If you’re getting into freelancing these days, one option is writing for content aggregator sites like Helium, About.com, Associated Content or HubPages. These companies pay writers to create massive amounts of content to help the sites rise up to the top of Web searches and make more money on click throughs.
But for freelancers, there’s a huge debate happening over the merits of writing for a content aggregator to advance your career, a debate that last week spilled onto the pages of this blog. First long-time freelancer Tim Beyers examined the reasons why a writer shouldn’t bother with content aggregators. Then Helium’s new writer outreach manager Barbara Whitlock countered with her own detailed explanation of why freelancers would want to write for a content aggregator, Helium in particular.
I say if you’re a writer looking for experience, there’s a better way.
Instead of writing for an aggregator, find out what hyperlocal news sites have popped up in your area, introduce yourself and ask if there’s anything you can do to help.
In case you’re not familiar with them, hyperlocal news sites are blogs that focus on what’s happening in a specific area, be it a neighborhood, town or city. You might also know them as community news blogs or citizen journalist sites. Some examples: NewzJunky in Watertown, New York; Hop Town in Hopkinsville, Massachusetts, and NeighborsGo.com in Dallas.
If you work for a hyperlocal news organization you’ll probably start out making about as much as you would at a content aggregator – which is to say not much. But if you really are just starting out, you could use the opportunity to go out and do some man-on-the-street reporting, and pick up other valuable experience.
If you don’t think there are hyperlocal or citizen journalists operating in your city you’re wrong, you just haven’t looked hard enough. Here in Portland, there are at least four, including Neighborhood Notes and OurPDX, more if you count sites that focus on niches like tech, books or cycling.
If there really aren’t hyperlocal sites where you live, start one. By teaching yourself everything you need to know to run a hyperlocal or community news site, you’re teaching yourself everything you need to know in 2009 and going into the future to get hired as a staff writer or make it as a freelancer, things like using a content management system (a fancy term for blogging or blog-like software), HTML, linking, how to write for a blog, how to write straight news, how to take pictures, video and audio, etc.
When it comes down to it, as long as you’re going to the time and trouble of learning the craft, why give the fruits of your labors to another business when you could maximize the benefit and profit for the enterprise that matters most – you.
Good article. It’s a good example of hyperlocal being more than just covering a particular city, town, or even suburb, or at least a certain neighborhood within such a community. It’s also covering certain topics within such markets. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how such a business model will be monetized. Any thoughts out there?
quick note–looks like it’s Hopkinsville, Kentucky, not Massachusetts.
Actually I would beg to differ. We pay freelancers a lot more than they’d make — at least as I understand it — from those “content aggregators.” Unless they’re making more than $100 for the average story, in which case I stand corrected. We pay $50-$100 for assigned professional freelance-reported/photographed stories.
As the owner/operator of OurPDX.com, I can safely say that we’re not paying freelancers at all right now. Instead, we’re a ‘cashflow-negative’ operation, with all of the cash currently flowing *out* of my pockets.
All of our authors know this going in, of course, and we’ve been fairly transparent about the site’s goals, aspirations, and operations.
And in return for paying our authors, um, nothing, well – we don’t have quotas (you write when the spirit moves you.) And we do at least spring for food at our monthly author/reader gatherings (yet another reason why we’re cashflow-negative…)
[...] catch the debate going on over the pros and cons of writing for content aggregators – and a nifty idea for an alternative. I’m currently hosting the 2nd Annual WordCount Blogathon, where 40-plus writers are [...]
[...] catch the debate going on over the pros and cons of writing for content aggregators – and a nifty idea for an alternative. I’m currently hosting the 2nd Annual WordCount Blogathon, where 40-plus writers are [...]
I’ve got a cash-flow-negative hyperlocal site, too — http://parkrosegateway.com. It’s actually part of the Neighborlogs beta (http://neighborlogs.com). The idea is to get local advertisers to bring in revenue, and eventually do profit-sharing with contributers. I haven’t gotten that far yet, though (in fact, I’ve been rather neglectful), because I’m doing it on a very part time basis.
A way to gain extra traction with the same article for a local newspaper or website is to also publish the same article in Helium’s Local Guides channel: http://www.helium.com/channels/136252-Local-Guides
Helium’s newspaper partners pay stock content — $5 to $20 per article — for one-time, non-exclusive use in print.
Barbara
[...] Choose hyperlocal over content sites – For my fellow writers, a good piece from the WordCount blog on choosing to write for hyperlocal news sites instead of content sites (or as I like to call them, dumping grounds.) [...]
[...] Here at WordCount, there’s been a similar exchange of opinions on the value of writing for content aggregators recently. In a post and multiple follow up comments, a Helium representative explained the site’s editorial process and how much money writers can make. Several freelancers countered her with arguments explaining why they won’t write for content aggregators or why they did and wouldn’t again. I even chimed in with my own advice to write for a hyperlocal news site instead. [...]
[...] for, at HuffPost to drive traffic to our other work, ourselves to promote a book or project, a hyperlocal news site, or ghostblogging for a corporate [...]
[...] for, at HuffPost to drive traffic to our other work, ourselves to promote a book or project, a hyperlocal news site, or ghostblogging for a corporate [...]
[...] writers who were thinking of working for content sites like Helium.com or Demand Studios to take a stab at hyperlocal news [...]
Personally as an espiring writer any exposure is better than having your thoughts bottled up or disappearing on paper from trying to find the right company to mail out your writings hence the word (NONE). The different styles from each company is beneficial to the different styles of the writers.
One style (size) does not fit all! The key factor is compensation, whether for cash or experience the details for each up front. Instead of the “read the book (buy the book)” situation. While conducting my research on the different sites many of them do not list the compensation details up front.
Good catch. The hyperlocal site I meant to link to is Hop News, which covers Hopkinton, Mass.
I stand corrected. Some of the hyperlocal sites I know here in Portland are still in the startup phase and I’m not sure if they’re paying freelancers at that level.
Michelle
Thanks Betsy. One reason I suggested novice writers/freelancers consider working for hyperlocals insteaed of Helium was for the experience. If they really are just starting out, I’d think that doing some amount of work for no pay would be like an internship, where they’d pick up reporting and writing experience and digital media research and storytelling skills that would be valuable when they went off to look for paying gigs. Or they could stick around long enough so that when the hyperlocal operation started making money and could pay, they’d be at the front of the line. Does that jive with your expectations?
Michelle
Kathleen: I recognize you from Twitter (and BarCampPortland?), so it’s great to see you there. Thanks for the comment and the info on Neighborlogs, which I hadn’t heard of before. Portland seems to have a mess of hyperlocal news sites, yes? Wonder if that’s typical of a city our size. Definitely something to investigate. Maybe Rick at Silicon Florist could weigh in on this.
Michelle Rafter