One of my primary professional goals since my late 20s has been to get paid for my writing. Of course, we know how that worked out. I found advertising and we’ve made discordant and sometimes beautiful music together ever since.
Another goal that I’ve been focused on more recently is my desire to pay writers. Therefore, this story on paidContent about how financial site Seeking Alpha is paying an elite corps of its contributors a total of $1.2 million by the end of this year caught my eye.
While most of the site’s 4,000 contributors write their posts for free—in exchange for the promotional value to an audience of investors and analysts—Seeking Alpha is looking to add to its current 550 “premium contributors” over the next few months.
The site’s revenue sharing program pays bloggers $10 per thousand page views, far from the kind of money professional journalists make. David Jackson, CEO of Seeking Alpha, commenting on paidContent, says that average payout to a premium contributor is just $58 per article.
“The most successful contributors are averaging significantly more than that per article, and are writing significantly more articles than the average,” Jackson notes. “That’s exactly how a program like this should work: for some people, it makes a real difference, and for others, it just provides welcome incremental income that they weren’t getting before.”
Felix Salmon begs to differ, but I like the move by Seeking Alpha. It’s a good will gesture, and at the tune of $1.2 mil, it’s a significant gesture.
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“The site’s revenue sharing program pays bloggers $10 per thousand page
views, far from the kind of money professional journalists make.”
The word professional journalist has been trampled by page views, clicks and SEO. It is becoming harder to define. Can you work for TMZ and be a professional journalist? I guess so, but it doesn’t sound right in the context of what we once thought of as “journalism.”
what is “journalism”? Well, a thoroughly researched topic which reports known facts coherently and potentially uncovers some unseen or new areas, is a broad stroke definition.
The next question would be, who is capable of doing that?
Finally, who can bring eyeballs to the site to deliver enough content that advertisers would pay to be connected to.
Obviously, when looking at Seeking Alpha’s web site, there is a myriad of advertisers on virtually every page. The home page, every authors page, every article’s page.
That to me sounds like an impressive business model, and very profitable to the company!
The authors content will determine their own personal worth as a “journalist”, the number of views per article will quickly let authors know if they have what people want to read, and the attention to detail by the authors, will finally determine if that author has the desire ( responding to comments for example).
Personally, I have written 11 articles for Seeking Alpha, 13 submitted, 11 which were approved for premium publishing by the editors, and have eraned nearly 700.00…..I began 12 days ago.
I actually do not do it for the dollars, which i am thrilled with, but I would not have contributed if they did not pay me! Its a win win, and for anyone to knock this is simply not a businessman, NOR an author of worth.
I enjoy doing this, will continue for as long as I have something to say, and will be the best I can be while I am doing it.
Seeking Alpha is a success, due in large part because people read, learn and use the entire site….kudos to them for thinking outside of the box, and opening up the world, to many more individuals!
“Regarded Solutions”
Seekingalpha.com
Most people don’t get enough traffic on their blogs to make it worthwhile.
Why not tie in to a site that has millions of viewers every month, has been doing the marketing and promoting, and has every tool imaginable!!!!
By the way, you can also have a blog site of your own, as long as you do not use the premium articles you submitted to seeking alpha……and you caqn promote your blog site right there on seeking alpha! IT WORKS!