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Online content work for free

  • 04-07-2017 8:21pm
    #1
    pavilion35
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1 ✭


    Ok so I am trying to movie from primary teaching into online content. I really just want to just write for a living not teach. I've loads of interests, but the ones I'm best at are sportswriting, and film reviews, or certain social topics.

    I teach by day and at the moment I write for free for 2 websites to get my name out there. I link all my articles to my twitter and linkedin. One is soccer articles and the the other is the entertainment section of a music and fashion website. I've written 9 articles for each site by now (I only started 6 weeks ago) for free.

    I have 2 concerns.

    1. At what stage do I say that I don't want to write for free any more?
    2. The sites are having problems with regard to spam and neither of them are allowing users access to write comments online. Therefore, for all I know I'm writing and nobody is reading the articles. I've spoken to the editors on this but they can't really give me any timeframe for when these issues are going to be fixed. Am I wasting my time on these sites? The editors seem nice (I email them a lot) but maybe the sites are a mess and not worth me writing for them?

    Any advice is welcome.


Comments

  • #2
    Batgurl
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,208 ✭✭✭Batgurl


    Firstly, don't work for free. It devalues your work AND the work of others in the industry.

    Secondly, if you want to work in this industry then I recommend you become familiar with google analytics or similar to discover these statistics yourself.

    Last piece of advice, if you want to work in content, don't restrict yourself to topics that you like. You'll severely limit your employability.

    Best of luck!


  • #3
    gctest50
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,605 ✭✭✭gctest50


    Start your own ( never been easier, back in my day it was all fields etc etc )

    - they might be nice but they sound like a waste of time if they haven't made any effort to sort out the problems


  • #4
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    Working for free is not a job.

    When you try to get a paying job, you'll be competing with those working for free.


  • #5
    Lux23
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,134 ✭✭✭Lux23


    Honestly, I think in that situation you are better off creating your own WordPress site and just write away. After a while, if you come across a good idea for a story maybe you could pitch it to a business that would pay you.

    Also, you should really think about doing a course about writing for business - a friend of mine writes blogs for lots of small businesses. She bangs out two or three a month and gets paid about 60/80 quid. It isn't much but the work isn't all that hard. Maybe look at the websites of businesses near you, you will find many have sites but no content which looks awful. Get in contact and offer to write for them - once you start and do some good work for people the work may follow. What you charge is up to and you can work on your passion projects while you do this.


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