thanks for the Campari, always appreciated!
This, from your good comment, gets right to it:
“If you give something away now for free, do so only if you believe that later you will get back something material (i.e., real).”
This is what writers have to consider in any case of unpaid use of their work, of course. And as you point out very well, an outfit like Writer Unboxed isn’t in any way on the same footing as a commercial media corporation that profits from the use of unpaid writers’ efforts. This is the kind of distinction—and only one of many—that make these debates live in the gray areas. So many variables can come into play.
This is why I keep emphasizing that writers need not take my or anyone else’s concept of how good or bad The Huffington Post’s policy maybe, but I do think it’s important for each writer to seriously think it through and make a very conscious decision each time the possibility of an unpaid placement is in play.
What’s heartening, of course, is to see how much good engagement we’re having on this in comments here. Many nuances and situational caveats involved, a rich conversation.
I’m with you, an outfit that profits from writers’ work without sharing any of that profit isn’t the one those writers should be working with. But, as we see right here, there’s a wide range of opinion on that with many conditions pertaining.
Thanks for jumping in, and for the drink. Which I need. :)
Cin-cin,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I blog regularly for HuffPo. The key word there is “blog.” I began blogging there after Open Salon closed down, and I didn’t want to just go it alone, chugging along on my own home made “blog,” hoping for readers. I honestly don’t have time to market and network.
So now–channeling Hull here, I’m afraid–I can write about things I really care about and reach millions of people, via a platform I don’t have to maintain. I’ve never had a piece rejected, I don’t have to query or beg. I write, I click…it’s up soon after.
On occasion, when I do a piece that takes more time than usual, like a review of a new HBO documentary or some other piece I decide to chase down the way I did back in my reporter days, I do resent not being paid for the time and effort that takes. But I also love the immediacy of it all. But it’s usually something I’m very passionate about, not just an “assignment” someone gave me. So I’ve found ways to streamline the process so that it doesn’t eat up too much of my time, and it works for me.
I have other outlets for paid work, and my HuffPo experience gets me noticed when I query. I’ve been contacted directly by some publications based on something I wrote on HuffPo, for paid work. So I see it as my own form of advertising, actually. When I advertise a piece via social media, I’m building that oft-mentioned “platform” authors are supposed to have. I’m not a “brand” yet, I don’t think, but people do know my work. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.
So I understand the author’s consternation, but HuffPo has been a big boost for my writing career, offering me exposure I wouldn’t have had otherwise which helps me sell other work, elsewhere.
Not entirely something for nothing.
Hi, Cynthia,
This is great input, and I’m glad to hear that The Huffington Post blogging you’ve done has paid off as well as it has for you.
Not only is this possible, of course—and surely the hope for everybody who blogs for #HuffPo—but it’s also the sort of happy report that makes the issue so complex.
Your case is one that shows us that the unpaid status of such work can reward writers in some cases. We don’t know how many have such good fortune, of course. And even good outcomes like yours may not, for many, change the the efficacy of the policy of not paying bloggers. (I think Diana is saying it well in the next comment. Nobody in their right mind should be anything but pleased for you, but that doesn’t change the fact that not compensating writers is something many of us don’t feel good about.)
But none of that is a reason not to feel glad that your experience has been a good one, and congratulations on it!
Thanks again and all the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I am encouraged by those who’ve seen a rewarding spin-off from their Huff Post contributions. Still, if Huff Post is a profitable enterprise, those who contribute to its success should be compensated.
You said that so well that I referenced you in my own comment to Cynthia, Diana, thanks!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Huffington Post has supported the “Raise the Minimum Wage to 15.00” crowd. Pointing up how not paying workers is wrong.
How is what they are doing different than McDonalds or Walmart?
If you are intellectually honest, you will answer “nothing is different.”
If you are being intellectually dishonest, you will talk about how it’s different because the writers volunteer to work for Huffpo and they know the pay scale.
I will counter with “Workers at Walmart and McDonalds volunteer to work for them and know the pay scale.”
NOTHING is different.
Yet Huffington Post will argue that they are being fair, they are “helping” writers get “exposure”.
The same can be made of McDonalds, you’re getting exposure to how the working world works and how to do it. In other words, entry-level work.
If McDonald’s workers deserve to have a living wage, how is Huffington Post different.
A quick Google search on Huffington Post and the minimum wage argument: https://www.google.com/search?q=huffington+post+mcdonald%27s+minimum+wage&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Hi, Charlayne,
An interesting approach to the question and—since I obviously don’t follow The Huffington Post—I’m not familiar with its stances on minimum wage, Wal-Mart, and MacDonald’s.
Certainly writing for the company for nothing is about as minimum a wage as can be had. And I appreciate your input, thanks for reading and commenting.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, thanks for this.
A sea change in energy is underway. (Energy, meaning, the money form of it.) And the points of view of commenters here show that. Some (the older?) decry the practice. If work has value (a tenet of the American Dream) then, by definition, it draws compensation.
Those of an age who are arriving at a game where opportunities have been limited by the concessions of others before them are willing to work for free, seeing this as a necessary path to (maybe) something.
I was singer/songwriter in Hollywood in the 1990’s when club owners realized their bread and butter acts were so desperate for industry attention, a light went off. ‘Hey, we can charge these people, and make more money.’ I stopped playing out.
That’s slavery of the capitalist kind. The hunger of artists in a crowded field now makes them diners at the corporate restaurant.
Other industries have followed suit, particularly when technology opened doors for the practice. Literary agents now hire interns. Film companies suck energy (money) from the youthful dreamers. Corporations fleece interns. Soon law firms will gobble up good years of good legal minds
‘Exposure’ is like the piece of corn with which Pavlov occasionally rewarded his pigeons in his experiments. The less corn dropped the harder the pigeon tried. ‘Hey, we can charge these pigeons. Let’s hook their body movements to treadmills to power our lights.’
We’re a long way down the slippery slope. Soon these exploitations will be cultural norms and will no longer be discussed.
Then we authors have something more to write about. The question will be, who will bother to read it if we don’t pay to publish it?
Tom, so true. With all the unpaid work out there, especially in the creative fields, we are “a long way down the slippery slope.” Being an optimist, I’m hoping that together we can stop the slide and be rewarded for our endeavours.
Diana,
Thanks again for the good comments,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, the writers I know who offer their work for free, whether it’s through writing for Huff Po or giving their novels away, are obviously doing it because they want to see their work in print ( or online), promote their brand, and get more sales for their books.
I find writers by and large are a generous lot, but they also want recognition and validation. And who can blame them for trying to get noticed in whatever way they can?
This idea of free and heavily discounted writing seems to have started with the growth of the self-publishing market. To get recognition and move up Amazon’s bestseller list, authors ran Kindle Countdowns or offered free books though Kindle Select for a short time. Then, it moved to all those promotional sites, that further undermined a writer’s ability to make a buck.
Unfortunately, what worked five or six years ago to get attention, with free books and then articles, is no longer the case. There are too many free offers, too much competition in that area. And also, too much bad writing.
Now we have Kindle Scout, where readers vote on whether a book has merit. It’s a popularity contest not a literary one.
I’m not sure where this is all going, but it’s one ride I don’t want to take.
Still, I’m ever hopeful that authors of well-written sentences, articles, and stories will continue to be rewarded, as they should be.
Tom Pope–so well expressed.
Do you smell any potential in all this for some form of union movement, like the Screenwriters’ Guild? How great it would be if everyone giving away “product”–on a given day, at a given time–just got too sick to hit the “send” button.
It won’t happen now, of course. That would be like getting members of an academic department to agree on anything–herding cats. But who can say what unfairness and exploitation might eventually lead to? Like for instance picking one especially egregious publisher (Huff Post?), and going after it.
Barry,
That is wonderful thinking and is the right path under ordinary circumstances. . . such as were last seen in 1995. Though humans don’t really change, we no longer live under ordinary constructs nor in ordinary times.
A union only works when the product (and therefore, the producers) is/are seen as valuable–by the consumers (readers) and the employers, in this case the blogs and media and books. When the TV writers struck, the shows collapsed. The widely-seen defect of the scabs’ work prompted employers (the studio heads) to get right with their religion. . . their writers.
Technology has since exploded the realm and number of authors/writers/journalists. The ‘would-be’ types are fast melding into the main body, aided by a plethora of weak and false outlets available to everyone. As a result, readers/consumers are losing track of quality AND in journalism, losing track of integrity. Few any more understand the vast difference between journalism and commentary. Commentary used to be wise individuals interpreting nuance without relying much on opinion, an important facet of news. Now it’s rarely more than lipstick on the Pig of Opinion.
Journalistic integrity disappeared when media was deregulated and then purchased by Big Money players who realized they could sell more stuff and influence more quadrants of life by peddling opinion (and salesmanship) as journalism. Now we see racism and hate peddled as appropriate. I believe you know this.
To be effective, a union, a guild of authors would have to be so vast and compelling to those signing on that all of today’s trends would have to be eclipsed by that passion. I can’t see it, but I would love to. The draw of mere exposure, let alone, success is endemic in our field. The comments here demonstrate the wide range on this issue.
But if you have any ideas along these lines, get them out. I will settle in and learn. And of course, everything you have just read can be placed in the realm of opinion (mine.) But I am passionate about this, having just spent two years writing a story about a journalist fighting this issue on a world-wide stage. Lies, corruption, greed and for fun, I tossed in 22,000 soldiers (all very dead) and murdered journalists, too.
Tom–
I know that all–or almost all–of what you say here is true. But I’m an old man who grew up in an atmosphere that made mock of what is now acceptable, both in journalism and creative literature. That’s really all there is to it, “it” being my wistful, smile-worthy speculation about a writers’ union.
Today’s Detroit Free Press offers a story on two local commercially successful writers, “E-book all-stars hit it big, quit day jobs.” The woman’s niches include witches and romances. The man specializes in “writing e-books about ‘preppers’ who survive apocalypse scenarios thanks to stock-piled supplies.” Both writers produce their books in laughable quantities. Since he got started in 2013, the man has published “about” sixty short stories and novels.
Such penny dreadfuls are nothing new, but what is new is the degree to which this highly compartmentalized material, driven largely by its appeal to narrow obsessions is successful in the wider world of the reading public. As you point out, this success derives from the technology on which “citizen journalism” and self-published writers of prepper novels depend.
I don’t begrudge the financial success of someone who specializes in witches, or preppers. But not to put too fine an edge on it, I hate the way my lifelong respect for language is shared by fewer and fewer people.
Hey, Tom,
I think we can safely appoint you Master of the Worst Outcomes, lol. And I’m not laughing at you but with you (and sadly).
Really, your line “who will bother to read it if we don’t pay to publish it?” is chilling mainly because this could, indeed, be the future.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been writing a lot, especially in Europe, about the “Wall of Content” that looms over everybody now. Discoverability, in a kind of Orwellian nightmare, could belong only to those who can pay to get them above the fray.
We’re not there yet. And let’s not rush it. The point of this exercise is to ask everyone to think about what they’re doing—to themselves and to other writers—if they give their work away.
You’re helping us do that, and thanks,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Here’s the deal. I’ll totally work for free, but on MY terms, and no one else’s. I blog on my own site and don’t get paid. I also do freelance work and do. I am writing a serial novel that a site has seen fit to publish. It’s unpaid, BUT, I knew that going in and I get free editing and other perks. I knew that going in and decided it was worth it. All that said, I can’t get behind a model that just assumes I’m okay with no pay. I stopped clicking on HuffPost links more than a year ago and won’t ever pitch them. Sorry, Ms. Huffington, “exposure” doesn’t pay bills.
Hi, Andrew,
Thanks for your comment.
I think that everyone understands the need to populate their own points of audience outreach (your site, etc.) with content they feel is right not to charge for. So this is not unusual and you’re right to make that kind of call for yourself, of course.
For that matter, deciding that the serial publication is worth it for the value of the editing may well be exactly the right decision—you’re the one who knows the details and parameters of that decision.
To me, in fact, the key point you’re making here is that you’re conscious of all this. You’re thinking through how you place material and under what circumstances using it without pay is appropriate to you. That’s just what I think we want to ask of each other, that we all bring it to a level of serious consideration rather than sliding into situations that we’ve never evaluated fully.
Thanks for reading and responding,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
So basically you think that the people that contribute to HuffPo are too stupid to understand what they are doing and so you are sharing the gift of your genius in explaining to them th they aren’t getting compensated.
Or could it be that contributors value the exposure they get, which is probably much wider than their personal blog (which is typically named and linked to before or after the piece).
No, “basically,” Dan, I wrote nothing of the sort. Not one word of my article suggests stupidity among people who contribute to The Huffington Post.
In your “so basically you think” formulation, you’re putting words directly into my mouth—or onto my page, as it were. Those words are wrong. You are wrong. I believe that you know very well that you’ve distorted what I wrote. And you’re using one of the cheapest and weakest substitutes for valid argument—a false characterization of something in order to discredit it.
Your hostile, sarcastic tone—the assertion that I’m “sharing the gift of (my) genius”—is both inappropriate and ineffective. It’s also confrontational and boorish. Professional critics take a lot of flak of the type you’re giving me in your comment. We not only get used to it but we also finally learn the truth about it. And here it is:
A comment like yours tells us a great deal about the person making that comment—and nothing about the person the commenter is trying to tear down.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, I’ll confess I never thought about not sharing posts I spot on FB from the HuffPo, but just saw one, a few hours after reading your piece. In the past, I might have shared it, even without reading it, as a courtesy to a friend. But this time, I couldn’t do it, and I won’t share them in the future. Sharing isn’t innocent — it has consequences, including profits for people who won’t pay writers. So, thanks for prompting me to think about this in a new way.
Thank you, Leslie,
It’s very kind of you to share this with me and with us in this discussion. As you can tell, this is the kind of often regretful decision I find that I have to make, too. (Regretful especially when it seems like withholding a courtesy from a friend.)
But my own conclusion at this point—which is only my own and not something I want to impose on others—is that, as you say very well, sharing isn’t innocent. It does have consequences and not good ones.
Thanks for putting so much thought into it and for being willing to examine the issue. That’s exactly what I hope more folks will do, and you’ve helped that happen with this comment.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter Anderson,
I am thinking about your post.
This reminds me of the time Amanda Effing Palmer went on tour and invited local musicians to join her on stage.
Hey, Tina,
I remember something of the Amanda Palmer tour. This reminds you of it because the local musicians weren’t paid? I’d have to go back and get more details. I’ve talked with Palmer a few times and she’s got a lot of integrity and consciousness about what she does. This doesn’t mean you’re not drawing an apt parallel, but I’d need to refresh on it to know.
Appreciate you following and engaging, though, this is quite a good discussion here (even if it’s taking me days and days to get through it all!).
Thanks much!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
If writers agreed to write without pay, what is the problem?
Why don’t they take responsibility for their actions? To agree to well-known terms and then complain later shows what little integrity these writers have. I have absolutely no sympathy for them. As indicated by one of the comments, certain people who write for the Post gain big time from the exposure. Others don’t. That’s life. These words of wisdom from a great writer apply:
“Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.”
— Mark Twain
Hi Ernie–
Your own book titles offer lots of easy solutions–the joy of not working, career success without a real job, etc.
But I have to assume you believe in unregulated free markets, in which concepts like fairness are without meaning. Your argument is analogous to the free decision made by any worker who agrees to “well-known terms” of employment, instead of standing in line at a soup kitchen.
I’m a capitalist, but I know that greed, like political power, calls for oversight and regulation.
Well said, Barry.
And per the Zelinski argument that “it’s their own damned fault,” the compliance of the writers doesn’t excuse the policy of the company.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thanks, Ernie,
I think I’ll defer to Barry’s agile riposte on this one.
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Ah, yes! The scribe’s ancient conundrum: suffer for our art and hope we don’t die from all that “exposure.” Writers still struggle to get the respect we deserve. Whenever people question why writers should demand so much financial compensation, I always remind them of the 1988 – 89 Screenwriters Guild strike that brought the American entertainment community to a halt and almost bankrupted the state of California. It’s accurate to say true writers love their craft, but like anyone with a passion, we hope to earn a living from it. Humanity needs folks like us – whether we create magical stories to entertain the masses or compile a gaggle of ideas from a software programmer’s quirky brain into a coherent operating procedures manual. No society can function without us. As long as people demand films, TV programs and the like to keep themselves happy, they’ll need someone to scribble words in a notebook or type them onto a computer screen. There’s just no way around it.
Hi Alejandro.
I appreciate your input here, but I think you’re conflating need with a willingness to pay. However much you may feel that “society needs folks like us” (and a fading regard for quality indicates a lot about that presumption of need, unfortunately), there’s every reason to think that many in society see little need to pay writers.
And paying writers, not an assumed need for them, is at the heart of this discussion.
So much online apparatus now requires textual input that there may indeed be legions of writers needed to keep it running. But when writers choose to fill that need without requiring payment, they take the whole system only farther away from the presumption of payment that should parallel any presumption of need.
Thanks again for your input,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, that’s exactly my point! Society needs writers, but some of our fellow citizens feel writing should be treated more as a hobby, or a side business at best, than a serious profession. It’s ironic that Huffington Post views writing as a charitable skill because its founder, Arianna Huffington, has long been a proponent of civil rights, including labor. I know that some people will grant HP and other entities their wish to write for free, but as you state, quality becomes an issue. The matter then segues into fair-market value. What is writing worth? How much should a writer be paid? Are there different rates for fiction and non-fiction?
At my last gig as a contract technical writer, the supervisor who hired me said she “had to fight” for the position. Her superiors thought she and her staff could work on the established technical manuals and compose any necessary new ones, amid their other duties. But, as I observed the operations, it became clear they just didn’t have the time. Many politicians have speech writers among their gallery of confidants. Do you think President Obama’s speech writers, for example, compose those orations after they get off work at Discount Tire or Starbucks?
People will always want to be entertained. If that means television and films, how would they get produced without a writer first sitting down at a desk? Do you honestly think people like Tom Cruise and Uma Thurman are smart enough to write a script? Have you ever listened to some of these actors and actresses on talk shows? They can barely string a couple of sentences together. Without a script, they’re almost completely lost. In 1987 I was an extra on the set of the TV show “Dallas.” I had the chance to meet Patrick Duffy. Aside from being so obnoxious, he’s also one of the biggest dumbasses I’ve ever met. I mean, Patrick Duffy is to acting what I am to water ballet! Yet, producers will pay people like him millions of dollars. The late Anne Bancroft allegedly complained once to her husband, Mel Brooks, about the amount of dialogue she had to memorize for a role she’d just landed. He supposedly picked up a blank sheet of paper and asked her to imagine putting all of that dialogue onto it. If writers are expected to work for free, why shouldn’t actors and actresses? The busiest and hardest-working people on film and TV sets aren’t the ones in front of the cameras.
I wrote an essay about this subject on my blog entitled “Worthy Words”. We writers know how difficult and time-consuming writing can be. You’re absolutely correct, Porter; until our fellow scribes realize their work and skills have financial value, the general public will keep thinking otherwise.
Porter:
Interesting discussion. I have a slightly different perspective to offer.
Though I now write and publish for a living, writing is simply a tool I’m using to pursue a different objective. My true purpose is sharing my expertise and experience in a field that has been unfairly demonized for half a century. (Nuclear energy)
Huffington Post often publishes work by people who have been working for decades in that demonization effort. That makes me read Hull’s following statement with a paradigm not previously mentioned in your discussion thread.
“When somebody writes something for us, we know it’s real, we know they want to write it.”
The question critical readers should ask is why would an experienced and well known politician, non-profit organization leader, or businessman WANT to write for free (or less than free if there is a ghost writer involved) ? The answer might be that they WANT readers who think their material is real, useful and accurate.
They would prefer that readers not realize they have stumbled upon a carefully packaged advertisement or piece of propaganda. They know that obvious ads are often ignored or immediately dismissed.
Some of the articles in my field published by Huffington Post are a sly form of “native advertising.”
In that situation, the Huffington Post model of publishing freely submitted content without paying the writer (or submitter) and then making some money by running ads around the content starts to have a different spin.
I realize this situation is not common in all fields, but I’ll warn your readers. When it comes to information about nuclear energy or radiation, the unpaid writers for the Huffington Post are often as well compensated for their work as those who write advertising copy or corporate literature.
They just aren’t being paid by the publication that prints the ads or propaganda.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, the Atomic Show podcast.
Hi, Rod,
Thanks for this input. A very keen look, as you say, from another part of the forest at this issue. I was just writing today about native advertising at Wattpad, as a matter of fact https://bit.ly/1TcYXKW and what’s interesting there is that the platform’s very-Millennial readership seems unfazed—indeed, avid participants—in “brand stories,” as it’s called.
You begin to wonder if the issues of appropriate use of editorial space that have bedeviled my own generation so deeply aren’t simply evaporating over time. This thing of mindfulness that I keep harping on in these comments is just that—when do people stop and think about what material compromised in one way or another might mean to its value?
Hard questions, and we have to keep bringing them to the forefront of our consciousness to even define them, let alone answer them. Which you’ve helped us do with this comment.
Many thanks!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
This piece should be sent to J schools and used on day one for every 1st year student.
Last week I sent a submission to HuffPo (the word submission now has a different ring to it) who then sent me an 8 point email asking me to jump through various hoops before they published the piece. Not only did I jump through those hoops, but I went the extra mile and did some additional reporting to bolster the piece overall. I was then told that they did not accept pieces with new reporting for their blog section and gave me three more hoops to jump through.
At that point I threw in the towel and began submitting to other online and print publications, determined to never venture to HP again. Your piece is timely for me and conveys the exact sentiment I have been feeling all week. Thank you.
James Di Fiore
Hi, James,
Please forgive the very late response here — lots of you good folks commenting and only one of me (in a particularly challenging work week).
I do appreciate your very kind words. If not from my own efforts, at least in someone’s explication of the problems, I do wish, in fact, that more J-school curricula were prepping students to face down these challenges.
Unfortunately—and in parallel to what’s happening at so many MFA programs for literature students—these modern vagaries aren’t being taught well, if at all. This leaves so many of our young talents at a loss for how to handle the confusions and compromises they encounter as soon as they leave campus.
Fascinating experience you’re describing here—one might think that without paying, The Huffington Post editors would at least have the grace to either accept or reject your copy as is. To put you through edits and changes and further reporting, still without payment, and then to reject again is almost unthinkable.
But this shows the reaches of nuanced interaction that medium is exploring with its providers of free content, and in a very telling way that suggests the medium is not ready to accept the limitations it should expect from free work.
Thanks again for weighing in with this, glad to have you.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’m glad to say that, as a mature undergraduate studying Journalism & Media at a London university, in my first class the students were reminded that good writing should be remunerated and that opportunities to work ‘for free’ should be treated with a great deal of scepticism. The issue has been raised by several of my lecturers since that first time, so I can say with some authority that at least one academic institution isn’t pulling its punches.
Hi, Pete,
Very much appreciate this input, thanks so much for reading and for commenting. Great to hear about the kind of guidance you’re getting at the school in London.
Could I ask which uni this is you’re talking about? I do a lot of coverage work in London and would love to know, sounds like a great programme you’re on.
Thanks again, great to hear from you.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
“If I was paying someone to write something because I want it to get advertising, that’s not a real authentic way of presenting copy. When somebody writes something for us, we know it’s real, we know they want to write it. It’s not been forced or paid for.”
Another fault in Hull’s argument is that many of the HP bloggers are not simply HP bloggers; they are book writers, personal bloggers, experts, etc. who want exposure for their platform. There’s nothing wrong with these bloggers’ goal of exposure, but if an HP blogger is encouraged to see the HP as a “leader,” with the “payment” as more exposure, doesn’t NOT paying the writer encourage him or her to use HP as a subtle advertising platform??
This isn’t an accusation that all HP bloggers are just blogging for the purpose of free advertising – I’m simply pointing out that the HP policy encourages writers to see their blogs not as an end but as a means.
Hi, Rebecca,
A very good point.
By not paying its bloggers, The Huffington Post really can’t say that these writers are working at its direction, and various personal and professional platforms of course are being represented.
I think you say this well: “the HP policy encourages writers to see their blogs not as an end but as a means.”
Really glad to have your input, thanks,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Porter, I’m glad to see this addressed. This is going to be a long comment that will generate some ill feelings, I suspect, so sit back. To start, I don’t condone or condemn my writer colleagues for writing for The Huffington Post. I understand the frustration of trying to build a platform, trying to get one’s work noticed in a veritable tidal wave of writers with published books which they are desperate to see sell. I do, however, find Arianna herself quite distasteful. One has only to read her history to recognize her opportunism. And as a philhellene who lived in Greece for seven years, who knows the history of the country, the fact that one of her writers adamantly supports the old violent, repressive Greek junta is rather revolting, when she claims to be not only a Greek, but a democrat. (These days.) So, I have an ax to grind with her, anyway. I wouldn’t write for her, even if she paid me. That aside–this isn’t the only case in which writers are being taken for a ride. Writers are taken advantage of when they pay great sums of money to attend writers conferences wherein the majority of the speakers are hardly a step above novice. The Jane Friedmans, the Porter Andersons, the Chuck Sambuchinos speaking at these events are few and far between. And writers like the Jane Friedmans, Porter Andersons and Chuck Sambuchinos are taken advantage of when they are not paid for the quality presentations they create for these conferences, which make money for the organizers. Let’s face it–the people who are making money in the industry are the people who are selling “things” to writers that fuel the dream: How To books, writing classes, “self” publishing packages, an opportunity to speak to a literary agent for three minutes at a pitch session, and so on. So, with all well-deserved respect to you, if writing profession insiders are calling HuffPo a kettle, well, we all know the pots, too don’t we? At least–and this is again, not condoning Huffington Post’ policy–a writer who does write for them does indeed get great traffic. Whereas someone who speaks for free at a writers conference is not even speaking to his or her reading audience, but to other writers whose only interest in hearing them is to learn how to sell their own work, not the work of the speaker who too often has paid his own expenses to get to the conference, and in some cases,such as the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, has even paid TO speak, which is truly a disgrace. The fault also lies in our own perception of the worth of our work. Artists across the board have been fed the horse manure that getting paid for “art” makes it less than an art. We’ve swallowed that one wholesale, haven’t we? The loftier literati has since forever smirked at storytellers such as Stephen King for not being “real writers.” You know the type of writer I mean–he sells a manuscript for an advance (that’s getting smaller and smaller) and never makes an attempt to “market” the book once it’s published because that would be beneath him. The book sells three thousand copies and said writer is bitter because “people” don’t “read good works,” when in actuality said reader never heard of the darn book. For me, there’s enough “blame” for the state of things in the industry to go around here–everyone from the publishers to the conference community to the author himself has a share to claim. My advice to any writer? Ignore the noise, write your best book, edit the crap out of it, and then focus solely on your reader. Your colleagues and their opinion should not matter, because they don’t sit down with you to sweat out those chapters and they don’t pay your electric bill. Write your best book. Keep your day job. And if it makes you happy to write for HuffPo, speak at a conference or any other beastly undertaking, do it. If it doesn’t, don’t. Simple. As much as I despise the way we are all taken advantage of, that’s free enterprise, and free enterprise is what enables me to write what I wish and sell it any way I wish. End of rant.
Patricia,
Yep!
And the people who made money in the gold rush were the hardware owners, outfitters, and the teamster haulers. The gold, as in the arts, was found serendipitously. Cheers.
Hi, Patricia,
Thanks for the kind words and extended answer here.
As ever, you make your points clearly, and I appreciate your bringing them to us (as well as reading, needless to say).
All the best from here,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Patricia,
Sorry for the terribly late response here, the load is quite heavy now with conference season kicking in.
You make your points well. And in the UK, there’s a huge, heated discussion under way about authors being asked to appear without pay at book fairs — in one case, the authors must even agree not to do another signing within 40 miles or so and 30 days of the event. There are fast reforms underway on these things in many fairs, not least because the author Philip Pullman ankled a fair he’d been with for many years (he’s a leader in the Society of Authors). Fairs and other such events are scrambling to change things.
Whether this kind of change applies in any meaningful way to US conferences and their traditions is yet to be seen.
I do know of many regional conferences that use presenters who really are quite weak. Normally these may be local heroes and the conferences themselves are not necessarily money-makers: some are devised more as author-community events than as actual conferences in a traditional sense.
For the most part, I think the national conferences are better in this regard, although I’ve recently had reports of a high-visibility West Coast conference that was said to be remarkably badly organized and chaotic. (One of the biggest problems I see is that conference organizers rarely see each others’ events in action. )
Much to do in many such settings, but I do think the distinction of The Huffington Post’s relationship with its unpaid writers is that it is a successful, for-profit corporation generating commercial revenue and not paying content providers. Conferences are set up in many ways, some as for-profit ventures, some not, and so on. The conditions in each case need to be brought into focus for a full evaluation.
Thanks again for the time and input, Patricia!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
For those defending HuffPo:
I understand the defensiveness–I get the need to write for them, and the need to defend writing for them. No one is saying you’re stupid for engaging with them. It’s ridiculously hard to get your toe in the door and get noticed. We have to use whatever means we can.
It’s great that some have benefitted from the “exposure” the bigger sites may produce. But even there, it’s a lottery. The vast majority see little return from the supposed exposure. It drags the entire industry down and perpetuates the idea that writing isn’t “real work” and doesn’t have real value. And it’s still a bit of a mercenary attitude, saying, “I got mine, the other 99% aren’t my problem.”
But–and it’s a big but–I don’t understand the defense of the practice of not paying. That truly baffles me.
Sure, I blog for myself, but on a monetized site where I receive revenue (little as it is.) I might guest post for a fellow blogger for free. I often mentor and teach for free. It’s my choice to do that for my own benefit and to help those who have few resources and can’t afford to pay. But the mutual benefit is much more balanced. I’m not fleecing them, and they aren’t fleecing me. No one is getting $1000 while the other gets $1 (or nothing.)
But HuffPo and the other big sites CAN AFFORD to pay. They have the money. They have PROFIT in the tens or hundreds of millions. They have no excuse for not paying the people who provide a service to them. There is NO reason they can’t offer exposure AND payment. They are taking advantage of people. There simply is no defense for that.
If they came to you tomorrow and said, “Hey, we decided our policy of not paying was crap, we like this post you wrote on your own and we want to use it, and we’d like to offer you both exposure AND money for the use of it, because WE make a ton of money off of it”…you’d turn it down? Because it would taint your work and make it inauthentic, right? Bullshit.
Please don’t tell me anyone is buying their ridiculous excuse.
They should be paying for the content they use, which they make a lot of money–real money, not exposure–from. Period.
You may not be saying we’re stupid, but the original author of the blog is – essentially we are the reason why writers are paid low and that we are somehow complicit in corporate greed. Absolutely not true.
Well, businesses will do what will make them money. As long as they can make money without spending it, they’ll do it. When they find that they have to spend money to make more money, that’s what they do.
So yes, those of you who will work for free for people who are earning a monetary profit off your work, you are absolutely, positively, without doubt part of the reason it continues to be thinkable for at least some writers to be paid not just “low” but nothing at all. In my book, that does actually make you “complicit in (their) corporate greed.” You may feel you have no choice, but that’s different from saying you’re not doing it, when you absolutely are.
As Lauren Gregory pointed out above, if outlets like Huffington Post offered to pay, you probably would find no good reason to turn the payment down (as you might, for example, if they were a charity you wanted to support rather than a for-profit business). Their unwillingness to pay does not in any way increase the “exposure” you would get by writing for them. Being paid would not decrease that exposure. The only reason for not being paid is to increase their profits. This does you as the writer no good.
It’s a painful message to hear, but it’s true.
So guest blogging on other sites for is bad too? I talk about LinkedIn in my blog. They make even more money than Huffington Post and have the same guidelines. (In fact, HP *broke even* last year. So, yeah….they aren’t making any money on me.)
People are hating on Arianna Huffington and the brand, not the idea of writing for free. Otherwise, we’d be having a conversation about other sites.
You’re missing the point of the article, which is that writers who choose to write for free (or for marketing purposes) know the terms ahead of time.
There are other sites that do not pay. Some are small literary journals that are nonprofits where no one is paid. Some are start-ups where no one is paid until they begin to make a profit. That’s very different than HP, which makes money for some people – just not the people doing most of the writing.
But I think it benefits all of us to know who benefits financially when we work for free.
That’s it exactly, Viki.
“It benefits all of us to know who benefits financially when we work for free.”
This is my intent in this piece, and I think Williesha Morris knows this but has had trouble coming to terms with the fact that this is all we’re discussing: conscious, thoughtful decision-making that takes into account what the cult-of-free-work might mean in the long term to the wider view in this culture of writers and other creative workers.
Individual decisions are just that and up to each writer. But to avoid feeling any responsibility for the widening image of creative workers, including writers, as people undeserving of pay is to risk far too much without careful thought.
Thanks!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Trish,
As late as I am (incredibly heavy workload in the past couple of weeks as conference season arrives), I wanted to thank you for this very clear and forthright statement of the situation. This is quite good:
The Huffington Post’s “unwillingness to pay does not in any way increase the ‘exposure’ you would get by writing for them. Being paid would not decrease that exposure. The only reason for not being paid is to increase their profits. This does you as the writer no good.”
That’s on the money as far as the stance of the Post, exactly the case. They do writers no favor, only damage, by not paying, and the “exposure” argument (as I’ve said in a few other comments) just isn’t germane to the policy. It’s the figleaf only.
Thank you again, good to have your engagement.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hello, Williesha,
I am “the original author of the blog,” and my name is Porter Anderson.
I did not say that anyone who writes without pay for The Huffington Post is stupid.
This is your term and your assumption and your lack of accuracy.
My intent, in fact, isn’t even to make someone agree or disagree on any point of this policy on bloggers at the Post (and in other for-profit commercial settings in which writers are not paid). My intent—which many other readers and responders seem to have understood quite well—is to ask writers to think about this consciously and to look beyond the individual decisions they make for themselves to what sort of signals unpaid work sends on a societal level about writers and their value.
For more on this, you may be interested in the writings of Jonathan Taplin at the Annenberg Innovation Lab. His two pieces at Medium (the Aspen Ideas series) talk about “the idea that the last 20 years of technological progress — the digital revolution — have devalued the role of the creative artist in our society.”
The article with that phrase is here https://bit.ly/1oYJpNI and it contains a link to the previous article.
The Huffington Post is very much a part of the digital revolution, the dynamic that has made so much content live online, paid and unpaid.
And what I recommend is that writers, from whom all this content is required, think very hard—as Jon Taplin is asking people in many creative walks of life to do—about what the short-term gain hoped for from an unpaid effort might mean in a long-term understanding of the importance and value of our creative workers and their output.
It would help, in this and any conversation on such controversial issues, if you could not assert that things have been said that have not. Mischaracterizing others’ comments tells us more about your own line of thinking and mode of engagement than it does about me or about others or about the issues we’re discussing.
Our tradition here at Writer Unboxed is one of earnest and respectful exchange and a part of that is being careful not to distort another’s points.
I invite you to join us in careful commentary.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Lauren.
With apologies for the very late response (the onset of conference season caught up with me during the discussion on this one), I appreciate your drawing a line between the “exposure” argument and the basic premise on which this latest commentary from The Huffington Post bases its policy of not paying its bloggers.
It’s good to remember that they are, in fact, two different things. While some may feel that one mitigates the other, this nevertheless doesn’t change the importance of questioning the policy in the context of a conscious, thoughtful response — which is what this column has asked folks to do.
Thanks for the good followup.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Porter! I recognize a correlation between HuffPost’s expectation of free digital content and the public’s general expectation of free e-books (whether by author set pricetags or by piracy of digital content.) It almost seems as if the thought is “If it’s available on the internet then I shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
Several years ago the publishing masses decried .99 e-books and giving books away for free, saying that it would create a denigration of value of writing content. At the time it seemed like a small concern, but I’m starting to think they were right. People are very accustomed to getting writing for free. We click on MSN or the HuffPost for news, we can download free books all over the web and no one gets paid. (Quick note – I have no idea if MSN pays or not, it seems to me they just share articles from other sources.)
Finally, Hull may say they pay their contributors by exposure, which may be true, but really how much monetary outcome does the average contributor realize from said exposure? Probably not much.
Just some random thoughts. I hope you’re doing well. :)
Hi, Lara,
Ridiculously late getting back here (conference season is upon us again) but I wanted to thank you for reading and commenting, as ever.
I think this line is right on point:
“But really how much monetary outcome does the average contributor realize from said exposure?”
This is something that’s almost impossible to quantify. If an author could get a signal from each reader-buyer prompted by some unpaid column at The Huffington Post, this would be different. We could get some actual numbers onto the “exposure” article. But that’s not possible and—like so many, many things in publishing—this leaves everybody just drowning in guesswork, exactly as we’re doing in terms of how many ebooks are out there, how many sold, etc.
As many of our insightful commenters here are indicating, too, it’s important for us to uncouple the “exposure” argument from the policy question of not paying writers. Even if we could demonstrate that powerful exposure was creating genuine gains in sales and visibility for writers, would that make it ethical for the Post to maintain its policy of not paying bloggers? Would that absolve the Post of what, in any other commercial setting, would be the expectation that a for-profit corporation pays the people on whose work it generates its revenue.
It’s a lot to consider, and thanks for helping us do that. Hope you’re well, too!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
20 years ago, I was lucky enough to serve as the first outside PR rep for a shareware company that gave their software away for free. They also distributed their software 100% online. They were tremendously profitable, pioneering on multiple fronts and a huge inspiration to me. That company was McAfee. Many of the practices pioneered by McAfee were foundational to Internet business and even ebooks.
From day one at Smashwords, we allowed writers to price their books at free. We lose money on those books. But I was confident from past experience with McAfee that free ebooks could be a powerful moneymaker for those who know how to use it. In the time since, we’ve proven that series with free series starters earn more money for the author than series without. And there are other benefits of free ebooks.
We’ve paid writers millions of dollars since our founding. I love to pay writers because it means we’re making money too. Our business is dependent upon selling books.
Why do writers write? Possibly three reasons which might apply in isolation or combination: 1. Writing makes them happy. 2. They want to share their creativity or views with world. 3. They want to make money, either directly from the sale of the writing or indirectly by the awareness and perceptions they generate through readership.
If we look at why writers write, it becomes clear why for some writers, it can be profitable or beneficial to write for free.
There’s a supply and demand dynamic as well. There’s a glut of writers who want to be read and a dearth of readership. When there’s a glut of supply, suppliers lower their price to attract buyers.
There will always be writers willing to accept less in exchange for other benefits.
Huffpost is the buyer and they pay in eyeballs.
Before self-publishing came along, most traditionally published authors maintained outside day jobs because book earnings rarely provided a living wage. So trad writers subsidized the business of trad publishers.
Why didn’t those underpaid writers refuse to write? I’m sure some did refuse, but there were always other writers standing in line willing to take their place and write for less.
I imagine some of the writers who decry Huffpost in the latest outrage participate in the devaluation of writing by participating in Kindle Unlimited where the devaluation of writing is measured on two fronts: 1. authors are paid an ever-declining rate per page (now about one fourth of a cent per page read) rather than 70% of their list price and 2. Readers are being trained to only read KU books which feel like free, which means they’re trained to stop purchasing single copies where the author sets the price and earns 70%.
Every three months, those writers decide to leave or stay. Most stay.
I was among the first group of writers that helped launch Huffpost’s books channel, and I’ve been contributing ever since. Do I wish they’d pay me? Hell yes. I’d write more for them if they paid. Do I resent them for not paying me? No. I’m appreciative of the readership I’ve reached.
I blog more frequently on the Smashwords blog and I don’t get paid for that either. I’ve never been paid for an interview nor would I expect payment. A couple years back when CNN asked me to contribute an opinion piece for free, I jumped at it. And the same with many others. I’m commenting here for free because I care about the marketplace of ideas.
I wrote three ebooks on ebook publishing best practices – each priced at free. They’ve been downloaded about 750,000 times. I’m tickled pink to have touched so many people.
If the value of the readership to me exceeds the lost opportunity cost of my time to write, it’s a no brainer.
Free is an option. Those who choose to contribute to Huffpost do so because the benefit outweighs the cost.
Regardless of why a writer writes, most writers would do well to consider how they might leverage unpaid writing to achieve their goals. Writers who refuse to entertain the options are probably leaving money on the table.
Good luck all.
Thanks for your input, Mark. (And sorry for the late note.)
As usual, you make your points clearly, glad to have them.
I do think you ought to talk to that guy who isn’t paying you for your blog posts at Smashwords. :)
Cheers,
p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
First, I appreciate the stand you’re taking, and I strongly agree that writers should not devalue our work by giving it away, but you and Hull are both mistaken/misrepresenting when you say all HuffPo writing is unpaid. As a ghostwriter, I’ve done a number of pieces for HuffPo at my magazine rate of $2/word. My celeb or “expert” client gets the exposure – which does have tangible commercial value – and I get to keep the home fires burning for another day. Hull’s statement is ludicrous, and methinks he doth protest too much, but you’re missing the reality that many writers are in fact getting paid to write for HuffPo and might not be in the mood to be slut-shamed about it.
Hi, Joni.
No one is being “slut-shamed” here. You are the one using that unfortunate term, not me.
And while we’re in agreement, certainly, that writers should be paid—thanks for that—I don’t think that ghostwriter arrangements or any other setups mitigate the stated policy about not paying bloggers and what it says to the world about the value of writers’ work.
If the way to get your money is secretive, how does that help defend the importance of writing and writers to the wider culture?
Thanks,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi Porter, Your piece has certainly provoked some very thoughtful comments. Here’s my reaction: I started blogging in 2009. Too late. The net was full of bloggers, but I persist, because I have much to say and I want to say here I have NOT monetized my blog. Then I saw all these people blogging on the Huff Post. I wanted to see if I could compete. They accepted me and THEN I learned–no pay. I have submitted some excellent pieces and some of them from my blog–but less and less. Because I am angry that they won’t pay. But I’m also going to enlarge on some of the other things you said above–everyone who ever drew breath is now a writer. My words, if they are cogent and worthwhile, are flooded out by masses of words that are sometimes sloppy and thrown together as people fight for their place in some community, some connection. Writers are lined up with their tin cups (blogs, articles, books) begging for an audience. I believe in freedom for everyone–the net allows that. But your thoughtful words have troubled me many times. Why do I work for three hours to write a thoughtful piece that maybe 20 people will really read–I mean every word. We have become so concerned with the reblog, the tweet, the FB share that our eyes run down the page and that’s it. NOT ALWAYS, but it’s like the idea so many words, so little time. I will continue to read and listen to this community. And I will blog. Maybe it’s my online meditation. That might be some kind of payment. Beth
Hi, Beth,
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. It runs along the lines of the “Wall of Content” commentary I’ve been doing.
Many in the trade and independent sectors, alike, have been slow to recognize what a vast glut of material there is now. We still hear both writers and publishers brag about having a lot of titles–which only run into sky-high competition as soon as they’re on the block.
What’s left is a kind of gentle valor in efforts to continue blogging amid so much surrounding material, to keep writing in the face of so much text.
In time, we’ll find ways, I’m sure, to see some titles rise to higher levels of visibility than others, but we have few techniques to deploy with any certainty against the Wall of Content right now, and signalling to the culture that the work of writers isn’t worth paying for simply cannot help.
Thanks again for your input and sorry for the slow response her.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
You raised a good point here that I hadn’t really, truly thought about: that of the author being well aware that they’re not getting paid for a post and doing it anyway, voluntarily. Wendig, among those bloggers who I’ve read so far who have commented on the issue, is pretty black-and-white about the issue, as are a lot of other voices – those that I have read *so far* have been very much in the camp of paying all writers for their writing.
I liked that this article brought up the issue of willfully going into such an arrangement. It made me realise that no one’s forcing writers to write for free if they don’t want to. At least I haven’t heard of that being the case. If the author is fine with that, that’s okay. I mean, it may not pay the bills, which is the argument, but it may get you noticed and, if you write good content, people might be more willing to try your other works.
My own writing group have a short story anthology out now, self published and offered completely free (the print book is $10 to cover the costs there). We’re doing it as a sample, as a promotional tool, and to get exposure. We have our reasons, number one being that money and success have a way of turning people crazy, and secondarily that if we make money from anything we do as the official group, we have to pay for the library room we meet in. We’d prefer not to do that, so we deliberately decided to forgo profit. All contributors understand that it’s not for money and that we’ll make that through other avenues (if anyone can make money writing books any more). We’ve also been around for 20 years now and we have a few success stories to boast of. They’re mainly successes outside our writers group, but we are fine with promoting our sample anthology as just that – a sample. We’re doing exactly what the Huffington is doing – promoting writers for free, but allowing them to make their own choices. It might not pay the bills, but being known on a famous site is probably still good for getting eyeballs on your other work, which you can sell to pay bills and whatever. Come to think of it, we’re kinda like drug dealers in that regard: the first one’s free!
But dying in obscurity is not fun. That said, it’s not like the days where the scary cat lady down the street can’t, these days, upload their book to Amazon and *maybe* gain a cult following. It depends on the work, and many, many other factors, but all kinds of “weird” people are finding success online, so it’s not like getting paid by the blog post or article is the ONLY way to pay the rent. Sure, the Amazon self-publishing bubble has burst, but you never really know when the next best-seller is going to blindside everyone out of nowhere. For instance, Chuck Tingle – author of some bizzare gay erotica with dinosaurs and cyborgs and manifestations of a man’s own fear of his homosexuality – can find an audience and do incredibly well (because we’re all like ‘wtf!’ and have an uncomfortable, uncontrolled laugh about it all, while making him a millionaire). Anyone can succeed, though it’s hard to break out of obscurity. The Huffington Post is one way to get noticed. It isn’t World War 3 if you don’t get paid in cold hard cash. Exposure can be a godsend to the struggling author trying to get noticed and compete in today’s publishing world. If you don’t get paid money directly, you can still do well in book sales because of blogging for a popular site. There’s risks in every avenue, but if you’re not willing to take those risks, you’ll probably languish in obscurity. Unless you get lucky. But you can’t count on that.
Hi, Daniel,
Thanks for your input on this.
I think the real issue here is probably less about the cold hard cash factor vs. World War III and more about what happens to the perception of writers and their work’s value when for-profit corporate entities like The Huffington Post elect to take and make advertising revenues on their work without payment.
A bit bigger concern, in other words, than just the question of the supposed value of exposure.
Thanks again for your comment,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Most ‘battles’ (which, by definition practically *are* disagreements) are portrayed as one-sided by those looking to profit from the conflict. You don’t get to see the grey-ness unless you look – sometimes having to look HARD – for such things. War is never really black-and-white. Not much really is. Except maybe action movies. Even they have the decency to have a bit of nuance to them, at least the good ones. Cash-grab ones like the Green Zone don’t have much nuance, though. They just go through the motions and represent the members of the two sides as ‘teapots’ – a term I think someone in my writers’ group termed to describe when characters are so interchangeable as to be part of a teapot set. But even teapots get some wear and tear…
It sounds like Huffington Post never paid for their articles. I’m not sure their logic makes sense. They probably should look at paying the writers. I might submit an article free to a journal just for the exposure, but I would not continue to do free work for them. My blog is free, but I do that for the exposure and the joy of meeting so many great people. I have learned a lot from all the blogs I follow. Also, I expect to earn money with writing novels–eventually. Writing is a career. Some have earned small fortunes with their talent. I’d like to be one of them.
Hi, Connie,
Thanks for your comment.
If earning a small fortune with your writing is your goal, I wish you well and might just suggest that you do some research on what you’re up against in terms of competition in a market glutted with far, far too many books and authors already.
Reading Writer Unboxed is one good place to start.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi, Porter,
Somehow I missed this post, but I’d like to chime in even though my comments are so late they may never be noticed.
I rarely read the Huff Post, and I don’t write for it because it does not pay.
I value my intellectual property too much to give it away.
Having been born with neither wealth nor beauty, thank God, I have only my time, talents (such as they are), and mind to offer in making a living. A few decades ago, I realized that it was up to me to make the best deal I could when selling 8 hours a day to an employer.
Now that I can write full time, I apply the same concept to my blog and to my novels. I write what I want to write, and offer the stories at a fair price. The blog lays out the historical background of my books.
Research and writing historical fiction and nonfiction has enabled me to accumulate a considerable amount of knowledge of nineteenth century law at its most crucial turning point — during the Civil War.
That accumulation of knowledge is my intellectual property.
Before someone says few people would find that of interest, which I admit, we all have intellectual property accumulated over lifetimes of reading, research, and education in school and out.
It behooves writers to take this property seriously and not let it go without careful thought.
Thanks for the input, Carol,
Good careful thinking here, and much appreciated.
Hope you’re well!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I started my own business after my full-time ministry job was sliced into two part-time jobs for the express purpose of cutting benefit costs, by a pastor who (of course) was himself being fully financially supported. Of course, the part-timers who replaced me were less qualified than I, but they were so much cheaper I could not possibly compete.
I found that one sentence kept coming to my mind: “SCAB is not a ministry.” I felt I had been wronged, but it was not only my former employer who had wronged me; the scabs who had replaced me (one because she was so “dedicated” and one because he hoped for a full-time job down the road if he could get some “exposure”) had done wrong, as well.
Many millennials live in a culture that has become so individualized that many of them have no concept of why it is anyone else’s business if they choose to give away their own work for free or next-to-free. They can be heard saying, “This will give ME exposure; this will build MY career.” The very idea of saying, “This devalues OUR profession” seems not to occur to them. In the long run, there will be no writing careers, not even for the “I” and the “me,” if there is no writing profession for a broader “us.”
I suggest that those authors who take a stand against non-paying for-profit outlets should stop feeling guilty for failing to “support” their fellow-writers who do choose to write for these thieves, and should start acting like the earlier generation of factory workers who watched their neighbors cross picket lines during strikes for living wages and safe working conditions: Shout “Scab!” and turn your back on them. Their willingness to be taken advantage of has undercut not only their own ability to earn a living, but also yours. You owe them nothing.
Hi, Trish,
I think you have a good insight here into the concept that I was getting at of what working without payment can do to the wider perception of writing and writers. You’re right that in many cases, individual decisions about these things can appear to be made without any thought to the wider context.
Many thanks for your input.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I’m genuinely curious about this question I’m going to ask, being out of the library world for a few months now – but isn’t this the same argument indie authors were making re Biblioboard, a company with whom you were involved? I kind of remember some of the same defense that HuffPo is making coming from Biblioboard around eight or nine months ago. Just wondering what you think about that? Is the difference that libraries are generally not for profits? Though Biblioboard clearly isn’t. Like I said, I’ve been out of the loop a while, so maybe you aren’t even involved with biblioboard any longer…
Hi, Heather,
Good point to ask in the course of this discussion. The question of self-publishing authors’ need of library representation and the non-royalty arrangement created by SELF-e to create access to library collections is different in my conception of this because, as you’re noting, the library systems are non-profit. Library Journal and Biblioboard’s creation of SELF-e is something they have funded, themselves, and their model for eventually recouping their costs lies in the subscription fees that libraries pay them for access to the SELF-e collections of self-published material.
At the same time, SELF-e has been expanded so that libraries are becoming publishing platforms for authors (through an alliance with Pressbooks, based in Montreal). The level of service therefore moves past simple “exposure” to include actual publication, the production of the EPUB, the platform itself.
There are very few alternatives, to my knowledge, for authors to use in getting self-published work into libraries at all, and no other successful financial model has been spotted. (One program, mounted by several authors but not with much traction, apparently, charges a library a small, one-time royalty to add a self-published book to its collection but nothing based on checkouts or reads of that book.) This, combined with the fact that the library case is one of potential discoverability for a book itself rather than for blog writings — and in a vast non-profit system rather than in a for-profit corporate setting — does, yes, make it different in my own thinking.
In time we’ll be able to better evaluate the efficacy of the library as a platform for self-published work. At this point, it’s unclear what level of presentation by the library itself might be needed to make a title findable by patrons, for example.
But the creators of SELF-e, as you may have read in some coverage I’ve done with them, are on record saying that they hope to be able to consider a different, royalty-paying model for participating authors in the future when the program reaches certain milestones of size and presence. This is a completely different message from The Huffington Post’s assertion of “pride” in not paying blogging writers and its plan to continue doing so despite the fact that it is already profitable.
And these distinctions I do think make the two situations different, yes, but a terrific comparison to consider. Thanks for bringing up the question, very thoughtful indeed.
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Good – I got my daily word count in today because this angered me so much. Did you even talk to someone who blogs there or did you just go by the litigants who sued? This way off the mark. https://www.myfreelancelife.com/stop_hating_huffpo/