Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business
Development Help
New
Website for Freelance Writers to Make Money: TheSyndicatedNews.com
FYI,
this is from my own personal point of view. I have no
affiliation with the site; I’ve never submitted
anything to it or talked to others about it. So, here
goes . . . TheSyndicatedNews.com:
A Review Pros of The
SyndicatedNews.com: I think this site has four things going for it, ie: For example, I write
a lot on mortgages, real estate and personal finance.
So, if I published an article there and it got picked up
by 20 publications and I’d set a fee of $35 for a
500-word article, that’s a potential $700 for one
article. Imagine if an article got picked up by 50, 100
or 200 papers. FYI, for those who don’t know, this is what Reuters
and AP is all about. They sell syndicated content. The
company is aiming to get a piece of this marketplace,
which it states, ie: “Up
until the launch of the Syndicated News, publishers had
no venue outside of the traditional syndication sources
[eg, Reuters,
AP] to
find and license content for their publications. . . .
The Syndicated News . . . [provides] publishers with a
one-stop marketplace to fill their publications.” *** New Ebook:
How
to Find Unpublished Freelance Writing Jobs.** ii) Multiple Channel Exposure: The site not only is an outlet for freelance writers, but also for
photographers as well. So if you have both skills – and many freelance
writers do – you can capitalize on them. iv) You Retain All Rights: I very rarely sell 100% of the rights to articles I write for places like
AssociatedContent.com. They
simply don’t pay enough. Plus, I’m a type A control freak. I don’t
like anybody telling me when and where I can publish my content – so
yeah, I’ll license it, but I won’t outright sell it to you. As a side note, this
lesson was reinforced when I saw Dolly Parton on Oprah once. She owns
the copyright to over 3,000 songs she’s written over the years. When
Whitney Houston remade “I Will Always Love You” (who
doesn’t remember this little ditty), Dolly Parton was sitting pretty. You see, it’s her
song. Dolly was asked if she was jealous that it became a
huge hit for Whitney (her country version didn’t fare as well). She
was like, “No, I couldn’t That Dolly is one smart cookie –
and not for nothing, she’s one of the wealthiest celebrities in My reason for not
outright selling my work is that you just never know how/when a piece
can bring you thousands of dollars. But, you can only capitalize on it
if you own the rights. Okay,
freelance
writing economics lesson over for today. Cons of The
SyndicatedNews.com: In spite of all that it has going for it, here are a few of the cons
that stood out to me as I perused the site: It feels like they’re trying to capitalize
off of freelance writers instead of help them. After all, you’re
probably going to have many more freelance writers signing up than
buyers who will buy content. So, they basically make money twice from
freelance writers and photographers – when they list content, and when
they sell it. It just doesn’t sit right in my stomach, but in the big
old scheme of things, this is a minor pet peeve. For, if you sell even
one piece a month, it can more than cover the fee. To me it feels as if the site is nickel and
diming freelancers, which is a big turnoff. They say the cost is to
defray editorial review costs, but why not charge more of a monthly fee
(eg, $9.95) and just get it over with. It would take away the feeling of
being nickled and dimed to death in my opinion. This can cut both ways. On the positive side,
it can mean you get in on the ground floor and become a “go to”
writer with buyers because there’s less competition. On the negative
side, well, there are no buyers of your work. Also TheSyndicatedNews
is a dot com. This makes me wonder how long they will be around. Will it
catch on? Will they fold? Conclusion:
I like TheSyndicatedNews.com because, believe it or not, I’d drawn up
plans about six months ago to launch the same kind of site – the exact
business model (except for charging sellers). But with so much on my
plate, I decided to backburner it to stay focused on writing and
publishing my ebooks.
Sincerely,
Freelance Success Stories:
There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell
Editorial's newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest
the phrase, "starving freelancer."
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