I typically stay away from the topic of content aggregators because they’ve never been a part of my business plan, and I’ve always been amazed at writers who’d be willing to write for rates like that– less than $10 a piece (yes, that’s not a typo– a piece!) I always figured these writers were neither my community nor my competition by a long stretch, so I’ve stayed away from the controversies surrounding Demand Studios and other companies like that.

But recently, a few writing groups have been buzzing with debates about Demand Studios in particular, and it’s really surprising to me that many of the readers of this blog do contribute to this outfit.

While I do strongly discourage this– not only are you writing for horrible rates, you’re also advertising to the world (read: editors) that your work is cheap– it’s not for me to say how someone should handle their business. However, if you do so, be informed and know exactly what you’re in for and how it’s going to affect your career.

In case you missed it, here are some resources to get you started:

From WritersWeekly:

Demand Studios has two different types of payment models. They have a revenue-share program but they also have a flat fee program. Writers who participate in their revenue sharing program report very, very low pay (you can read their comments below). Even the fees for the flat fee program are pretty dismal ($5-$20 per article - but writers report the $20 payments are rare). But, the flat fee program DOES pay real money and they release payments twice a week. That’s great, right? Well, not so fast.

First, for the pitiful pay they offer, they take ALL rights: “…with Demand Media being deemed the sole author of the Contribution and the owner of all rights…”

From WordCount:

Content aggregators like Demand Studios represent the lowest rung of freelance opportunity. It doesn’t take a lot of journalism training, writing experience or time to put together the kind of evergreen how-to articles these types of sites thrive on, which is one reason why the pay’s so low. Another has to do with supply and demand. When there’s a large supply of writers, professional or otherwise, willing and able to do the work, sites like Demand Studios don’t have to offer higher rates to attract the labor they need.

Also from WordCount:

Some novice freelancers see writing for Demand Studios, Examiner.com, Helium and other content aggregators as a legitimate way into the business. They’re willing to put up with working conditions that make more experienced writers cringe: fees of $10 to $20 or less per article that necessitate cranking out dozens, even hundreds, of pieces a month to make a decent living.

From Erik Sherman’s blog:

First, the CEO of Demand Media is Richard Rosenblatt. In case the name doesn’t sound familiar, this is the now 40-year-old who sold MySpace.com and its parent company to Rupert Murdoch for $600 million. Certainly he didn’t get all of that; venture capital backers would have taken a huge slice. But this is far from someone who is living paycheck to paycheck.

Speaking of venture funding, Demand Media has received it to the tune of $355 million since its founding in 2006. No, I’m not misplacing a decimal point. The company has received huge amounts of capital from such investors as Oak Investment Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors, and Goldman Fucking Sachs and, as a result, has shown about a $1 billion market valuation. According to a BusinessWeek article in July 2009, Demand Media was pulling in more than $200 million a year.

And the final word, from Wired:

Thousands of other filmmakers and writers around the country are operating with the same loose standards, racing to produce the 4,000 videos and articles that Demand Media publishes every day. The company’s ambitions are so enormous as to be almost surreal: to predict any question anyone might ask and generate an answer that will show up at the top of Google’s search results. To get there, Demand is using an army of Muñoz- Donosos to feverishly crank out articles and videos. They shoot slapdash instructional videos with titles like “How To Draw a Greek Helmet” and “Dog Whistle Training Techniques.” They write guides about lunch meat safety and nonprofit administration. They pump out an endless stream of bulleted lists and tutorials about the most esoteric of subjects.