HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A WRITER

     In addition to the “Cheeseball Bottom Feeders” so indignantly described above, the Internet has a number of other sites that claim to pay writers for their services but pay pitifully little. For example, on a writers’ forum one person was asked whether ASSOCIATEDCONTENT.COM paid its writers. She said she’d been posting things on it for two weeks and had been paid sixty cents. She did not appear to be discouraged by this. As she would probably be quick to point out, she was “getting experience.” And “getting her name out there.” And a number of would-be writers say they are “having fun.”

     So, whatever floats your boat. But I think you should know what you’re getting into before you waste a lot of time on it.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/

     TRIOND.COM has now joined ASSOCIATEDCONTENT.COM and HELIUM.COM in paying pennies to writers for hours of hard work. To do a check, put “about Triond.com” or “about Helium.com” into the Google search box. The first few items will be propaganda from the site itself. After that you get into the nitty gritty.

http://www.triond.com/

     AND THEN THERE’S PUBLISH AMERICA. PUBLISH AMERICA is in a class by itself when it comes to wrecking the lives of authors. It says it’s a “traditional publisher.” Don’t believe it. Put “about PublishAmerica” into the Google search box and see for yourself. Or simply click on the ABSOLUTE WRITE forum below:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10211