The internet has created a trend – content providers. Now, this isn’t really a bad trend or a new trend. After all, journalists are content providers for newpapers and magazines. And, yes, they are content providers who often write according to assigned topics (or breaking news) rather than focusing in on topics of personal interest. And the internet has created companies who hire writers for content. Well, sometimes they sort of hire them meaning they don’t pay for the article itself but devise a “pay for click” strategy that generally results in writers churning out lots of articles that they know will generate very little income. But hoping that creating enough of these will resort in a steady income.
And as a writer, you may be put in a position where you consider if this sort of work is worth investing in. Now, I tried writing for a company that you may have seen advertising for writers on any job listing site. They show up everywhere. The reason being that the income generate by most of their articles is so low that writers tend to start enthusiastically and then fade away. A few may hang in there as if their work makes it to the top of the site. But the vast majority of articles written for the site produce very little money.
The problem is that working for these content farms limits your income from writing based on what the content farm wants to pay. Essentially, you give them your article and often you give up many of your rights to what is your own work, and they decide what you get paid.