you can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides”
A very nice editor at Huffington Post contacted me yesterday, and asked me if I would be willing to grant permission for the site to republish my post about the seven things I did to reboot my life.
Huffington Post has a lot of views, and reaches a pretty big audience, and that post is something I’d love to share with more people, so I told the editor that I was intrigued, and asked what they pay contributors.
Well, it turns out that, “Unfortunately, we’re unable to financially compensate our bloggers at this time. Most bloggers find value in the unique platform and reach our site provides, but we completely understand if that makes blogging with us impossible.”
I translated this on Twitter thusly:
HuffPost: We’d like to publish a story you wrote!
Me: Cool! What do you pay?
HP: Oh, we can’t afford to pay, but EXPOSURE!
Me: How about no.
— Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 27, 2015
This set me off on a tiny bit of a rant:
Writers and bloggers: if you write something that an editor thinks is worth being published, you are worth being paid for it. Period. — Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 27, 2015
@wilw This advice applies to designers, photographers, programmers, ANYONE who makes something. You. Deserve. Compensation. For. Your. Work.
— Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 27, 2015
I’m very lucky to not need exposure or “reach” or anything like that, at least not right now and not this way. I’m also very lucky to be able to walk away from things like this because I believe it’s the right thing to do. If I’d offered this to Huffington Post for nothing, because I hoped they’d publish it, that would be an entirely different thing, because it was my choice.
I don’t know what the going rate is for something like this. At six cents a word, which is SFWAs lowest professional rate for short fiction (not a perfect comparison, but at least something to reference that’s similar), it would be $210. That’s not nothing, but it’s not house payment money. Maybe I should have just taken their fabulous offer of exposure?
I don’t think so, because it’s the principle of the thing. Huffington Post is valued at well over fifty million dollars, and the company can absolutely afford to pay contributors. The fact that it doesn’t, and can get away with it, is distressing to me.
The exchange I had with this editor wasn’t unpleasant, and I know that she’s doing what her bosses tell her to do. I don’t blame her for the company policy. If I’d brought this to Huffington Post and asked the site to publish it, it would be an entirely different situation, I think, (I already posted it on my Medium account, anyway), but this is one of those “the line must be drawn here” things for me. I don’t know if I made the right call, but I do feel good about standing on principle, and having an opportunity to rant a little bit about why I did.
newest »
Totally agree. Besides reading odd fiction I also shoot photography and I am amazed how many models and photographers accept work for free. I get the 'exposure' stuff but you should be paid if you expect to do this professionally.
I run into the same problem as a musician. Venues are famous for offering "exposure" and "beer". OK the beer part isn't that much of a downfall but still.
At least they bothered to ask you...did you see the shenanigans involving Huffpoo & The Oatmeal? (NSFW?)http://imgur.com/lTy3EbF
I totally agree. You did what was right for you.
Amen, brother. Excellent point made. Try to take that exposure to the grocery store and see what you walk out with.
Right call. The more people who stand with you on this issue the better. I would not cook for strangers for free anymore then you should share your talents for free.
We're getting a Vietnamese food cooking blog off the ground (indiechine.com) and have gotten the same kinds of offers. It's really difficult to decide whether the exposure is worth giving up content you worked really hard to create. Factors that weighed into our decisions were: do we still own the content if they host it (scary!), is there a clickable link back to our blog, is our blog's name featured in the hosted post, and who gets the ad revenue if they link to our video on YouTube?It's nice to hear a much more established person having the same issues. Thanks for putting this out there!
I don't know how to get the same sense of self worth drilled into artists heads...but it needs to be done. Because artists are important and deserve to be paid.