{"id":4509,"date":"2011-03-18T15:38:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T22:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=4509"},"modified":"2011-03-19T08:33:07","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T15:33:07","slug":"315-million-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/18\/315-million-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"315 Million Dollars Too Late"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heads up, internet-y rant ahead. Rather read about travel? Here’s an <\/span>ode to Hawaii<\/span><\/a> from my archives. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Let us assume, for a moment, that you are a professional writer, the kind that writes for a living. You make your living as a writer. You don’t have a project to promote. You don’t have a patron spouse. You didn’t make a killing in the dot com years on stock options or start ups. You’re just a working hack, a person who builds their living out of sentences. You write for money, that is what you do. Maybe you’re just like me — you have a day job doing writing work that most people never see, but you have some delusions of yourself as an essayist, a travel writer, a reporter. You’re a writer and this is what you do.<\/p>\n

Now, let us assume that a large publication gives you the “opportunity” to publish your work. They are clear on the terms — you give us work, we publish it. No money is to change hands. The publication offers you “exposure” and “traffic.” You’re not a beginning writer, you’re a professional. You don’t have a class to sell, a book to promote. You need to pay your bills. For some reason, you say yes to this deal. Even more inscrutable, you say yes to this deal repeatedly<\/em>. Then, oh, look, said publication goes on to sell for a significant chunk of change. 315 million luscious dollars.<\/p>\n

“Unpaid writing gigs are unfair!” you protest. Now <\/em>you decide that you should have been paid?<\/p>\n

I’m not unsympathetic, though you may not believe me. And also, I’ve written for free. When I was a very new blogger, I was an unpaid contributor at the fledgling BlogHer network simply because I did not know I could get paid to blog. (Rookie mistake.) I had disagreements<\/a> with the BlogHer network, but they paid their contributors very early in their establishment and went on to pay better than average rates for blogging. I wrote for free once for World Hum because I did not correctly read the submission guidelines. They paid me retroactively when they had the resources to do so. I was delighted to accept, though I did not expect to be paid — after all, I had agreed to the terms. <\/em>Both World Hum and BlogHer wanted to become profitable and pay their contributors.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I deeply distrust the Heiress Post, as I like to call it. I won’t click links, I won’t share them, I’m petty that way. I think that the founder should have paid her contributors. I’m confident that if she didn’t want to use her own money to do so, she could have found financial backing. I also understand why some writers chose to give their work to a venture that did not pay them. They gambled. They played an SEO game or they promoted a pet project or they used the platform to shore up their credibility. There are any number of strategic reasons to have that byline in a writer’s portfolio. However, unless you had a contract stating otherwise, there was no reason to expect you would ever be paid. <\/em><\/p>\n

It would be nice if part of the 315 million dollars for which the Post was sold went to the unpaid contributors that helped build it. The heroic good will established by paying those writers — imagine the good will I feel towards World Hum multiplied across — well, how many unpaid contributors were there for the Post? I understand the energy behind the Hey Ariana<\/a> Facebook group that calls for sharing some of the profits. I understand the thinking behind the farcical call for a strike<\/a>. But it’s too late. 315 million dollars too late.<\/p>\n

Where was this public outrage was before <\/em>the Post sold?\u00a0 While I sat at my desk seething every time I received a link that led me to that villainous publication, writers were cranking out work and handing it over, for free. I can only assume that they were in control of their senses at the time. I get that some of those people are angry now, that they feel cheated, that while they struggle, they imagine Arianna tossing another bundle of hundreds on the fire.<\/p>\n

The editorial evil master mind wasn’t building a homeless shelter or an inner city school. She was building a media empire. Her writers, many unpaid minions, helped with that. In my more dramatic phases, I like to imagine them as pyramid builders, each article a block of stone, carved by hand, dragged by will, stacked one by one while cruel overseers cracked whips nearby. But it was a choice — unlike slaves of the Nile pharaohs, the writers that built the Post said, “Zero dollars? Okay then!” and hit send.<\/p>\n

Why, if you think you should be paid for your work, would you do that?<\/p>\n