I’ve been distracted with deadlines lately, and missed out on an interesting discussion on Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing site about writing for free - the genesis of which Deborah ably dissects in an insightful Accepting the Blame post on her Finding the Right Words blog.

Driving the discussion is Lifetips, a site that publishes content and collects the ad revenue. Over the past year, the rates paid to writers for “tips” (short articles serving largely as SEO content) have been falling, yet writers continue to snap up the “opportunities.”

Now there’s a book opportunity in the works, where writers generate enough content for a book (the rights to which are owned by Lifetips), and if a passerby chooses to buy it, the writer receives… a $2 royalty.

Not New. Not Good Either.

Publishing scams have been around forever, and if it’s one thing the Internet has provided, it’s a better, more-streamlined pipeline for this kind of exploitation.

Young writers need to take a hard look at Internet-based work. Are you really building a career writing short SEO articles (essentially for free)? Does becoming a “guru” on a largely generic SEO site really mean anything?

Not when you consider the alternatives. A couple weeks ago I wrote a “Five Things Every Struggling Writer Should Do” post that was mostly aimed at business writers.

I think it’s time for another in the series: “The Five Useful Things Every Writer Can Do Instead of Writing Cheap/Free SEO Copy.”

Look for that in a day or two.

In the meantime, there’s no reason to work for free when others are using your work to generate revenue for themselves. It’s that simple. Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

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